warmseth
Tue 5/23/06, 4:20PM
i'll preface this by appologizing for making this thread mostly about my "new" race bike: late seventies yamaha rd400. but as it was my first time riding it and my first time on a bike that old in general, i wanted to devote as much attention to it as i could. i was hoping to include some photos of the beast but didn't get around to taking any over the weekend. there was a track photographer and i expect he had to have gotten a couple shots there. so hopefully i'll update this later with some action pics.
i drove out early saturday morning and teched the beast. dustin coyner laughed and said, "there aint much to these old things, is there". no, sir, she's a simple beast.
first practice session, i was told by the motor porter to keep the rpm relatively low for break-in period and as i had never been on such an old bike i was more than willing to ablige that suggestion in order to figure out what the handling chacteristics were.
the bike starts first kick with ease. in fact i'm certain i could "kick" start it with my hand if i was so inclined. and it purrs at idle. great great sounding bike. but even at relatively low rpm i could tell the main jet (380) was somewhere in the realm of garden hose in terms of richness. we ran it extremely rich for safety with plenty of room to back it down. i had filled the tank to the top of the frame hump in the middle of the tank. i ran out of gas after 8 laps...stranded on the outside edge of T7. so 20ish miles and what is that 2 gallons-ish. so about 10mpg at conservative 5k revs is not so efficient. got towed in by the truck, filled her back up and tried again. tried opening her up a bit more but the mf'er would NOT rev past 6200. (meant to reve to around 10k-ish) it was like the off switch was flipped. i had marginal power between 5500 and about 5900-6000 rpm and then it would die die die!!! until i down upshifted to get the rpm back down. came in after just a couple laps to swap for a leaner set of jets
i went with a set of 330s and went out again. whoa! that woke her up some. wheelied first and second gears. still a little sputtery at anything under 5500 but at least now it started pulling into the 6500-6700 range. and it was going fast enough to scare me in spots so that was cool. now i started to notice another oddity. around the long sweeping right handers of T2, T8 and T9, my left cylinder would go dead cold according to the Exhaust Temp Guage guage. figured it was flooding and removed the left float and bent the float plate down about 1/4". that helped but didn't totally eliminate the problem. but at this point i had the engine pulling fast enough to keep it interesting.
as for the chassis, all of my concerns over wallowing or wet noodle handling were unfounded as the thing was like riding on an hard tail...SO STIFF!!! too stiff i'd say. supposedly, the works performance twin rear shocks were set up for my 180lbs but i don't know, they felt way too much. and the front was chatter chatter chattering through T3 and T2 and T5 and..well just about every turn actually. but the good news is that the frame itself seemed nice and solid to me...real stiff and when i started sliding the rear (and the front on one occaision through T4b) it was complete nuetral and predictable and not alarming in the slightest. shandra accurately described it (as she describes the relationship between her fzr and sv) as the difference between riding a skateboard and driving a car...shandra you'll have to try the rd out some time to see just how accurate that statement was.
"how bout the brakes"?, you ask. "non-existant", i reply. i am sorely dissapointed in the $ i spent on these f-ing brakes. something like $450 on the damn master cylinder (magura radial ...13mm, i think) and race pads, and braided line. i really had to pump them just to get any thing out of them for T3 and that sucks 'cause i LOVE going in to T3 deep. that turn is like surfing. it's such a steep banked wall you can just RAIL on it. and ultimately i had to sit up and stop accelerating before way before the brake markers there at the entry of T3...i lost a lot of time there. T5 too cause i couldn't charge in there as hard as i wanted. sometimes we joke about brakes at willow and say, "what do you need brakes for at willow?" and to an extent that's true. but then when you really don't have any, it's sux.
