what bike for formula 3?

[Back Fire]

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/List...586&key=428632

[Brian d marge]

I am a bit worried about this spending of Moonbeams. I Havent raced on the road in NZ. but have a fair bit to do with bikes.

Can you modify a bike, does it have to be stock ??? for F3 For example lets take a VFR 400 , I would bin theat monstosity of a single sided swingarm , and also fit some better forks than are fitted . ( NO NOT ohdearlins ) just a decent set of cartridge forks that are more tunable than a plank with a hole drilled in it.

a set of decent road tyres. ( How long are F3 races ??) A cheap repairable exhaust of the same dimensions as stock .
jetting and stuff to release the full potential of the bike

Might have a bash and see how good a race bike I can come up with for the least bucks .... 60 hp approx ???
give me something to do at work tomorrow


Stephen

Will add to this after beer /////

[FROSTY:Me]

Brian--I guess It depends at what level you are racing.
KK was pretty darn fast on his stock nc30 -with some performance enhancements.
Definitely a well set up stock bike is going to put you solidly into the say 1.13-1..15 mark at pukie and somewhere around the 43-45 mark at Taupo.
Now that will put you into the front end of the midfeild. I think thats the best place for a novice racer to be -just spend some time mixing it in with the crowd -getting a feel for basic racecraft.
IF you want to be racing at national level I'd suggest that unless you are able to do sub 1.10 laps you wont be able to compete.
Its not cruelty its just that those guys are up another level.
Ts is doing 1.07s and fitzgerald is doing 1.04s -
The average pace at club level is around the 1.12 mark

[Brian d marge]

Brian--I guess It depends at what level you are racing.

Definitely a well set up stock bike is going to put you solidly into the say 1.13-1..15 mark at pukie and somewhere around the 43-45 mark at Taupo.
Now that will put you into the front end of the midfeild. I think thats the best place for a novice racer to be -just spend some time mixing it in with the crowd -getting a feel for basic racecraft.
IF

Yup I would agree. See my CR. its an oldie but inside a goodie. Its on a wieght reduction program now ( was given a CR125 so will use that as a test bike)
BUT the point is my skills are Nowhere NEAR national level. So a 05 cr is an over capitilisation !

And just spending some time in midfield getting USED to being shafted in the corners ( and thinkin Damnn how he do dat !!!)

I mensioned earlier that I wondered how cheaply I could put together a good race bike. Well to cut a long story short it was 180000 yen or 2400 nz including a new set of michelin pilots. I used the Tj3 mentioned earlier , there is one here for 25 k yen with 4 days to go so it will be double that at least, I used kawa fully adjustable usd forks of a zxr or something and a scruffy ohlins ( I know what I said but it was cheap and looked like it fitted !)

That was a VERY QUICK check , but lets say all up its 5 k NZ , that would give you a good solid race bike that would put you mid field for 2 seasons ( I think I could do it cheaper still !!)

To get to that next level. My personal opinion is that the stock components can be made to perform. BUT SETUP is crucial. Can be done with stock components , I think it was Mat maladins AMA superbike Showa forks that were supposed to be 60 000 usd unobtainium, turned out to be nothing more than well put together stock forks , and Maladin won the AMA championship with them ( 91 I think)

I am a firm believer that racing doesnt need to be expensive Click on my signiture to see what I mean. I WAS going to try to lower the bike by using the later chassis. but decided ( at the mo I can get more milage out of the steel frame )

Stephen

[FROSTY:Me]

Dude --over here you can buy a reasso club level bike for 2-3.5k
under 10 gets ya on a used F2 racebike prepped up.

[Brian d marge]

I did go on a bit of a shopping spree. I though what i wanted on the bike , did a quick shopping spree on Yahoo, and thats what I came up with. I used the yamaha, cause I have issues with the single sided swingarm and replaced the rear and front with something that can be used a bit more than the stock parts. So should give you quite a platform to work with.
But at entry level 2-3 k is a great start point.
If I didnt like scaring myself silly with the MX, I might concider going round in circles


Stephen

[cowpoos]

I think it was Mat maladins AMA superbike Showa forks that were supposed to be 60 000 usd unobtainium, turned out to be nothing more than well put together stock forks , and Maladin won the AMA championship with them ( 91 I think)

in 1991? u mean 2001?

and I'm pretty sue thewy were showa works forks like the yamaha boys had that year[do not quote me on that!!]

hows the new springs bro?

