Re: My half arsed F400 nc30
Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2016 11:57 am
So Brands Indy Rd 1 of the 2016 season
I had not ridden a bike since the last round of 2015 which was at Brands Indy in October, but this year I was approaching things differently.
We were booked onto the test day on Friday, all day! I normally do a trackday before the race season starts but simply have not had time this year to do that, and decided the testday was better use than a track day were over taking is frowned on!
Anyway to go with this we also had a brand new set of tyres to use on saturday morning, I bought the Avon 3d ultra extreme for 215 delivered and was looking forward to seeing how we got on with them over the weekend.
Friday went OK, to get to Brands in time for the test so I wasn’t mega rushed, I set off at 2am, and apart from a few 2 lane night closures on the M6 we got down OK, well I say this the m6 was shut at J36 which is where I get on so that wasn’t a great start but, we got to brands at about 6.30am..........busting for a piss.
But this meant I had time to get unloaded and sorted out ready for the testday. This was also the first time my brother was racing after his failed attempt at the last round in 2015 he was all sorted and organised'ish. He still managed to turn up at Brands after me though, AGAIN. Despite this we both were ready for the first test sessions, despite my bike failing noise testing, That'll teach me for repacking the exhaust with Accoustafil and then not warming it up and letting the exhaust get hot enough to allow for the accoustafil to expand.
Test day went well, first couple sessions I went steady to get back into the swing of things I was still on the supercorsa's that I raced on at the end of last year so pushing was not really an option, plus it’s a test day, so going flat out isnt really the plan, I wanted to play with the rear shock settings, I went out as it came set to all the original std settings when it was first built in 1990. I felt a tad soft, it actually felt very similar to me rs250 shock it had replace3d.
Now I am not sure if that was a good or a bad thing, it either meant my RS250 shock was quite good really (which is also a bad thing, as I cant look at it as being the culprit for my 1 sec deficit to the leaders) or that the Ohlins sping was way too soft for me and I'd have to get another one.
Still I had a lot of adjustment available so wound on 4 clicks of compression and went out again, it felt better but really I need to just keep clicking around and see what feels better and what feel worse.
I ballsed up a little as I forgot to play with the rear ride height, the ohlins as std is set to 307mm I was going to set the hub up at 6 oclock position, then wind the shock up 3mm ( a maxton shock raises the rear ride height by 35mm, so through the linkage ration this means it is 10mm longer than a stock shock) so set my ohlins to 310mm and see where this put the ride height. Then put the chain back on and tension it correctly, the hub would move to the 5oclock position , roughly.
Re measure the ride height and see what we had lost and regain it by adjusting the ride height on the shock. I worked out last year I think I needed a shock length ideally of 312.5mm but I'll use the maxton setting to start with and go from there.
Anyway I forgot to do all this as, the bike started running badly, it would rev out in the 3rd session. I popped the carbs between sessions to clean them up and have a look, and low and behold I found a hair stuck down the middle of one of the main jets. Problem solved I got it back together and went out in the 4th session. No different. Bugger.
I went in search of some jets in the paddock and found one size up. I was running 125 front and 127.5 rear so swapped the 127.5's into the front and put a set of 130's in the rear, but wouldn’t be able to test it before quali on sat morn. I was pretty confident it would be fine though. I had put a fresh air filter in over winter and guessed that was allowing better airflow and so required a jet size up.
Friday night I spent buggering around achieving very little but it was good to be back in the paddock chatting away. However it was not nice getting into the van to go to bed with ice not only on the outside but also the inside!!
Sat morn dawned cold, and foggy but bright so with luck it would burn the mist and fog off and we wouldn’t be delayed. I went for a shower to get warm as much as anything else then got my new Avons mounted pressures set, warmers on and waited for quali.
Quali was shocking, the bike ran well but other than that it was awful, the rookies and full f400 class were all out to quali together, so about 50 bikes of varying speeds all out on a 55second a lap circuit, it was manic, I didn’t get one clear lap where I wasn’t held up or baulked somewhere. I even came down pitlane to try and find some clear track aftyer being 6 a breast exiting graham hill.
So we qualified pretty shit, with a 58.728, over 3.500 secs slower than my PB of a 55.228 set in the last race of 2015. So plenty to do off the line in race 1.
