Something borrowed... something 800ish?

With the help of the BEARS club I found some prepared to lend me a Ducati 800 engine. John Clifton came to the rescue, a few sheckles changed hands and me and Mike got to install another engine into the Beta EVO.
Thanks John! Your a life saver.

Ebay to the rescue... maybe

Ebay yielded a 800M rear piston, barrel and head. The seller gave me a great deal, and shipped me the rest of the engine front and rear cylinder/ head and cases with internals for another $400! I guess no one in America wants 800M parts. Now if it turns up on time we might have a chance, it should arrive next monday. That will leave us a day to put the bike together, before I have to depart. I think I'll look around for some on to borrow one from.

After the first round I found the front .95kg springs way to hard. With all the preload off and the compression tightened as much as I dared I still had twenty millimetres of travel left. A call to Dr Nick from Teknick and I had three springs to try for round two.

Holy Mangled Piston Bat Man!

Mike called me up today to give me the good news on the engine. The good news is that only the rear head, piston, and barrel are total screwed. And here is why... it seems that an airbox tab came loose and got eaten up by the rear pot. Yay! A simple lesson, do not leave an unfitted fastener. If we'd had a dzus fastener in place it the entire tab could not have come away.

Both are Dzus clips. One is not quite right, can you tell?

Unfortunately for us the tab was made of lovely soft plastic from the airbox which got munched up, leaving only this Dzus clip to pound the crap out of the rear cylinder. A total disaster.
 

 =

Still it could have been worse. Now off to find a 800M rear cylinder head/barrel and piston!

Round 1 National BEARS 2010

Mike moving faster than the speed of light on tools

18 March 2010 3am

Beta Engineering: Mike and me down tools and load the bike into the back of the van. I get 200m down the road before the phone rings. Mikes desperately tired voice tells me that I've left the stand behind. I back the van up and we laugh as he hurls it in the back. "Good luck mate!", he intones as he shuts the door.
I drive to Marulan before being forced to take a nap. I am shattered. At 7:30am I start driving again. My plan is to get to Broadford at midday meaning I would get roughly three practice sessions in before I had to leave to pick up Lin at Melbourne airport.

18 March 2010 12 Midday

Broadford: I unload, sign in and get on the track. The bike is surprisingly okay given it has not been on a track yet. The bike is not unstable. Drives okay, it feels a little short of breath, but geared okay given it was a guess from me and Mike. The lap timer says I managed a 1:07. All up a good start to the session, given our lack of track time build up.

19 March 2010

Qualifying 1: Fastest lap 1:05.706, Best rolling lap 1:05.556, Ultimate lap - 1:05.507
Qualifying 2: Fastest lap 1:05.211, Best rolling lap 1:05.211, Ultimate lap - 1:04.907

My qualifying efforts where good enough for 2nd in F3 with only Dean Holmes ahead of me.

Goose ready to go... bring on the bringing off of the red light!

Race 1: F3 2nd, Fastest lap 1:06.251, Best rolling lap 1:05.886, Ultimate lap - 1:05.323
A tough race. Dean Holmes (Triumph 675) got away from both me and Glen Bauder (Ducati 748). I diced with first Mike Coates on the awesome Guzzi Daytona, and then Pete Smith Ducati 900ss mounted. Pete taught me some great lines around turn one, and once clear of him I closed the gap to Glen to trail him over the line by half a second. Dean? Unfortunately had a small off at the end of the back straight. He was super fast before that though. A good start, some great sector times leaving me with the task of getting past the slower guys to strike at Glen.

Hard thinking Goose

Race 2: F3 2nd, Fastest lap 1:05.127, Best rolling lap 1:04.987, Ultimate lap - 1:04.518
I struggle off the line, and again have to fight my way past Mike Coates and Pete Smith. Ahead is Paul Coleman (Aprilia Tuona) and Glen. I can overtake Paul down into the pit corner and lead him onto the straight, but down the straight its all over with both Paul and Glen pulling gaps of a hundred plus meters. At the line I am a second behind Glen with Paul sandwiched between us.

Goose types in "Go Fast" 0 Evo says "Up you!"

Day 1 wrap up
Small changes on the bike lead to some faster sector times through out the day. This is a good indicator that we are heading in the right direction. I don't expect to set fastest laps with so much traffic, so I happy to set fast sector times.
Me and Linden Roth drive up to Albury after racing and dyno both bikes. I am most interested in the fueling and the indications are we are right on the money. All good!


20 March 2010

What was all good, soon turned all bad. The db1 Beta EVO ground to a halt in morning warm up. First dropping a cylinder and then locking up. I check the rear pot by pulling the spark plug. Indications are not good. There is no clearance on the plug, and a big witness mark tell the tail, something has come loose and gone through the motor. I look in vain for a culprit but can not find anything.

Race 3 and 4 
I ride Dave Aboud's KTM 640 for the final two races, I love the old Kato, but it is severely out gunned in F3. The best I can do is 8th place in both races.

Points after round 1
1. Glen Bauder 90
2. Peter Smith 71
3. Dean Holmes 67
4. Mike Coates 67
5. Phill Gray 66

Goose on a KTM... who would have thought!

Bits everywhere, and no closer to an answer.....

For Beta EVO MKI spec's click here.