2011 Nationals Round Phillip Island December

With four victories in four races at the Island we won the F3 Championship.

Here is the podium. John Cully on the left, second. Moi in the middle and Ross Proctor third on the right.

Mike and Goose celebrate a well deserved title.

On board video from Macpark 2011 Bridgestone BEARS National challenge race 3

Here is a video I have been working on for literally ages... Combining video from the ductail of Dave Clark's Triumph 675 and my helmet in the third race of the Bridgestone BEARs National Challenge at Macpark.

Clarkie gets a great up on me from the line, and leads the way.. I will leave the rest for you to watch!

Honda Rjays St George Race Series, Round 3 BEARS race 5

Here's my footage from non points scoring race at Eastern Creek on the 11th September.

Images of the DB1 Beta EVO from Eastern ceek 11 Sept 2011

Here are couple of great picks of the db1 Beta EVO at the exit of turn two. A huge thanks to Scotty from http://www.scottspics.com.au/  for the photos.

I always find images from the track very useful. These are no exception. Here are a couple of things from these.

1. Body position - I had been working very hard over this race weekend to keep my upper body relaxed and square to the front of the bike. The more I tense up my inside arm the more off square I become. Turn two had been a bug bear for me, crashing there three times in the last two years, always mid corner in transition from braking to throttle.  Something I have associated with weighting my inside arm to much. Hence my desire to be square on the bike and keep my arms loose.

2. Ground clearance - We made some changes to the Beta EVO to increase ground clearance on the left hand side after first practice. The belly pan is now mounted significantly more square on the bike. These pictures show we have plenty of room left, nice.

3. Swingarm angle - We had numerous problems last year with stance of the Beta EVO, with the swingarm angle being flat if not past flat mid corner and once on the throttle. These images and the lack of any understeer over the weekend validates our changes.

Thanks again to Scotty.

National BEARs Rd4 Race 4, Eastern creek

Final race from Eastern creek round on the 11 September. Including my best lap of the weekend with a 1:45.233.

National BEARS Round 4 race 3 video

Enjoy!

Eastern Creek National BEARS Challenge Rd4

Saturday 10 September 2011

A very cold day greeted the National BEARS circus at Eastern Creek, with a freezing southerly wind playing havoc with many riders, and keep us all cool!

Practice 1: Best lap. 1:47.875, ultimate lap: 1:47.218
With only 8 minutes of practice I was stoked to see a time only .3 of my best lap last year with the 800 engine aboard. The track was cold and a little slippery in places, overnight rain had left the track clear of any rubber.

Qualifying: Best lap 1:48.068, ultimate lap: 1:46.607
Again only 8 minutes to bank a lap. This time I was facing big problems in turns one, four, and twelve with wind, which had picked up considerably since practice. At several stages I found myself blown off line, scariest being in turn one with the light weight bimota moving six meters off the apex. Ahhhhh... Frustrated I could not got quicker, but happy to see my sector times where improving. Now to put them all together. My time put me 13th on the grid, with a favorable run toward the first turn.

Sorry here is the track map, in case you have not had the joy of seeing Eastern Creek. This is taken from my data logger.

Race 1 National BEARS- 5 laps
A fun race. I got baulked on the start, by a rider a head of me stalling his 1098 Ducati. Damn near rammed him, before dodging to the inside of the track toward the pit wall. This boxed me in a little, but I got a great mid corner run from turns one to two. I guess I was about 10th here. The faster guys on 1098 and Aprilia RSV4s all got away leaving me to play with Andrew Smart and Rick Fitzsimmons, 1198 and 1098 mounted respectively. This was great fun and encouraged me to try some different lines about the place to get past them at the back of the track. Andrew had an awesome line onto the front straight, which I followed, and could nearly hang in Ricks slipstream to the start/finish. As I said a fun race.
Result: First in F3, 10th outright, Fastest lap 1:46.712, Best rolling lap 1:46.679, Ultimate lap 1:45.458

Race 2 National BEARS - 5 laps
This race was much more fun. I got a blinder of a start, and got to sixth place into turn two. Ahead of me where Jon Riley and Bill Shanahan both 848 Duc pilots. I was seriously considering taking them both around turn four, but some part of me was saying "no you are not racing them!" so I gave them some room. Lap three I posted a 1:46.2, then both Smart and Fitzsimmons came past me on lap four. Pissed off I gave chase and managed to gather Rick up at turn two. I led all the way to the straight, where Rick used the 1098 grunt to run me down before the line. Great fun, and the last lap was a 1:45.980! Nice!
Result: First in F3, 10th outright, Fastest lap 1:45.980, Best rolling lap 1:45.617, Ultimate lap 1:45.043

More tomorrow I hope. Here is a quick comparison between my fastest 800cc lap and my 1070cc lap. I am being lazy in turns five, seven and nine. I would like to get these right.

Lap to lap comparison, Red line my best ever lap on the 800 engine in 2010, black my best so far on the 1070.

Race 3 National BEARS - 5 laps
The first race on Sunday was a ripper. I got a lightening start, and found myself in sixth place behind my garage mate Jon Riley and Bill Shanahan. I kept with them well around the back on the first lap. Coming out of turn nine Bills bike threw its chain, and both me and Jon dodged around him to carry on. The quicker bikes came past me on lap three, and I decided to keep back and watch the fun. I set a new top speed, of 233kph, assisted I am sure by a lack of wind today.
Result: First in F3, 10th outright, Fastest lap 1:45.777, Best rolling lap 1:45.126, Ultimate lap 1:44.564


Race 4 National BEARS - 5 laps
I was hopping to break into the 1:44 bracket in this race.  I got close but once the faster top speed bikes got past I was not prepared to dice hard with them. Several of them were lightening quick down the front straight, but slow around the back. Slow enough to be erratic in lines and track position. It was fun to watch from a distance, but I did not want to get tangled up in it. Lap three saw F1 points leader Marc Belestro fall in turn three, and Jon Riley fell on the final lap in turn three. Both unhurt thankfully. I set a PB on lap three, and a new top speed of 237kmh and a sustaining 190kmh around turn one. Happy to finish the race in 9th and take all my points for the nationals.
Result: First in F3, 9th outright, Fastest lap 1:45.250, Best rolling lap 1:45.048, Ultimate lap 1:44.217

A great weekend for me and Mike. The Beta EVO is finally where it should have been at race one this year. We will strip the bike down now and prepare it for Phillip Island in December.