all in all though, i reached the end of my day fairly satisfied and confident in the bike. mybest time on saturdays practice was a 1:54 (51's on sunday practice)
sunday morning i did one race on my sv650. i finished a fairly lousy 14th. but i did a 1:39 which got me a little closer to my best lap time (1:36 in feb before wrecking in T8 in march and hosing my mind with doubt and fear). it was nice to finally get back out of the 40's. also, the sv is the most comfortable compliant, downright good-natured motorcycle ever made compared to the cramped vibrating sketchy handling noise maker that the RD is.
now, the moment of truth for the lil' ole RD400; vintage lightweights. we were set up as a dual wave start with the first flag going to battle of the twins middleweight...about 15 guys in that race. there were 6 of us vintage guys gridded and a few seconds after the battle of the twins guys took off from the grid, we were green flagged and away we go. i got a shit start and actually got passed off the grid by everybody, including an ascot. but i caught back up by T1 and passed two guys on the outside of T1. then raced down to try and get the next guy and caught him at the entry of T2 and passed him too. coming out of T2 i was a bike and a half ahead of him but, again, into T3, my lack of brakes betrayed me and he passed me back. I spent the rest of the race trying to catch him and there many laps i was creeping up on him. but ultimately, as i got tired, his lead grew and by lap 6 there was no way i was going to catch him. by about lap 5 i was hammered. this little bike just beats the snot out of me. it's a lot of fun but it is a lot harder to ride than the sv.
highlights included a big big rear slide coming out of T1 that was thrilling. sort of hooligan fun type thing. and massive headshake/small tank slappers coming off the crest of T6 and down the front straight just about every time i passed those sections...yeah, guess i need that damper on the stiffest setting, ya think? i'd just roll on the throttle harder and then upshift and the ass would settle down a bit and the front end would follow.
ultimately i placed 3rd and did a 1:44. (my first racing trophy) not too bad considering my carb jetting was all sputtery, i had no brakes, and my suspesion is WAY too stiff. i hope to be doing high 30's on my rd my next round if i can get those issues sorted and i expect a 1st or 2nd place with that.
also, kelly baker will be finished prepping my new first gen sv race bike (with light twin works modding) by then and i will hopefully place a bit better on that too.
btw- my ugly but awefully reliable first gen sv with stock motor and penske/traxxion suspension...lots of mods race bike is for sale now...spread the word
see you guys next month
i drove out early saturday morning and teched the beast. dustin coyner laughed and said, "there aint much to these old things, is there". no, sir, she's a simple beast.
first practice session, i was told by the motor porter to keep the rpm relatively low for break-in period and as i had never been on such an old bike i was more than willing to ablige that suggestion in order to figure out what the handling chacteristics were.
the bike starts first kick with ease. in fact i'm certain i could "kick" start it with my hand if i was so inclined. and it purrs at idle. great great sounding bike. but even at relatively low rpm i could tell the main jet (380) was somewhere in the realm of garden hose in terms of richness. we ran it extremely rich for safety with plenty of room to back it down. i had filled the tank to the top of the frame hump in the middle of the tank. i ran out of gas after 8 laps...stranded on the outside edge of T7. so 20ish miles and what is that 2 gallons-ish. so about 10mpg at conservative 5k revs is not so efficient. got towed in by the truck, filled her back up and tried again. tried opening her up a bit more but the mf'er would NOT rev past 6200. (meant to reve to around 10k-ish) it was like the off switch was flipped. i had marginal power between 5500 and about 5900-6000 rpm and then it would die die die!!! until i down upshifted to get the rpm back down. came in after just a couple laps to swap for a leaner set of jets
i went with a set of 330s and went out again. whoa! that woke her up some. wheelied first and second gears. still a little sputtery at anything under 5500 but at least now it started pulling into the 6500-6700 range. and it was going fast enough to scare me in spots so that was cool. now i started to notice another oddity. around the long sweeping right handers of T2, T8 and T9, my left cylinder would go dead cold according to the Exhaust Temp Guage guage. figured it was flooding and removed the left float and bent the float plate down about 1/4". that helped but didn't totally eliminate the problem. but at this point i had the engine pulling fast enough to keep it interesting.
