Shane - Superlite (#43)

Sunday started off far too early. The wife went to church and I had to drive her. After that I couldn't sleep again so I got into some breakfast and sat down with to watch the Bruce Willis flick called Surrogates. Movie was ok, Rosamund Pike was better than ok. She really is a honey. A little quirky looking but that's part of her charm. Anyway, I was too busy setting up the cheap laptop I picked up to be too interested in the movie. It's a $100, you-didn't-get-it-from-me jobbie I didn't-get off a mate that works in a computer store.

While I was half watching Surrogates I finished the Win2k install on the laptop (hey, it works and the machine flies with it and it's actually legal for a change). As is typical with any Win2k install hunting down drivers is a pig. Eventually I found them all, however, transferring them to the lappy (it didn't have a driver for the NIC yet) with a USB pen drive wasn't possible (didn't have a driver for that either) so I pulled out a 50c blank CD and used up all of 150MB on the CD. With drivers etc installed I threw SP4 at it. I then started installing Acrobat Reader (for the manual which I'll no doubt need at the track) and had to back track and find some installs for IE6 (piece of shit). Eventually I had everything installed and all I had to do was wait for the Tuneboy software to show up so I could unlock the ECU on the bike and start remapping it.

Once that lot and the movie had finished I headed around to Brent's place. Found him messing around with a Christmas tree. The stand for it was kinda cute. Apparently the old fella down the road makes them. So the beers went in the fridge and it was out to the shed where Brent hooked a battery up to the starter motor and we listened to the old girl making horsey noises (have a listen to the attached sound file). I was standing there thinking "that's so cool" haha. It didn't have any exhaust, intake or spark plugs but it was just good to know that the engine turned over so easily and didn't sound like a hand grenade.

So the major mission for the morning was to get the motor back in the frame. We did plenty of head scratching and threw ideas around and eventually just picked the block up and got it onto the floor beside the bike. After more head scratching, lots of swearing and some slightly dodgy manoeuvres we eventually got it between the rails and hanging off the top engine mounts. It was a bitch of a thing to do because the sump isn't flat. It's very deep where the sump plug is and wierd shaped everywhere else. Once it was up on the front engine mounts we were able to jack the rear up into place and secure both rear engine mounts. After much consulting of the manual Brent found the correct settings for the engine centring adjusters and mounts and we eventually had the engine mounted solidly in the frame. One problem we found is that the right side top engine mounting bolt wasn't the right one. I'm guessing the original was either lost or broke off in a crash because it's got crash knobs on it.

Not too sure what Brent did about that because I pissed off to the supermarket and got us some lunch while he finished that off. After some ham, coleslaw and curried egg sandwiches and a couple of beers we were full tilt getting everything back together. Brent kept making lots of headway and I kept hitting brick walls. I was definitely feeling like I was only there to hold the beers. Main problem was that the engine had been out of the frame and so wasn't running when we picked it up. Seeing as the previous owner just lobbed it back into the frame so we could transport it most of the electrics were unhooked. It's amazing how many fittings use the same plug. After much head scratching I took a look at the manual. However, because it was a pdf off the internet it was incomplete. The last diagram, which is the entire bikes wiring diagram, wasn't there. I was knackered and couldn't go any further with that until I found a full wiring diagram.

At that point it was time to see how things looked with all of the throttle bodies, airbox etc assembled to see where I could route the breather that I'd gotten hold of. On Saturday I went shopping and found something called Duct Hose at Repco. It's a metallic, expandable hose around a spiral wire. It's fire proof, petrochemical safe and tough. Perfect for a breather. Once I had the 3 throttle bodies mounted and the airbox on it was pretty obvious that we had plenty of room for the duct hose to exit the intake manifold rubber, turn sideways, go under the fuel rail, backwards and exit in front of the clutch where I could mount a pod filter to make sure nothing gets ingested. That way the piston gets to push and suck through both the intake and exhaust. People might think that's a bit of overkill but Brent works for a company that deals with air compressors every day and they've got lots of charts etc that show how much horsepower is lost if the airflow is restricted. It's very enlightening stuff and pretty much the main reason we decided we'll need it to breath through both the intake and exhaust.

At that point we were pretty much stuck until I can locate a full wiring diagram. So I shot off to grab the wife and we headed back for a bbq. Home kill sausages, fried onion, fried Aubergine, salad and spuds for dinner, washed down with Summit.

A good day, even though we didn't quite make it to the point I was hoping to; the first turn over in-frame. Oh well.

So the trackday on Thursday I'll just have to use the CBR that I've borrowed before. Shame, it would've been great to have Trini out there turning heads with that horsey sound.

http://hotfile.com/dl/20593320/91a4c08/Trini.mp3.html