Beta EVO MKIII dyno day 4! Microtec ECU testing

Today I visited Motorcycle Weaponry in Mona Vale for some dyno time with my old sparing partner in classic racing, Roger Quinlen. The first run showed that the Microtec has cured the engine misfire that has been plaguing us all year, and it was rich as heck, which I put down to my screwing about with the map provided by the Ducshop team. First run showed 85hp.

Before and after, 84hp vs 94hp. Nice

I am extremely annoyed that the Nemesis has decided to give up the ghost. Not sure just who I should throw it at!

Roger and I worked systematically, using the maps provide by Ducshop to tune the bike. Firstly tuning in the front cylinder and then the rear. The front cylinder took and hour to get right, but the rear took about 20 minutes. We struggled with the rear pot to remove some rich areas, even taking to the advance maps to see if we could remove them. They remained stubbornly in place, confounding both me and Roger.

The finished result was a awesome 94.4HP, right on target for our estimates when starting the 1100 build.

Big thanks to the boys at Weaponry, Roger, Steve, and Arthur

Microtec ECU up and running

We received the Mircotec ECU from Ducshop today. I carefully followed the instructions to calibrate the TPS. The bike strung to life! Here are a few pictures of the two units.

Microtec ECU on left and Nemesis on Right

Again, Mircotec on left and Nemesis on right. The Microtec is much smaller.

I love it when I see this on a product!

So here is a quick and dirty on my experience with the two units. So far.

Hardware: The Mircotec is smaller than the Nemesis and much more toward the size of the OEM Ducati units. I am guessing it makes it lighter. The Microtec also comes with the heat sink already attached which is handy, and its got Microtec machined into it, cool! Being smaller it will mean more air in the airbox where the ECU is located on the Beta EVO.

Connecting up: Pretty much the same, except the Mircotec does not have an extra screw hole for the heat sink to be grounded. I put the grounding wire under one of the mounting bolts. The USB wire on the Mirotec is pretty much the same with a smaller connector, but does not come with the neat flashing lights to show you its connected like the Nemesis.

Software: This is the deal breaker for me. Having used the Nemesis software for some time, I found the Mircotec version to be extremely similar. But is is infinately more polished. An example is the linear setting of the TPS, it was two button presses on the Microtec, rather than entering values corresponding to the settings on the Nemesis. Editing the map data proved easier with tabs for each of the maps (Fuel, advance etc). Also it puts you straight into edit mode rather than having to select it. Very nice.

Maps: Well I guess this is my only issue so far. The Nemesis map data I have is not compatible with the Microtec software, probably because the Mircotec is significantly newer. Bummer! I think there is an conversion program somewhere. I just lined up the two maps on the screen of my PC and changed a copy of the map provided by Ducshop to roughly reflect my settings from our last good run on the dyno, and with the lamba probes working.

Now can we get to a dyno before the weekend to find out if the whole exercise has been worth it!

A horse! A horsepower! My kindom for an ECU that works!

The db1 Beta EVO is now eagerly awaiting the delivery of a Microtec 197 ECU!

http://www.microtec.cc/cms/en/component/content/article/18

After talking to Mark Sutton at DucShop in the US, we have decided to go this way rather than replace the Nemesis with another one. Microtec actually assisted Nemesis with the development of there ECU offering in the early phase, then for some reason cut them off. The Mircotec unit can even import Nemesis tuning maps which will prove very useful to get the unit up and running before the races on the 11/12 September.

The Ducshop boys website is here, and both Mark and Jeff there have been very helpful, thanks guys.

http://www.ducshop.com/

Update on engine misfire

We have at last conducted the final test we wanted to do on the db1 Beta EVO engine misfire. Mike and I mounted the old coils from the M800 on the bike monday night (29th). These are single outlet coils. Tuesday a friend of mine, and fellow BEARS member, Jonathan Riley took the db1 Beta EVO out to eastern creek along with this Ducati 848 for a track day. The bike did nothing different, still exhibiting the same stumbling performance in the 7000rpm rev range.

The only component we have not changed has been the ECU. Which we firmly believe is now the issue. I am looking into replacing the nemesis with a Microtek unit, hopefully before Eastern Creek on the 11th and 12th September.

Mac Park Onboard fastest lap from Goose with Dash board!!

Given the boring weekend we had at Morgan Park, here is a really cool video I made last week. It has my fastest lap from MacPark over layed with dashboard data from my datalogger. Its cool!!

Morgan Park: round 3 national BEARS Challange. Sundays results....

Sunday dawned wet, and stayed that way. We got out for practice and got the bike around on a soaking track. Not a lot of fun, and I was pretty sure that after seven laps we'd all have hypothermia.

The F1 and F2 boys got out for a crusie around, with Brett Chambers taking a long slow fall in turn two, that left him puzzelled as to how he'd managed it. Racing got away on time, and the sidecars went out for a play. Race two saw the pre-moderns, and post classics have a splash. Result, two riders falling in the second turn only to remount and carry on. Sam Mouldon got away to a handy lead only to crash around the back of the track, bringing out the red flags. Sam was unhurt apparently, but I think they decided that given it took 20 minutes to find him and he nearly drowned that they'd better think about the conditions....

Waiting, waiting.... Finally at 11am they made a call to brief us. They forecast was showing some clearing showers, so we might get on if the rain lifted. Two hours later at 1230 they finally pulled the pin and cancelled the meeting. Motorcycle Sportsmen said they would attempt to rerun the event at a later date, with reduced entry fees. But I don't think the BEARS will be coming back this way in 2011.

Morgan Park: round 3 national BEARS Challange. Saturdays results

Another cold day in Queenslands granite region today. Not as cold as yesterday thankfully.

Q1 - 4 laps, fastest 1:29.140
I was pretty happy with this result given we were first out at 9am. The track felt like it had lost a bit of grip from yesterday which is to be expected I guess. My time put me second, behind local Scott Rinaldis on his awesome 944 Ducati F1. Scott did a 1:26.6! Holy cold track goose that's quick!

Q2 - 7 laps, fastest time 1.27.6
I got a bit smarter this session and hooked on the back of a local rider. John Murray (F3 Ducati 748). John gave me a great tow and I uncorked my new PB on lap 2. This put me second on the grid behind Scott Rinaldis. 