as for the chassis, all of my concerns over wallowing or wet noodle handling were unfounded as the thing was like riding on an hard tail...SO STIFF!!! too stiff i'd say. supposedly, the works performance twin rear shocks were set up for my 180lbs but i don't know, they felt way too much. and the front was chatter chatter chattering through T3 and T2 and T5 and..well just about every turn actually. but the good news is that the frame itself seemed nice and solid to me...real stiff and when i started sliding the rear (and the front on one occaision through T4b) it was complete nuetral and predictable and not alarming in the slightest. shandra accurately described it (as she describes the relationship between her fzr and sv) as the difference between riding a skateboard and driving a car...shandra you'll have to try the rd out some time to see just how accurate that statement was.
"how bout the brakes"?, you ask. "non-existant", i reply. i am sorely dissapointed in the $ i spent on these f-ing brakes. something like $450 on the damn master cylinder (magura radial ...13mm, i think) and race pads, and braided line. i really had to pump them just to get any thing out of them for T3 and that sucks 'cause i LOVE going in to T3 deep. that turn is like surfing. it's such a steep banked wall you can just RAIL on it. and ultimately i had to sit up and stop accelerating before way before the brake markers there at the entry of T3...i lost a lot of time there. T5 too cause i couldn't charge in there as hard as i wanted. sometimes we joke about brakes at willow and say, "what do you need brakes for at willow?" and to an extent that's true. but then when you really don't have any, it's sux.
all in all though, i reached the end of my day fairly satisfied and confident in the bike. mybest time on saturdays practice was a 1:54 (51's on sunday practice)
sunday morning i did one race on my sv650. i finished a fairly lousy 14th. but i did a 1:39 which got me a little closer to my best lap time (1:36 in feb before wrecking in T8 in march and hosing my mind with doubt and fear). it was nice to finally get back out of the 40's. also, the sv is the most comfortable compliant, downright good-natured motorcycle ever made compared to the cramped vibrating sketchy handling noise maker that the RD is.
now, the moment of truth for the lil' ole RD400; vintage lightweights. we were set up as a dual wave start with the first flag going to battle of the twins middleweight...about 15 guys in that race. there were 6 of us vintage guys gridded and a few seconds after the battle of the twins guys took off from the grid, we were green flagged and away we go. i got a shit start and actually got passed off the grid by everybody, including an ascot. but i caught back up by T1 and passed two guys on the outside of T1. then raced down to try and get the next guy and caught him at the entry of T2 and passed him too. coming out of T2 i was a bike and a half ahead of him but, again, into T3, my lack of brakes betrayed me and he passed me back. I spent the rest of the race trying to catch him and there many laps i was creeping up on him. but ultimately, as i got tired, his lead grew and by lap 6 there was no way i was going to catch him. by about lap 5 i was hammered. this little bike just beats the snot out of me. it's a lot of fun but it is a lot harder to ride than the sv.
highlights included a big big rear slide coming out of T1 that was thrilling. sort of hooligan fun type thing. and massive headshake/small tank slappers coming off the crest of T6 and down the front straight just about every time i passed those sections...yeah, guess i need that damper on the stiffest setting, ya think? i'd just roll on the throttle harder and then upshift and the ass would settle down a bit and the front end would follow.
ultimately i placed 3rd and did a 1:44. (my first racing trophy) not too bad considering my carb jetting was all sputtery, i had no brakes, and my suspesion is WAY too stiff. i hope to be doing high 30's on my rd my next round if i can get those issues sorted and i expect a 1st or 2nd place with that.
also, kelly baker will be finished prepping my new first gen sv race bike (with light twin works modding) by then and i will hopefully place a bit better on that too.
btw- my ugly but awefully reliable first gen sv with stock motor and penske/traxxion suspension...lots of mods race bike is for sale now...spread the word
see you guys next month