Shield and reservoir look magic. What about your own weight? There's generally tremendous opportunities for reducing body fat percentage, but many pay little attention to it. I'm sure you're professional enough to know that 100g saving on a heat shield is worthless if you're carrying around an extra 5Kg on each butt cheek. I have to laugh at some guys who boast of their carbon fenders and then see that they have a gut the size of Santas!!
I'm a tall guy, 6'4", which puts me at an immediate disadvantage compared to others and I'm below average BMI for my height so I'd rather not lose any more weight. Unfortunately, I can't chop a few inches off. With that being said I need to work on my cardio and strength more, so I may ultimately put on a little bit of weight in the form of muscle, but I'm hoping I'm going to see big gains in endurance and fitness, which should translate into more consistent and faster lap times. You certainly bring up a valid point that it's way cheaper and healthier to lose a few kgs on your ass than on the bike. This year I'm going to be doing a couple of Endurance races so I need to pay more attention to fitness than I have been up till now.
More progress today (you might be able to tell that I'm still on Christmas holiday ). I cut up the rear subframe undertray and removed all the rear portion which I don't really need anymore. Managed to save around 340g. I think that's gonna be it for now in terms of weight reduction. Now I'm gonna be putting the whole bike back together and finish it up.
What can is on that. It looks massive! I know you have decibel limits, but is there a weight saving to be made there?
It's a titanium Leo vince. It came when I bought the bike. Im sure there are smaller and lighter options but that would mean that I'd have to spend money.
Some more updates! The bike is basically ready for the 2019 season now but I had to do one last upgrade. I've always thought my 2005 MY could do with some more braking power (as the 2006-on comes with 320mm instead of 320mm rotors) and I figured why stop there?! So I went with 330mm rotors from the 954RR. They are massive! But hopefully they will provide the needed increase in braking power I was after. They are from BRAKING (an Italian brand) as Brembo does not make them the 954. Overall I'm quite impressed so far as they are obviously large and also thicker than the stock 310mm but they weigh the same! (as a used OE one!) Both were around 1470g each. I made some 10mm spacers with centering features and I used Suzuki's Hayabusa caliper bolts (with are M10x1.25x70), so 13mm longer than the OE ones and work perfectly! I was surprised how difficult it was to find M10x1.25 in a decent grade, but these Suzuki bolts are perfect and "only" 4 EUR each (see Honda's!)
I'm surprised you haven't changed calipers when many make that a priority for the track. I have no issues with the Tokicos of course (being pleased with them on a couple of my bikes) I just mention this out of interest. Great buy on the bolts though. I am forever amazed at Honda's prices, inflated by their insistence to package even the tiniest screws in separate bags.
So far I haven't had an issue with the Calipers and the only way to increase power would be to go with a larger piston caliper (and most are 30 / 32 mm anyway like the Tokico). This would also change the brake lever feel and wouldn't increase fade resistance (necessarily!) compared to bigger / thicker rotors. But as my old rotors were getting pretty worn I decided to upgrade while replacing. Don't get me wrong though, I would love a set of shiny Brembos! Maybe one day I'll need to ask a colleague at Brembo for a set.
Are you still running the original brake master cylinder and lines? I know a lot of people start there when it comes to upgrading braking power and feel.
I use TRW's CRQ carbon ceramic pads. They dont have the best longevity and obviously suck cold but they have great bite and they provide a stiffer lever feel over normal sintered pads, which I like.
2019 has been here for a while, and I figured i would give you guys an update on the bike and action. It's still going strong! The new bigger diameter rotors did trick and the front braking power is much improved, but changing wheels requires additional finess. I did my first race! A 2hr endurance race with a friend at Dijon. We performed mediocrely XD, but it was a blast. We finished 17th out of 40 starters. I still had a few misfire issues, but they seemed to sort them selves out for the race. Here is the video of my fastest lap and rough highlights of the race:
Epic pics and video! Some questions - looks like there was a quite a range of bikes competing? From 600s through to modern 1000s? 17th/40 is pretty damn good considering a bunch of those at the front might have been on much newer machines with more power and traction aids. Also how were you feeling by the end of your stints? I'm pretty much shot by the end of a 20 minute session on a track day and that's not even pushing that hard!
Yeah a big range! From modern SBKs to even a couple of 300s. The 300s were from the Swiss National championship so they werent as slow as you'd think, but on the main straight they had to stay to the left. There were also quite a few crashes which helped us gain positions, but obviously you dont want people to crash, ever. 30 minute stints killed me, especially because it was above 30C too. Im also dead after a 20 minute stint, but I tried to race in a more relaxed manner with a more upright / old school posture to reduce fatigue.
Spent the weekend at Mugello, which has officially become my favorite track ever. Just incredible corners, elevation, and facility; also the surrounding Tuscan scenery is exquisite. Fastest times of the weekend were a 2:10.3, which is only 25 seconds behind the MotoGP lap record But fastest non-professional times were around 2:05 and a French SBK rider was doing 1:59s. The only consolation I have is that I was a few seconds faster than the 44teeth lot Here is some onboard POV footage from the weekend. I got a new GoPro Hero 7 which has this cool ultra-stabilizer, so the video looks smoother than my previous ones:
Another day at a small track in France called Bresse. Just a single day; short and sweet. I was here 2 years ago and was able to improve my personal best by almost 4 seconds. It's a great little technical track, great for practicing! I switched over from the TRW CRQ ceramic pads to Honda's OE options (as that's all I could get my hands on) and I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. Insane bite and didn't seem to fade, although this is a small track. I will see how long they last but with the 330mm rotors, the stopping power was impressive.