Race 1. Best lap 1.27.655
I did not get the best launch with both Murray and Rinaldis getting away better. John Newton also got a good start. I push past Rinaldis into turn one, only to find Newton taking me around the outside at turn two! Bugger. On the brakes into gum tree I could not keep out Rinaldis either. We carried on playing for a lap, Rinaldis passes Murray. On lap two I get Newton at the end of the straight on my fastest lap of the weekend. 1:27.659. For some strange reason I was unable to close the gap to Murray, consistently missing my turn in at gum tree,  turn three and seven. Very annoying. On the final lap I over cooked it I to guntree and Newron nabbed me into turn six. Good move. I chased hard but could not catch themfor third.
Result: outright 4th, F3 4th.

The weather forcast for tomorrow is not good. Hopefully we will get some dry races in, so I can go faster! 

Morgan park round 3 national BEARS challenge: Friday practice

It's cold up here at Warick, Queensland. -2 in fact. A new track due to extensions from last year. Bumpy as all hell! Thus place makes MacPark look like a golf course.
Best time today was a 1.28.987, got 38 laps in with some minor suspension changes to try and cope with the bumps.
Rain is forecast for the weekend! Yay!

Dyno day 3!

With only a week to the next round of the nationals I visited the dyno again today. This time I was testing some coils kindly lent to me by Ross Proctor. Thanks Ross.

What I thought would be a simple fitting job turned into a two hour effort as the plugs on my loom were not the same. Seems Duacti have changed the coils from DS1000 to HM1100. Thanks guys!

Still it ran up okay. The misfire was still there. Bugger! But we have got further into the issue. Harley at RB Imports was running the dyno and we tried moving the inductive pick up for the RPM feed to the dyno between the front and rear coils on two separate runs. This showed the front pot losing some spark in the problem zone. The rear cylinder was totally gone in the same zone. No spark!

Conclusion: The coil drivers in the ECU are not working properly.

Now of to get my DP ECU security codes disabled!

Mac Park Onboard lap from the Beta EVO

Here is one of my quicker laps from the final race at Macpark at easter. The final race saw me do my best time of the weekend. 1:17.735. This is .1 of a second of the F2 lap record... Damn close to taking that to!

The anotomy of a crash!

Have you every had the misfortune to find yourself lying next to your bike, shaking from the adrenaline and endorphins coursing through you, and wondering just how the hell you fell off? If you haven't. Well done, your part of a small and exclusive club, either that or Fred Gassit's quip, "If you ain't falling off you ain't going hard enough", may apply.

If like me, you've had that fall, or falls. They probably bug you to this day. Everyone falls off, with these unstable two wheeled things we like to ride it's only a question of time and distance before you do. Yet what happens when you have enough data from your bike to find out? What would you change?

Lucky for me (and you if you keep reading) I have had  a data logger fitted to my race bike for about six years. A data logger can show you just what you did differently on a quick lap, to a really slow, and often painful lap. I know we are talking a race track here, but don't be fooled this is track only.  Manufacturers in the future may put into their frankly under stressed ECU a recording mechanism to trap just what the hell happened if something goes wrong. Manufacturers are more interested in how their product failed in a mechanical sense than why it fell over. The implications are interesting though. That the ECU may be able to tell someone, insert the Police, lawyers etc, just how fast you and the engine were going, and how much you might have slowed down before the ouchy moment.

My data logger is an AIMSport GOLD BIKE. This unit has eight channels to record various inputs. The default inputs are things like road speed, a gyroscope, engine speed. I have added in a couple more including recording the throttle position sensor or TPS, exhaust gas analysis (lambda numbers), and engine oil pressure warning systems. Between the road speed, and horizontal gyroscope the software supplied by AIMSport can generate a track map, track sector breakdowns and allow for easy comparison on lap to lap.

Even with this information, I still sometimes find myself sitting in the dirt looking at a motorcycle and pondering, what the? So lets have a look at a crash from a data point of view, no wondering, just the facts.

Morgan Park low side, May 2010, Bike: Bimota db1 Beta EVO

This fall took place on the second lap of a race, when I had got myself free of my competition and was looking to make a gap on them. So lets cut into some data, thankfully graphically represented.

Morgan Park track map

First thing to understand is the track layout. The image here indicates the shape of the Morgan Park track, the corners are numbered to match the sections of the track we will investigate latter. The small arrow at the top of the image indicates not just the track direction but where the infrared triggering beacon is placed. I try to place it on the start finish line, so my lap times are as close as possible to those on my time sheets. Its a tight race track in its current configuration, top speed of the Beta Evo 195kmh on the front straight.

The next image shows in red my best lap of the track, and in black my crash lap. Across the top of the graphic you'll see a smattering of green, red, blue sections, the red and blues are numbered as corners, as per the circuit map. It can be clearly seen that the black  line plunges to zero in turn three as I fall, and then get going again.

Best lap vs Crash lap

The facts: So how did I crash?

Turn three opps

To allow a closer look at how, I've provided the detail image of just the run into turn three. Black trace is speed from my best lap, red  speed from my crash lap. I have added in the gyro readings for comparison as they tell much of the story, the blue line is from my best lap and the mauve line from my crash lap.
As can been seen from the image. I carry to much speed into turn three, 10kmh quicker than my best lap, hence the red line in turn three is way above the black one (marker A). I apex later as can been seen by the mauve line reaching its peak after the blue line (marker B).  At this point the front tyre screamed enough and let go. I slide into the dirt, but manage to recovery.


The reason:  So why did I crash?
To find the cause for my eagerness into turn three on this lap, we need to go back further in the data to turn two (marker C). Here you can see the black speed trace plummet from the red. Even though I had set a good first sector and one of my best top speeds for the weekend. The reason I shut the throttle here was due to seeing yellow flashing lights, a caution flag in effect on the pedestrian bridge crossing turn two. A caution would not put you off that much you might think, but turn two is blind. Not only blind, blind and fast. I'm using fourth gear through this left hand sweeper. As such I was expecting to find a rider or bike obstructing the track. The speed trace shows I was 20kmh slower until I rounded the bend and could see nothing on the track. From there I get the gas back on from the middle of the turn two section. As a result the black line passes over the red line only at the very end of this straight (marker D). That's me braking latter and harder into turn three desperate to make up time.  This is also where it all goes wrong and I loose the front end.

