MAINTENANCE

I’m so eager to be back on track after the end of the 2018 season that I’m filling in the void by frantically working on the bike. This winter break’s upgrades are going to be slightly more ambitious than last year’s, and I’ll be doing some necessary maintenance which I’ve been putting off for a while.

For maintenance this winter, apart from the usual fluid changes, I’ve decided to check the valve clearances. Given the fact that I bought the bike with little to no service history and it’s now past 45,000 km I thought it’d be best to check; I wasn’t entirely surprised when both intake and exhaust valve clearances were perfectly in spec, as I’ve noticed quite often when reading up about it online.

I gave the bike a thorough clean in all areas and gave the radiator a good once over. It’s quite therapeutic straightening all the fins on the radiator and giving it a proper clean. There were numerous areas packed with rubber and dirt, so I was happy to clear these out.

Weight Reduction

At the rear I decided to look into some further weight reduction, starting with the plastic tray in the rear sub-frame. A lot of the features on this part are designed to retain the OE bodywork panels, passenger seat components and latch. This meant I could cut the majority of the panel away and retain only what is related to the battery and wiring retention, which allowed me to remove 280g from the bike.

The original exhaust heat shield is a large stainless steel part, which for track use isn’t as necessary as on the street. I wanted to retain some form of shielding to reduce any accidental damage to my leather suit so I made a carbon-kevlar composite part, based off of the original design.

A whopping 150g of weight reduction!

Archie gifted me an HRC rear reservoir tube so I could swap out the original reservoir and tubing, and lose some additional mass.

ENDURANCE

Staying at the rear, the foam seat I had used did not endure the season very well and it got to the point where I had to tape on some additional padding to keep my backside in one piece. I stripped the old padding off and replaced it with a 20mm foam seat from Race Seat Foam UK. Its firm but comfortable and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

I machined some captive spacers for the front wheel out of Aluminium, which stay on the wheel during a swap or service and make the whole process much easier.
I tested them out on my last track day at Franciacorta and I had zero issues with them; now I just need to make a second set for my rain wheel-set.

That covers all the work I’d planned for this winter and now all that is left is to put the bodywork back on then I will organize a quick photoshoot before the 2019 season is underway.