Havent posted for ages as ive been so busy at work/home etc so its nice to have a browse round and see whats been happening.hybrid 1 died at rockingham on saturday after lunching the gearbox on the 6th session after it started to pop in and out of 2nd and 3rd gear with much grinding and crunching,though to be fair ive managed to thrash it at snetterton/silverstone and rockingham in the last 10 days so it had taken alot of abuse and the motor was bought untested so not my fault for a change.so the thundercat motor sat in the shed is going in it.the t/cat motor was supposed to go in hybrid2 but as i havnt made much progress with it its a case of needs must.i must admit i was dreading wiring the t/cat ecu into the 400 loom but on first inspection the way the 400/fzr600 wires from tims instuctions look like it could be a straight plug into the loom for the t/cat ecu,as looking at the fzr and t/cat wiring it looks exactly the same with the right coloured wires the same in the 2 ecu plugs so it may be a straight swap-(fingers crossed).the only slight head ache may be the t/cats throttle position sensor but i may be able to wire that in another way or just use the foxeye carbs as they look exactly the same bar a couple of take offs for coolant which i dont need-i will keep you posted.i had a feeling that all may not be well with the 600 motor as it was vibrating thru the pegs quite hard which i put down to my rearsets being solidly mounted with no rubber on them to damp the vibes but obviously all was not well.the hybrid held its own in the fast group not getting passed by too many modern bikes and it was nice to have a bit of extra punch out of the turns and more speed!

Oh dear .... well you sound fairly ok about it.

I have a couple of gearbox's for Thundercat/FZR6 Foxeye, they are just sat around as the don't fit in 400 cases that I have to use for racing. If it has lunched the cases too I also have a good set. To be honest they are a very simple engine to strip/build, so if you want the bits give me a shout.
Steve

cheers for that steve,ill bear that in mind,im going to have a look inside the motor and assess the damage as the motors ok otherwise and it would make a handy spare.ive stripped the bike now and just need to undo all the engine mounts and drop the motor.the connectors on the t/cat motor look like they will be a straight plugin too which will mean no cutting of wires and no soldering which will save a couple of hours.hopefully have the motor in and running by the end of the week work/children/wife allowing.

I used to race a Thundercat, and we had the gearbox apart to try and resolve shyte second/third gear just after we got it.

It tried to kill me at the end of the straight at Snetterton when it popped out of gear just as I tipped into the esses - grass at 110 isn't fun.

It's an acknowledged problem on them, on our one it was an imperceptibly bent selector fork. Even after repair I had to make downshifts to second gear late when the revs had dropped, you just couldn't rely on it to select and stay in on aggressive downshifts.

Apart from that and the fact it wouldn't turn on the brakes it was a brilliant rocketship, but then the 2 previous owners were Wilco Zeelenberg and Shane Byrne.

Hope this installation goes better for you...

toosmooth

Well it lives again,the thundercat motor is now installed and i wish i had gone for the t/cat motor first time round cos it goes like stink 2nd gear wheelies off the throttle and every crest in the road-im in love all over again-the gearbox is much slicker and the motor spins much more eagerly than the fzr 600 which must be down to the t/cats different bore and stroke-i think there may be a bit more to come as ive used the airbox from hybrid1 but it seems to work with the t/cat motor quite well,no flat spots or glitches in the fuelling so very happy for now so i may just leave it alone!

sounds cool - did you use the foxeye carbs then ?

No i used the t/cat carbs that came with the t/cat i bought.the carbs had been dynojetted and set up on a rolling road by the previous owner and he gave me the dyno sheet with 101.1 bhp.i was a little dubious of over 100 horsepower but unless i dyno it myself ill never know.i think i was lucky with the fuelling as the t/cat has a pressurised airbox and the 3tj doesnt and my hybrid airbox seems to work well with it without any fiddling needed-put i this way wouldnt want it to be any quicker!!had a good blast this morning and its the bike i should have built first time round-i guess i was unlucky with the fzr600 motor as after riding it this morning i reralised that it must have been knackered(though i did have lots of fun with it).
so now ive got a freshly powder coated frame swingarm and lots of other shiny bits that need yet another t/cat motor so i may sell off a load of stuff as im gonna buy something modern as backup for the road/track though not sure what yet.

cagiva996 wrote:No i used the t/cat carbs that came with the t/cat i bought.the carbs had been dynojetted and set up on a rolling road by the previous owner and he gave me the dyno sheet with 101.1 bhp.i was a little dubious of over 100 horsepower but unless i dyno it myself ill never know

You're bang on - different dyno's, different days, even overenthusiastic idiot sellers (and swear to god this did happen to me once) who heat the temperature sensor up to alter the correction factor and alter the reading by up to 10%!!!

I don't know where he'd poked the sensor for the first run, maybe in a cup of tea, or up his own arse, but the dyno reading for the ex Portuguese Supersport winning bike dropped by 7 bhp to 93 when it was rerun at room temperature back in 94!

BUT, in terms of what Thundercats are good for, I had a fast one in 99, it still held the lap record at Snetterton at the point I dyno'd it (Shane Byrne riding not me!) and it made 104.8 on Bob Farnhams fairly pessimistic dyno. Tuned by a Dutch genius called Jan Roelofs, it was about 6bhp down on the best club 600 of the day at peak, but it had a midrange that meant it stonked away from everything when on track - the top end power figure was very very misleading.

When looking at dyno curves, and especially if you get the chance to overlay them against other bikes you're racing against or want to compete with, take a good look at the area under the curve, not just the little tiny bit at the top...

Anyway, in a nutshell there's plenty of poke in a thundercat and plenty in the midrange especially.

Also well done on getting your carbs working, because without ram-air mine ran like a dog (we had the ram air scoop fall out of it's locating bracket on track and the bike ran like it was missing pulling out of midrange roll ons) I'm really surprised it's ok.

I think reading about these recently I must have a 3TJ/Cat Hybrid on my list of things to do next

...any cheap 3TJ's with blown motors going out there?!!

toosmooth