Best lap vs Crash lap

The lesson: How not to do it again!

Simple things to remember:

Don't go into a corner that much harder!
- There is an old saying, "Slow in and fast out, is better than fast in and dead out!", for me it was dead last! If I had gone in slower I would not have fallen off, so 10kmh was obviously way to fast, and way to late to get the bike turned. A fall like this has another added benefit if you want to see it that way. The marks my bike left on the track made a very good indicator as to where I should be coming off the corner. No longer turning! Odd to see it as a bonus I know but whilst I could see them I was using them.


More complex things to remember:

Do not allow myself to be flustered and frustrated after having my progress slowed.
- Its extremely hard to stay cool, calm and collected when you're strung out on testosterone and all those other natural drugs, and freaking out you might not win. Calm is fast. So keep calm, or cool, Zen, what ever you want to call it. It was a silly mistake for someone with my experience, hence I was kicking myself the rest of the weekend.

Check behind you, see if the opposition have closed the gap.
- Why did I not look behind me? Well, on a race track I never do. What's in front is what matters, those are the guys you need to pass. I also get a big personnel kick when riders start looking back, I take it as a sign of weakness. So I don't do it. In this case, a simple look over my shoulder would have told me I was in no danger of being passed, and possibly avoided the crash. Also, I knew I could lap faster than the guys behind me. Being in front I still had the capacity to get away unhindered, being in the dirt I was playing catch up. The lesson for me here is try to be more flexible in my thinking, looking back is an option to keep in mind.

Hope you enjoyed this little rant!!

Shhhhh. We're hunting engine misfires!

Beta EVO engine misfire
Me and Mike had a quiet beer yesterday and talked over what we where going to do about solving our engine misfire. This engine has never run right in the 7200-8000rpm range, however it will pick up and run strong after this. 95HP is not a weak engine. Just to recap on what we have done some far to try and solve it:

• Replaced Spark plugs
• Replaced Spark plug leads
• Set air gap on the crank sensor
• Set valve clearances
• Installed lambda probe and validated the O2 numbers
• Swapped crank sensor
• Swapped fuel injectors
• Tried a set of colder plugs from 8 to 9

Current plan for the next dyno time

1. Install the dyno lambda into the header pipe - to ensure we are getting an accurate reading without the scavenging effecting the reading
2. Install some 10 temperature range plugs
3. Replace the coils - See if we can borrow a set of working coils from the BEARS guys
4. Install a larger earth point - Currently we are only using a M6, we are worried its not providing a good enough grounding point
5. Remove the megaphones - see if we are getting what Mike calls "megaphoneitus", its possible that the megaphones are scavenging the cylinder completely leaving us with either weak charge
6. Study the signals to the coil with a oscilloscope see if we are getting mad signals
7. Replace the ECU with a standard unit

Going to be an interesting time!!

2011 Mac Park race 3 stack video

Here's some video from Marc Belestro, shot from the back of his bike. It shows Andrew Lear having a big moment on the opening lap of race 3 and gathering it up just in time to collide with the Beta EVO! The damage to the Beta EVO was limited to a broken rear fairing and some scratches to the rear pipe. Poor Andrew knocked himself out and had to visit the hospital. Hope you are okay Andrew.

Beta EVO takes 4 from 4 National BEARS RD2 Macpark

Goose leads Andrew Lear (Ducati 198) in race one!

Qualifying:  in Q1 I did 8 laps without getting a clean run at all. Second qualifier was wet so me an Mike used it to test another crank position sensor to fix the top end misfire. No luck with that… but I did get pole!
Result: Pole position with a 1:19.215

Race 1 BEARs Nationals, 6 laps
It feels very odd to start a race bike from 3000rpm, but it works a treat and I get away well from pole. The only guy faster was local Andrew Lear (Ducati 1098), Andrew beat me into turn one. David Clarke tried to get his 675 Triumph up the inside into turn one, so I politely closed the door on him. Getting a great drive out of turn one, I pass Andrew under brakes into the pine tree. From here I pull a 50 meter lead and despite making numerous mistakes at various places hold this to the line. My fastest lap comes on lap five before I hit back markers. This allowed Andrew to close the gap at the line a little. The Beta EVO draws first blood, and bad news guys I think it likes the taste!
Result: First F3, First outright! Fastest lap 1:18.563, best rolling lap, 1:18.261, Ultimate lap: 1:17.344

Race 2 BEARs Nationals, 6 laps
Another good launch, with the same result. I come out of turn one behind Andrew, he's a bit more cautious into the pine tree this time, taking tighter line. I throw the Beta EVO down the inside anyway! I pass Andrew with the back wheel hopping about and execute an ugly but effective block pass. This time I don't muck about. Staying smooth and focusing on braking markers into the slower corners. This lets me free up the drive on the exits to maximum effect. I see 1:18.5, 18.3, and an 18.1 on lap five. Excellent that's a new lap record  for the Beta EVO. My margin at the line is six seconds. Another great race. Much more consistent, the 1:17's beckon.
Result: First F3, First outright! Fastest lap 1:18.192, best rolling lap, 1:18.092, Ultimate lap: 1:17.065

Leaving the rest to scrap it out in race 2.

The Beta EVO takes the checkered flag! Twice even!

Race 3, Goose leads Dave Clark, Paul Coleman and Derek Morton

Race 3 National BEARS 6 laps

What happens when two bikes can not go into one!

Start 1 - I got a good launch but the others got away well to,  Marc Belestro (F1 - Ducati 1198) lead us down into turn one. I saw many riders either side of me but no one got between me and Marc. In my left peripheral vision I saw a red bike all out of shape on the way into turn one, to the inside of me. As I tipped in I had a bad feeling I was about to be collected. Bang! A bike smacks into the left rear side of the Beta EVO. I am pushed well wide nearly into dirt. Paul Coleman (F1 - BMW S1000RR), Derek Morton (F3 Ducati 851) come by as I get the bike turned up to the kink before pine tree. Desperate not to let anyone else through I get the gas on and try to feel any vibration from damage to my bike. As we hit the top corner red flags are waving and I look back across at turn one to see recovery trucks and Ambulances abound! The collision has broken the right rear fairing on the Beta EVO, and damaged the rear exhaust mount. Me and Mike quickly repair this before the restart.