I had not ridden a bike since the last round of 2015 which was at Brands Indy in October, but this year I was approaching things differently.
We were booked onto the test day on Friday, all day! I normally do a trackday before the race season starts but simply have not had time this year to do that, and decided the testday was better use than a track day were over taking is frowned on!
Anyway to go with this we also had a brand new set of tyres to use on saturday morning, I bought the Avon 3d ultra extreme for 215 delivered and was looking forward to seeing how we got on with them over the weekend.
Friday went OK, to get to Brands in time for the test so I wasn’t mega rushed, I set off at 2am, and apart from a few 2 lane night closures on the M6 we got down OK, well I say this the m6 was shut at J36 which is where I get on so that wasn’t a great start but, we got to brands at about 6.30am..........busting for a piss.
But this meant I had time to get unloaded and sorted out ready for the testday. This was also the first time my brother was racing after his failed attempt at the last round in 2015 he was all sorted and organised'ish. He still managed to turn up at Brands after me though, AGAIN. Despite this we both were ready for the first test sessions, despite my bike failing noise testing, That'll teach me for repacking the exhaust with Accoustafil and then not warming it up and letting the exhaust get hot enough to allow for the accoustafil to expand.
Test day went well, first couple sessions I went steady to get back into the swing of things I was still on the supercorsa's that I raced on at the end of last year so pushing was not really an option, plus it’s a test day, so going flat out isnt really the plan, I wanted to play with the rear shock settings, I went out as it came set to all the original std settings when it was first built in 1990. I felt a tad soft, it actually felt very similar to me rs250 shock it had replace3d.
Now I am not sure if that was a good or a bad thing, it either meant my RS250 shock was quite good really (which is also a bad thing, as I cant look at it as being the culprit for my 1 sec deficit to the leaders) or that the Ohlins sping was way too soft for me and I'd have to get another one.
Still I had a lot of adjustment available so wound on 4 clicks of compression and went out again, it felt better but really I need to just keep clicking around and see what feels better and what feel worse.
I ballsed up a little as I forgot to play with the rear ride height, the ohlins as std is set to 307mm I was going to set the hub up at 6 oclock position, then wind the shock up 3mm ( a maxton shock raises the rear ride height by 35mm, so through the linkage ration this means it is 10mm longer than a stock shock) so set my ohlins to 310mm and see where this put the ride height. Then put the chain back on and tension it correctly, the hub would move to the 5oclock position , roughly.
Re measure the ride height and see what we had lost and regain it by adjusting the ride height on the shock. I worked out last year I think I needed a shock length ideally of 312.5mm but I'll use the maxton setting to start with and go from there.
Anyway I forgot to do all this as, the bike started running badly, it would rev out in the 3rd session. I popped the carbs between sessions to clean them up and have a look, and low and behold I found a hair stuck down the middle of one of the main jets. Problem solved I got it back together and went out in the 4th session. No different. Bugger.
I went in search of some jets in the paddock and found one size up. I was running 125 front and 127.5 rear so swapped the 127.5's into the front and put a set of 130's in the rear, but wouldn’t be able to test it before quali on sat morn. I was pretty confident it would be fine though. I had put a fresh air filter in over winter and guessed that was allowing better airflow and so required a jet size up.
Friday night I spent buggering around achieving very little but it was good to be back in the paddock chatting away. However it was not nice getting into the van to go to bed with ice not only on the outside but also the inside!!
Sat morn dawned cold, and foggy but bright so with luck it would burn the mist and fog off and we wouldn’t be delayed. I went for a shower to get warm as much as anything else then got my new Avons mounted pressures set, warmers on and waited for quali.
Quali was shocking, the bike ran well but other than that it was awful, the rookies and full f400 class were all out to quali together, so about 50 bikes of varying speeds all out on a 55second a lap circuit, it was manic, I didn’t get one clear lap where I wasn’t held up or baulked somewhere. I even came down pitlane to try and find some clear track aftyer being 6 a breast exiting graham hill.
So we qualified pretty shit, with a 58.728, over 3.500 secs slower than my PB of a 55.228 set in the last race of 2015. So plenty to do off the line in race 1.