Honda TT specials

... only to be released in the UK, of course. But we will have our own "specials" too ! Let's see eeeerrr ... How about a fully pre-scratched "Randy de Puniet" replica ?

Get well Randy ! You now have something of a 9 times world champion : a broken leg.

MotoGP gyroscopic cam

It's about time someone think of a mean to render the combination of speed and angles acheived by MotoGP riders in a more realistic way.

Check out the new toy Rossi got on his bike.

Pipe reduction

With all the recent performance upgrades fitted, I decided I'd give the bike a test run to see how it goes now. I must admit that I've been rather disappointed. I thought this would have made a much more noticeable difference. With all these parts fitted, I could even have expected a large improvement on how the engine pulls.

The first problem I immediately spoted was the fact that the bike was way too loud with its new Laser exhaust system. And despite the fact the tiny db killers were said to reduce the noise by 3db (cutting the noise by half), fitting them in the cans didn't not really improve the situation. Worse, with this system on, the bike became hard to work in the city streets. I could feel a sensible loss of torque in the low revs. At that point I was really disappointed, even more when thinking about the hours I've sweat trying to mount every single performance parts.

I was decided to cut off the noise first, because I had already experienced a similar problem with a very loud exhaust system on another bike. It totally spoils the general impression you can get from a motorcycle. Not only a very loud exhaust does not always mean optimal performance improvement, but it does also prevent you from trashing the bike and get the most out of it (I remember I once even removed a Micron system from a track bike because I could not concentrate).

In my opinion, the whole problem with this noisy cans, came from the db killers. They were too short compared to others I had seen before on other systems. In my mind, they had to be lengthened. I had spotted a new shop where I wanted to go to see what they were up to, because the guys were told to be pretty good mechanics with one who had worked for a Formula 1 team (Prost Grand Prix) before. I was just curious what they were able to do and since I had these tiny pipes to modify, I thought it would be a great opportunity to pay them a visit.

We immediately aggreed on how to proceed. We all knew we could not find the right solution by making just one attempt. So I came with bike to the shop and they started to work with the db killers and a 18cm piece of pipe coming from a higly modified Akrapovic system, which means the db killers woud receive 9cm of extra pipe each. One of the new db killers is shown below :

The result ? A much more usable bike with torque back at low revs and far less noise (but still a grunty one). I rode a little more than 30 km on my way back home and trust me when I say there's a huge difference now ! I'm heading to the dyno shop to put figures on what I feel. And yes, it took us only one attempt to build these. The guys at Metal Machines really rock ! They know what they're doing and won't bullshit you for hours.

The Metal Machines workshop

Home made trike. There's also a home made ATV (powered by a R6 engine) being built in the back of the shop

On your mark

You'll find below a few pics of the day I've spent fitting the performance parts on the R1100S.

Parts gathered and ready (Laser Daytona II exhaust sytem, Power FRK module and Boxer Performance carbon air intake)

2 into 1 into 2

I should have tried to spit flames through that !

I didn't trust the licence plate bracket holder provided by Laser, so I had it welded to the pipes

Straight pipes exhaust !

Those 2 stainless steel pipes are so hot while riding, they're burning my boots !

The Laser end cans without any sort of restriction. Way tool loud in my opinion.

Thanks again to :
- Robert Foster from Foster Performance for having provided the parts and helped me fitting them properly to the bike.
- the guys at PoliMetal59 who have made a little of welding

The dyno shop

A few pics from today's dyno run.

The dyno itself

Ready ?

Preparing the bike

Let's go for it !

Now if you wonder how much came out of this run, the answer is 84.51 hp. This is measured at the rear wheel and the dyno calculated 13% of power loss between the crank and the wheel, which is strange as I thought the resistance was rather a constant. I'll ask again when I come back for the second run to make sure.

For this first run the bike only had a KN filter, Nology cables and a Y pipe (don't know the brand as it came along with the bike). I can't show the graph at the moment, because I don't have a scanner and even if I did, the dyno's printer was out of ink, so I left without the printed result.

This dyno was made by PoliMetal59, a Dynojet/PowerCommander certified center and reknown paint shop. I took this final shot while waiting for my bike to be unstrapped and rolled out of the cabin. While I totally hate the style, I must admit there's got to be a lot of work involved in this project.

Temporary plated

(did ou get it ? forget it that was a bad one, I'm not chrome or gold plating anything on the bike)

This is definitely not the nicest addition to the bike, but it does a proper job allowing me to ride the BMW on the road. At last ! Ok some of you may have already noticed that it's only a temporary license plate (hence the double W, which got to be a quadruple U), but that's a good start and it already saved me from the hassle of hauling the bike south to the dealer.

By the way, the guys at BMW have checked the headlight and gave me the letter I needed to pursue the registration process. This letter states that the headlight is pointing to the right side and the tachometer is set up to be read in kmh.

Wandering the web

Wandering the web last night, I came across 2 pictures that I liked and decided to post them here. This is another opportunity to complete the links section and point you to the Ottonero blog where I've found these pictures. This is a great place to surf at from time to time for you motorcyle lovers and is among the most visited motorcycle blogs around.

Twins

... more like cousins actually as the next picture shows clearly these headlights have different part numbers.

The (brand new) headlight is already bolted on the bike. I'll have this verified by BMW next week so they finally agree to certify this bike conforms to local road legislation. Since I don't want to go through all the hassle of puting the bike on the trailer, strap it tight, haul it 80km south, unstrap it, unload it down the trailer, and do that all the way back (load, strap, haul, unstrap, unload), I'll try to ride it to BMW on its own wheels. This implies I make my way through the administrative fuss on monday to get me a temporary registration. I hate that, but it's certainly worth it.