Start 2 - A full rerun of the race see's me get a good start with only Dave Clark to beat to turn one. Poor Marc Belestro's bike had quit on the warm up lap with a fuel leak. I tail Dave for five laps while waving at his camera, mounted backward on his Triumph duck tail. On laps two, three, and four  I show him the front wheel at the water tower. Lap five I push my way past him at that point and set out to do my best lap of the race, a 1:19.090.
The bike is still not running right, we are trying some different spark plugs today, colder ones, and this seems to have improved the top end. However it only lasts a few laps before it deteriorates to misfiring badly. Checking the plug colour we find they are still showing a lean condition. We add 5% fuel to the problem zone for the next race.
Result: First F3, First outright! Fastest lap 1:19.090, Ultimate lap: 1:17.600

Goose and Clarkie shake hands after race 3

Race 4 National BEARS 6 laps

Dave Clark gets another ripper start. I get my best of the whole weekend and the Beta EVO is right on Dave's tail out of turn one. I shadow him down to Pinetree, and knowing he is not that good out of here, I slow my entry to get a good drive up to the top corner.  This works a treat with Dave moving to right and I go left to overtake him into the fast left kink before the top corner. From here I slowly pull away with Mike giving me signals that I have pulled an extended lead over my pursers. At the line 2nd placed Paul Coleman (F1 - BMW S1000RR) is a little under eight seconds back.
The increased fuel supply to the top end has not cured the misfire, however it is leading to an better plug colour at long last. With the easter cup race to come we add an other 5 percent in across the rev range looking for a darker plug.
Result: First F3, First outright! Fastest lap 1:18.470,  best rolling lap 1:18.193, ultimate lap 1:17.375


Easter Cup, 12 laps
Damn 12 laps is a long time on this track. I get away well, and find myself dicing with Trevor Fitzgerald on a Kawazaki Zx6R. He is fast and I latch on the back of him all the while I am getting a one signal from Mike indicating some one is on my arse. Into pine tree on lap two Darren Willis (Suzuki GSXR) dives down the inside of me. I let him through and we carry on like this for another five laps. On lap seven Darren out breaks himself at turn one, I slip past. However Mike was showing me a one again, meaning someone has closed the gap behind me. Down the back straight I have a CBR1000 with Travis Gilmore about come past me on breaks. I am thinking he can have it. I am stuffed! I cruise to the line without further incident.
The result sheet says that I am eleventh place. However this is great news on as I have just beaten my personnel best lap by nearly half a second with a 1:17.735. In the process I have done four laps in 1:17's.
Mike checks the plug colour, we are slowly getting there with some darkness. My lap timer has failed again! I am just about over this for one weekend.
Result: 11th outright, Fastest lap 1:17.735, Best rolling lap 1:17.308, Ultimate lap 1:16.463


Wrap up
All said and done a great weekends racing. Four starts, four wins, and new lap record. Shame about the damage to the bike, but shit happens. We seem to have made some head way on the engine misfire, with the colder plugs working better for at least a while. More work to do there.


Thanks to Mike King from Beta Engineering for all you help and wisdom. My lovely lady Lin and her friend Julie for the photos, and it was great to meet Julie's mum, and nephew Domenic. 

I'd like to dedicate the Beta EVO's wins this weekend to my old mate, Leon Joubert who was killed by an errant driver last weekend. RIP Leon, Ride In Peace!
 


Cheers for now.
Goose

Mac Park Friday Practice

The weather let up today thankfully. We got a good number of laps in close to 50. Mike gave me a hand all day and we painted up the new belly pan as well. It looks great, on the Beta EVO.

In the first three sessions I focused on finding a good pace, getting down some low 1:19. Thats a second of the lap record. Sessions 4 and 5 we finally got the lambda probe working and we tried to dial out the 7000rpm miss fire. We can now comprehensively state that it is not fuel related. In the final session I focused on getting a bit more fast time, but was hampered by lots of traffic.

Quietly confident for tomorrow, hopefully the weather will stay clear. A big thanks to Mike from Beta engineering for all his help.

Mt Gambier at last!

At 22:20 local time me and Lin finally got into Mt Gambier this evening. After a full day working in the Melbourne office it was a long haul out here.

The bike is ready to go. The weather is looking unstable! And I am not sure if we are racing on a new track yet, given that there are supposed to be alterations happening/happened to make MacPark longer....

I guess we'll see on the morrow.

New shinny and new dull bits!

Picked the bike up from Mike last night. She's sporting a refurbished lower muffer, that is very shinny! This is a bit of redesign from last time to account for the positioning of the headers. I think it looks cooler.

New Shinny!

Mike also got around to fitting the belly pan at long last, its very dull! At the moment. 

New Not so shinny!

2011 Mt Gambier here we come!

Our travel plans are for me and Lin to leave around midday wednesday, and travel to Albury. We are going to stay there the night and both of us have work to do in Melbourne Thursday. After work we will be traveling out to Mt Gambier on Thursday night.

Mt Gambier has always been one of my favorite race tracks. I hope that I can keep my pace from last year, when I got the MkI Beta EVO to within two tenths of a lap record. The MkIII is a big step up in both power and handling. The only issue I can see putting a caveat on a new lap record could be the weather, which is looking marginal.

Beta EVO Strip down

After the first two races of the season me and Mike King from Beta Engineering striped the db1 down to install some new camshafts. We shot the video below while we did this. It took us just on 28 minutes to get her apart to the point were we could have accessed the cams.

What you don't see is us putting the engine on the engine stand afterward, and finding out that we were installing the same cam! Yup you would not believe it but the bloke from the US who sold me the Hypermotard engine did not realise it has DP cams already in. Both me and Mike were extremely suspicious that some cam work had been done as the cam wheels were clearly marked "DO NOT MOVE"....

Oh well you live and you learn.