[Brian d marge]

The springs were a good mod, one of those If I had 20/20 hind sight it would have been the first thing I should have done.

I can hit the first whoop without that bone jarring thump, The bike seems to track better, A bit to early to tell

Maladins bike mayt have been in 2001 , I honestly cant remember, but they were bought using the buy back rule ama had , where at the end of the year you could buy the race winning bike for sod all.

But yeah , I would like to see a 400 class where the bits ON the bike can be used to teach the rider /mechanic about race set up. Possibly why Rossi is so succesful is that he can give feed back to the tech in a simple way , enabling his team to set up the bike quickly and accurately

Thats why on my dream racer I went on a bit of a shopping spree.

Stephen

[cowpoos]

I can hit the first whoop without that bone jarring thump, The bike seems to track better, A bit to early to tell

thats coz your old springs were compressing faster than your valving would allow [or using 100% travel]
you should have heaps more grip in turns now too!!! and stability!

[bumsex]

Thank for all your help guys.
What fuel is used in these bikes? Do the rules stipulate pump gas or is it okay to use av gas?

[Brian d marge]

thats coz your old springs were compressing faster than your valving would allow [or using 100% travel]
you should have heaps more grip in turns now too!!! and stability!

You are wasted as a milk extraction technician. The End of March I should be starting to test full on so will have lots of data

a bit stuck on theis data logger. the Jaycar unit is Ideal ( as in cheap) , but it doesnt store info.

My friend here has a shock dyno, so we will run te thing towards the end of the month and see what happens

I think in the first case I will just run the dyno and get a data sheet but later I would like to combine the data logger info , My Tony Foale software and a shim analysis program ( was online and free but its disappeared and the guy say it will be back on line soon ,,but,,,,)
to really dial in the shim stacks.

Oh well all in time.

Stephen ( thread hijacker extrodinaire!)

[rustys]

As Frosty says you can buy a good 400 for around 2-3 grand and ride about mid field in F3, it depends where you want to be and how much money you've got to spend.Generaly you will find a bunch of guys out there at your level,and not a lot of cash to throw at it,and you can have a shit load of fun, certainly improves you riding skills,and you learn alot about your motorcycle.
Iam no mechanic,but to keep costs down on repair work i am now doing most of the work myself, you will bin your bike from time to time thats to be expected in racing, i have done my own sub frame straightening, learnt to fiberglass and preperation for painting,and setting up of the bike in general doing all the Maintanance, its not a costly exersize and i am getting quite a buzz out of it.
I did start to go down the track of Dyno, and jetting all profesional like, but 6-700 dollars later did'nt seem to do much for performance, so simply put its back to factory standard, i could see lots money being thrown at it for what.
Better to improve rider skills before doing that exersize.

Any way back to the Question for Bumsex re fuel, yes standard fuel to av gas is fine, i use a mix of 50% 91 and 50% av Gas in my ZXR 400 find this is fine.

Having fun and "

GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY

"

[kickingzebra]

O, Ta, might just have saved me 10 grand... Na, assing up a perfectly good ducati seems like a major overcapitalisation, and having to do it at trackdays, because it isn't road legal, that would be criminal!

Surely there must still be a lot of 400s coming out of Japan, as a japanese mate explained to me a few years ago, their license system means there are two grades of full road license, the cheap one, at $1800 dollars or something, which means you can ride up to a 400, and the expensive one, $2700 or something like that, which allows the use of more CCs. In theory, that should mean there should still be a huge market in Japan for 400s, so maybe someone needs to track them down and import a couple of container loads? (once again, I am reluctantly open to the quite strong possibility that I am wrong)

Does it take much to make the GSXR 400 competitive? I have a suzuki bias...

[rustys]

I am suzuki bias my self, but has'nt stoped me riding anthing on two wheels.Over the years most 400 front runners have been ZXR s and FZR s. But GSXR s are out there. Getting the weight of them is a good start, ie factory muffler out, they weigh heaps, compared to and an aftermarket, and anything else you dont need, you will find it adds up to quite a few kilo's.Most top performers run total loss ignition, no heavy starter motor,just battery.
In Australia 400 racing is alive and well check out
www.rbimports.com.au
yep in japan there are still heaps of 400s avaliable

Having fun and "

GROWING OLD DISGRACEFULLY

"

[FROSTY:Me]

mella yella is available nowish