Thanks to my mate Brad Lum from Bonemeister for the sound track!
Find them here.... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bonemeister/69843951656

Race report from Wakefield Park March 2011

Racing report from Round 2  BEARS club champs.
For more info http://www.ozebearsracing.com

Saturday 26th March
Today was spent focusing on getting the bike to handle bumpy tracks well, and rebuild my confidence in the bike staying together. I completed 50 laps in testing, with the fastest being a 1:06.583 in the final session of the day. Changes to the bike included removing front compression damping to make the bike more compliant over bumps. Also raising the front of the bike to get more rearward weight bias, to combat some big slides while under full throttle. With the bigger fuel injectors in place we were expecting to have a cure to the 7000rpm stumbles we have had all season. Yet it did not cure the engine from flaming out from 7200-8000RPM. Engine wise I applied 10% fuel to the base Hypermotard map to get a good plug colour. We also added 2% fuel in the problem zone, this did not cure the misfire. In the last session I started to remove fuel in the trouble zone, with -2% in the 7000-8500rpm range. This did seem to assist with the bike running better. All said and done a good day with no major dramas. At last!

The Bimota db1 Beta EVO on the gas down the front straight

Sunday 27th March

Race 1: Best lap: 1:06.616 - Best rolling lap: 1:06.554
Due to a timing stuff up I have to start for the back row. The bike launched well and I barge my way past roughly 10 guys before turn one. On the run up to turn 3 I overtake a couple more. My race settles down into following Glen Kelleher and Phil Bartush both 675 mounted. Phil lost the front end on lap three in the cauldron. Lap four I pass a very slow Glen down the straight, and feel bloody great, only to be hosed by Darren Jones's 848 Ducati in return! My final lap is my fastest, and the bike seems to have responded to less fuel again -4% in the problem zone. I finish in 10th place.

Race 2: Best lap: 106.448 - Best rolling lap: 1:06.343
My row two start did not help much, as the clutch grabbed big time forcing me to shut down the motor to get the Beta EVO off the line. I finish lap one in thirteenth place. Lap two see me barrel past John Price and Brett Richards and catch up with Patrick Brierley all of whom are on Triumph 675's. Lap three is my fastest, then me and Patrick are caught up behind Rick Fitzsimmons on his Ducati 1198. Rick is getting great drive down the front straight and up the hill making it very hard for me and Patrick to attack him where the small bikes are quicker. Still we are going faster than race one and I am only three tenths off a new lap record as I finish in 11th place.

The Bimota db1 Beta EVO lays rubber out of the final corner

Race  3: Best lap: 1.06.439 - Best rolling lap: 1.05.962
Again the clutch proves a pain off the line with the Beta EVO pulling a massive first gear wheelie. Once more I had to cut the engine and have a second go at the throttle. Still its better than the first two races, this is my fastest opening lap of the weekend so and I finish lap one in tenth place, ahead of Darren Jones and trailing Rick Fitzsimmons. Final corner lap two I dive down the inside of Rick. Its a good move, but I loose the drive down the straight. Rick powers past and so does Darren damn! Next time I have to over take him I should use the outside and use the superior turn in and mid corner pace to keep my drive. I do my best lap on lap three closing the gap to Darren, Darren then jumps past Patrick, who was holding station ahead of Rick. This is how we finish with me lacking the time and track position to jump past Rick and have a go at Patrick.

Goose plays with Rick and Patrick

Race 4: Best lap: 106.047 - Best rolling lap: 105.830
My start is less than optimal again, but I get brutal up the hill and barge my way past John Price Triumph 675 to take 10th place for the run down to the cauldron. Ahead are Pat Brierley and Rick Fitzsimmons again. We circulate quicker this race, and I post a new lap record on lap three at 1:06.047. Unfortunately there is a crashed rider in the cauldron preventing both me ant Patrick having a shot at Rick down the hill. Patrick is pulling me along nicely however. On the final lap Patrick gets a great drive over the hill and passes Rick to pull near one second gap to the line. I finish about the same distance back from Rick in tenth place.

A good days racing. F3 wins all day and a new lap record to boot. The bike will go quicker yet.

Here is a quick video from race1.

Rd1 Nationals Broadford 2011

4 Wins and busted front wheel...

Friday 18 March

Session 1:  2 laps, best 1:08.405
The bike handled pretty good out of the crate. It felt a little nose heavy, and tail happy off some of the off camber corners. The misfire was there, but did not seem as bad as on the dyno. With only two laps in I feel my right foot slipping on the peg, looking down I see oil on my boot. Shit! I come in.
The clutch seems to be leaking oil still, and I returned to the pits with oil on my right and left foot pegs. I was not overly surprised by this given that we did not quite know if the welding on the left side was perfect nor if the big clutch seal was okay. I pulled the clutch cover and outer off, the small seal in the driven shaft looked okay to me. I put this right hand side down to oil still on the clutch plates. On the left side it appeared that the clutch slave was leaking. I pulled if off and found a lot of oil on the shaft. Suspecting that was from the welding I cleaned this up and put it back together.

Session 2:  2 laps, best 1:05.484
The bike still feels tail happy, but the lap times do not lie and I certainly could go faster but will have to do some changes with ride height to get more rear bias. Again two laps in I smell oil and come in with a bike dripping from both sides of the motor! This time there is oil on the rear tyre, and I have to wonder how much of the movement I am getting is from here rather than stance of bike.
The oil is pouring out of the clutch side. I pull the cover and outer again. The inner seal is in place. So I pull the whole clutch basket to check the outer (big) seal. I run the bike up and there is no issue I can see from this seal. I put it all back together cleaning everything as I go. On the left side of the bike I clean up the oil and am stunned to see the counter shaft seal coming out of the cases! I pull the sprocket and tap this back into place. Mike had warned me that this might happen after the welding with the seal perishing from the heat.

Session 3:  1 lap, best 1:05.003
Faster again, but only one flying lap before I smell oil and feel my right foot sliding, then my left foot! What the hell is going on!
Back in the pits there is oil everywhere. The counter shaft seal has completely popped out. The clutch is pouring oil again. Its as though we are facing some massive crank case pressurization issues, as such I pull the breather completely out to check it. No dramas there. Removing the sprocket again I pull and clean the counter shaft seal and groove, then glue it back in with some threebond! Stay put you little shit.
Clutch side, I pull the cover and outer again. This time I find another amazing sight with the small inner seal having popped out of its location, oil is pouring out of the shaft. I clean this all up and put the seal back in place. Starting the bike I watch the seal slowly migrate out of the shaft.... What the? Cleaning the seal and shaft up I superglue the seal back in place. Take that! John Price comes by and we check the clutch pushrod. As far as I can see the only way the seal is getting moved is a bent pushrod. We know we bent it with the chain broke, but it looks pretty good to us. Post gluing, the rod and seal stays in place pretty good.
I check the breather, and then go mental and drill a massive hole through the middle of it! That will learn it to pressurize my cases!

Session 4:  2 laps, best 1:04.540
My out lap is cautious, I look down checking my footpegs for oil, sniff and see if I can smell any. Not sensing any drama I up the pace.  On my second lap I flash over the line to see a 1:04.540, cool! As I hit the brakes into turn one I feel my right foot slide a fraction on the peg, I have just enough time to think "I wonder if its a lot", as I tip in. It is! The bike slides in a huge way trying to throw me out of the saddle. Pulling the brakes on as hard as I can scrubs some pace off, but leaves me at I guess a hundred kilometers an hour as I hit the dirt. Looking up the hill I plot a course up to the fence, easy. In the foreground I see a slight problem, an erosion ditch roughly a foot deep and wide. I loose my grip on the bars and wait for the impact. Bang! The bike starts to slew the front down hill. Bang! Okay the rear tyre is thought it. Applying the most minute steering input to dodge the trees ahead I feel the front loose grip and tuck downhill. I am outa here, pulling my hands up and pushing down on the footpegs to jump clear. Ugly yes, effective you bet! Until I land leading with my right shoulder and head. Ouch! I leap to my feet and turn to find the bike only two meters away, engine still running. I push the kill switch and look at the bike to see oil everywhere! Picking the bike up it will not move and I look down to see the carbon front wheel has collapsed. SHIT! $1800 down the drain.

Back in the pits I find my helmet is damaged to. Quickly I call Craig White to see if he has any spares, no he did not bring any.  Craig calls Rick Heffernan from Albury. Rick is believe it or not in a bike shop! Rick agrees to bring me a new helmet on the morrow, life saver Rick.  The replacement front wheel is not an issue I have a spare for the wet. The oil leak though is massive, and I remove the clutch over and outer again to find the small inner seal completely pushed out. Placing my finger over the end of the shaft I can feel the a massive amount of pressure pushing air out quickly followed by volumes of oil! Something very odd is going on.  I call Mike and give him the good news, I am alive and about ready to burn the bike to the ground. I give him a full briefing and tells me to go and have a beer while he thinks about it. Nursing a very sore shoulder I follow his instructions all the while thinking about why this bike refuses to work for us.

The mystery bolt!

Wrap up: A full day at the track and seven laps! Well that's seven times better than last time at Eastern Creek. During dinner Mike calls me and talks me through what he believes is the issue. He believes that the cases we have are for a wet clutch bike, and there is an oil feed to the centre of the clutch. He points out the mysterious bolt by the counter shaft sprocket on these cases that is also on the 800M cases. Our minds crank overtime to consider this is an oil gallery drilled on wet clutch bikes, but undrilled on dry. All makes sense to me.
By 9pm I am back at the track. I pull the clutch push rod and start the motor, volumes of oil pour from the clutch pushrod hole on both sides. With the mystery bolt undone and extra hands from Scotty Brown to start the bike we quickly find this indeed an oil feed to the clutch pushrod. Oil comes gushing out of the bolt hole along with a spring and ball bearing! I call Mike and we confer, if the ball bearing is held down no oil will be feed to the clutch pushrod. I make a spacer to replace the spring from a steel drill bit,  while Scotty helps change disks on wheels etc. Measuring three times the depth from back of ball bearing to top of the bolt hole, I average them for the spacer length. At about 1030pm with the spacer in place we start the bike. No oil geysers! I call a tired sounding Mike to give him the good news. Scotty heads off to bed. I drink some more gator aid, make a cup of tea and reassemble the bike. Sometime around 1130pm I get the fibre glass box out and set to repairing the destroyed front guard. It has been demolished by the collapsing front wheel. With 2:30am on the dial I fall into bed in the back of the van. All I have to do is bolt the front guard on and I am ready to ride.

Saturday 19 March

Qualifying: 8 laps best of 1:05.443 10th place start.
In a single session I get as many laps in as the last two full days of track time. I pull in after two laps to the pit lane and have  good look around the bike. I see small residual amounts of oil but nothing new. From there I push on for another 8 laps. My initial impression of the bike being a bit nose heavy are confirmed by some wild moments off the hump on the back straight, I have the damper on hard by the third quick lap. It's going hard, but I am really lacking confidence in my turn one tip in, and also onto the front straight.
Changes: I pull the back down by 7mm and push the front up by 5mm. Its a bit of a gamble but the bike feels very nosy and the bike is spinning and drifting everywhere. I have never felt a bike less stable down the back straight here. Thankfully the db1 Beta EVO is so small that I am sure it will survive without loosing its flickablity.

Race 1: Fastest lap: 1:04.961, ultimate lap 1:04.932 on lap 5/6
I get a good start with the bike proving easy to launch. I get caught up with Bill Shannahan and a couple of the slower 4 valve Ducati's. Bill is riding well and follow him to the line in 9th place. I am struggling to get the power down onto the front straight. After all the drama's I've had I am very nervous of another mechanical issue. Having said that the bike was flawless in this race.

Race 2: Fastest lap: 1:05.016, ultimate lap 1:04.995 on lap 5/6
A good race. I managed to get ahead of some of the big bikes on the run down into the pit entry corner on lap one. This allowed me to take the fight to them a bit easier, messing up there lines in the tight stuff. It worked pretty good with me being able to take 6th place outright! Nice.

Sunday 20 March

Race 3: Fastest lap: 1:04.012, Best rolling lap: 1.03.838, ultimate lap 1:03.773 on lap 5/6
A good race, I wish these big bikes were out of my way in the tight stuff. Here is the video.

Race 4: Fastest lap: 1:04.087, Best rolling lap: 1.03.544, ultimate lap 1:03.399 on lap 4/6
This was a strange race, with one of the front running bikes exploding! This made Mark Belestro shut off big time, hence me and Bill Shannahan caught him with a lap to go. Enjoy.

 

Racing Wrap: First in F3 with four wins. Four tenths of a second off the lap record, I know I can beat it.  I wanna come back when the bike is finished!

Beta EVO MKIII testing

While helping out John Iles at the creek today I got the chance to test the bike. The misfire was evident even at load throttle positions, so I could test it statically at idle without drama. Borrowing a infared thermocouple from Jon Price I could detect a huge difference in front to rear temperature on the header pipes.

Working on the principle that the rear pot was not working I went through the following list.

• Replaced all spark plugs
• Swapped coils front to rear
• Swapped the injectors front to rear
• Swapped the fuel flow front to rear
• removed 10% fuel
• Removed 20% fuel

After all that work and the bike still misfires. hmmm. I am getting ready to set fire to this thing! I also threw in the clutch seal, which seemed to fix the clutch oil leak problem.

With no time left, I am going to Broadford with an unsorted bike, and one test lap under my belt. Such is the life of the bike builder.

Beta EVO MKIII Dyno Day 2

We ran the bike up again today on the RB Imports dyno. We where trying to test the engine after the crank case issues, and see if the changes to the air gap paid out.

We reduced the air gap this time to .6mm, there was no difference in the flat spot at 7400. We only got two runs in before the bike started pouring oil out of the clutch like the Exon Valdez.

Fark a duck this is getting ridiculous! I call Frasers and get a new internal clutch seal (the small one) ordered in from Simon.

I take the bike out to see the D-Moto team, Shaun and George, and explain the misfire.  They through me a few idea's. I put them in the bank until tomorrow at the creek!

Crank case repair!

Laying down on the job

Bella the super mechanical puppy!

After a frankly shitful day yesterday it was nice to get to Mikes tonight. After a quick look at the bike he was pretty optimistic that we could fix it up.  The first pic below was from the welding up job. It took longer to blank off all the holes in the engine than to grind back and weld it up. As Mike likes to say give it enough electric putty and you can fix just about anything!

Freshly welded up engine cases.

This is the finished job a day later! When I came over on the 9th April, Mike had finished hand filling he cases back. .02 of a MM is a bloody good job by hand!  Already for a clean up before we bolt it all together and take it back to the dyno!

Test day: Eastern Creek

The Beta EVO sounding lovely and strong on the single lap I got in at Eastern Creek today. Unfortunately the bike broke a chain adjuster in the second lap. This caused the rear wheel to lock up and try to throw me off in turn two. To compound maters the bike threw the chain and it smashed the engine cases and alternator cover!

Broken chain adjuster main part!

Broken Chain adjuster minor part! Peice of crap!

I thought I saw a putty tat! No thats a great big hole that is!

In the single run down the front straight the bike felt loose, leading me to think we have it a bit step. Something to work on at Broadford. I pulled the bike down at the track removing the alternator cover and proceeded to Mikes this evening. We stripped some of the alt gear out and plugged up the cases ready for welding. Thankfully the big piece of case was jammed into the motor meaning we could weld it back in!

The engine certainly seems to have an oil leak from the clutch to, either the small seal on the clutch push rod or the huge clutch seal is gone. There is continuing seeping oil from the bottom of the clutch.

Also the misfire we had on the dyno was not cured by the changes made to the air gap of the crank position sensor. Increasing it to .9mm was a waste of time. Damn it!

Whats next!

UPDATED: 15 April. As far as we can tell this pretty much happens because the rear wheel is not done up tight enough. Reef the back axle up and you'll be right!

Beta EVO MKIII Dyno Day 1

With a ride day scheduled for 7th March. I really wanted to get the engine working under load and see what the fueling was like. I had loaded the Nemesis with a map from a Hypermotard fitted with open airbox and DP cams. I know we did not have the DP cams in yet but this was a close as I could find.

Here is a quick vid of the beastie on the dyno!

And here are the results. The image below shows three runs we did today, and the 800M data. The ones showing 80+ HP are from the HM engine, with a peak at 95HP. A bit more to come with the DP cams when we get them in. The huge drop out on the dyno is a very strange thing and I believe its due to the air gap on the crank position sensor being wrong. Post dyno run I ran out to Frasers and picked up two different size shims for the crank sensor. I'll pay with this on track come the 7th!

Thanks to Harley and Geoff and RB Imports Caringbah for the help with the dyno.

HM vs 800M big difference!!!

Beta EVO MKIII build Part 4

It Lives!!

Its looking more like a bike now!

Mike had finished the exhaust pipes during the week. As such we set about getting the bike ready for the dyno next week. We did not need to have clean air or the airbox ready, so we focused on getting the wiring loom back on, and the coils mounted up and the bike running! With some engine oil in we gave it a go....

Yes it lives, and it sounds totally horn! Hmmmm. I can't wait!

Beta EVO MKIII build Part 3

Putting it all together!

See a little different to the 800 but not by much. 10am start time

Today we threw the 1100 motor into the chassis and set about working on the chassis. Mike ground off all the mounting tabs for the airbox, while I played with the rear shock linkage.  One of the big changes we had in mind this year was to lift the whole bike up by about 30mm. We used two Ducati 999 as our baseline. Measuring the crank centre to ground on both gave us a number of about 394mm. We inverted the rear shock linkage to get the ride height and swingarm angle we wanted. This caused a few problems with the tie rods to the swingarm needing to be shorted by about 10mm. Still small is lighter right!

With the backend done we threw the front end on. This proved what we had suspected with the forks needing to be 20mm further down in the clamps. While we were on the front end I fitted the lighter front fork springs we got from Nick Dole at TekNick. From 8.5kg to 7.5kg finally allowed me use some preload on the springs. Something I have been unable to do last year.

A few more adjustments saw us reach the 394mm we had in mind for the crank centre. The bike certainly looks taller which I think will look cooler to!

For the rest of the day Mike worked on the exhaust pipes. The heads on the DS engine have the exhaust ports at a very different height to the 800M. Mostly due to the extra bore, but there is certainly some design work to keep the port flatter on exit on the DS engine from the 800M. The rear header had to be dropped down further to clear the pump tank. Mike also wanted to put a mount on the frame supporting where the header meets the muffler. This is where the pipe broke at PI last year.  The mount was designed to hold both header and muffler in place.

Once we had the rear header pipe put together we used this as a template for the front pipe to get the same length. With the work to match the header length, and put a new mount on the front pipe the right hand muffler had to be moved. This actually worked to our advantage with the new location providing room for the brake line and brake master cylinder.


We knocked off at 17:00 to have a beer and figure out what we'd do next.

Bike by days end! 17:00

Bike by days end! 17:00