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This page is for my projects,  both finished and "work in progress".

Project C90-ZZR. Started life as this sorry looking bike. A 1981 Honda C90-ZZ. Rescued from a backyard where it had hibernated for a number of years. I paid £20 for it as "Spares or repairs" and was thinking more along the "spares" path rather than repairs!

After stripping it down and deciding on the repairs route everything was taken down to bare metal. Holes and cracks were MIG welded and filled, several coats of rust inhibitor then primer were sprayed, and finally top-coated with red enamel. I wanted a durable finish as it is destined to be a work-horse. At this stage the frame is finished, the front forks are on, and a new wiring loom is fitted to solve any future reliability problems with the ancient 6v electrics.

The engine was stripped and rebuilt. Again for reliability I opted for genuine Honda parts including all the seals (gearbox/lever/kickstart etc.) It was rebored to accept a 1mm oversize piston, the head was mildy ported and polished, valves re-ground, and the cases coated in black and grey VHT paint. The carb is a Keihin PB 25, origin unknown, with the emulsion tube drilled and tapped to accept 5mm Keihin jets. It`s running a #80 main-jet and a #38 pilot which seems to work fine with the K+N filter from a Suzuki VZ800!

Almost finished and back from a test run. The twin headlight fairing was adapted to 6v and fitted as it was cheaper than a replacement standard headlight. A new exhaust with free-flowing baffles, new rear shocks and Metzler ME22`s and new front fork linkage bushes were the more expensive items fitted. The original dual seat base was retained, however I cut it in half and covered it using a leather mini-skirt bought from a charity shop for the material!An alloy rack takes the place of the pillion half of the seat.

The finished bike. Total cost was about £250 to get it on the road.

This is project Zip 50. At the moment all tuning info is classified and would take a whole webpage to describe anyway. The one thing I will divulge...You see the front shock covers? They are 48mm exhaust pipe covers bought from Halfords;-) You need a MIG welder to fit them though. Many thanks to Alan at Beedspeed for speedy parts service. All work and research /welding/spannering/re-building /spraying was done by Dave and me.

Project `Red Dwarf` Drag Sprinter developed from a Piaggio Hexagon 125 LC Commuter Scooter.

Initial build-up useing the basic engine to get length etc. correct. The single side front end is staying for the moment. Wheels are 10" diameter so work out the height of the bike yourself! No rear suspension, a solid strut keeps it in-line.

Secondary build up is now complete. The frame has been braced and the seat unit is now in place. The minimal fuel tank sits under the seat unit and holds 2 pints of pre-mix `enough for a couple of runs where it is re-fueled in the paddock.

Stage 3 build. The exhaust was scavanged from a breaker and gutted then re-welded. The end can is alloy tube and baffle-packed for back pressure. The carb and filter are in place and the header tank is mounted above where the radiator will sit at a `rakeish` angle. The front spring pre-load strut is on as is the electrics mount and the alloy Zimmer frame handle-bars! The false number plate hides the fuel tank and the tail-light! is just a reflector. This bike has no battery, running a total loss system direct from the magneto. It does have a kill-switch which cuts out the coil incase things go tit`s-up;-) The BMX pegs have been extended to make it easier to get my feet on after launch.The seat base is cut from a wheelie bin and covered  in `Armour-Flex`.The air filter is a cyclist`s drink bottle with the appropriate size of holes for the jetting drilled in it and covered in the mesh from a chip-fat strainer. Next stage is "Run RED-DWARF". "Smoke me a kipper".

The first run on Red Dwarf resulted in a melted main bearing after a good first 1/8 mile the engine cut-out and had to roll over the 1/4 mile line.The chassis ran fine and this run was made with an untested/scrapper of an engine.After a strip down the barrel and piston are good but the mains and crank are history so now it`s in bits and a new crank/mains are on the way. I always anticipated this when I could wobble the magneto by hand! But it served to prove the frame/wheels etc. would run in a straight line. The project continues when parts arrive.

Having no way to run Red Dwarf for the rest of the day we decided to run the Zip 50 for a laugh. A mildly tuned;-) 50cc twist`n`go, restricted to 30mph. 1/8 mile......47mph. 1/4 mile......52mph ET 22secs. Reaction time was crap and it wheelied off the line loosing valuable seconds. Not bad for a `ped but much more to come.

Stage 4 Build.

There have been a few cosmetic changes made such as the nose fairing but the major work remains unseen. The Piaggio engine has been gutted, only the crankcases remain, and all the internals have been replaced with late model/low mileage parts from a Gilera Runner 125 FX. This involved opening up the crankcases as the crank webs were 2mm larger than the Piaggio crank, the cases were ported while they were seperated. The standard variator rollers were replaced with Malossi 12.5g items and the clutch springs swapped with Malossi race springs. The reed block has been opened up and the OE reed petals changed for Malossi carbon-fibre petals. The standard Mikuni VM20 was replaced with a Mikuni VM28 powerjet carb off a Yamaha RD350lc ypvs breathing through a 6" diameter K+N filter from a Ford. The exhaust was modified and tuned to produce maximum power in a narrow band from 7000-8500rpm, it runs straight through and is very loud, the baffle can is a dummy;-)

There were some tuning issues with the exhaust pipe,namely the header part being of too small a diameter and too long to allow proper breathing. It was replaced by a more conventional expansion chamber of unknown make,sourced again from a breakers,with a 35mm inlet. The muffler is a cut down item from a Honda NSR 250. The K+N filter was moved to sit above the carb as the inlet manifold was shortened moving the carb closer to the reedblock.

Another test run.The bellypan was fabricated by me to conceal a 12v sealed battery.This will power an electric waterpump and tempreture guage.The original drive belt that powered the oil and water pumps has been removed thus freeing up the crank. The magneto rotor has been machined down to save reciprocating mass and the toothed gear ring on the variator that engaged the electric start has been machined off. Best time without these mods is 16.55secs at 72.3mph however due to the weather and circumstances we havn`t been able to test the bike with these improvements yet.

Things have moved on apace with the building of another sprinter and further modifications to both the bikes. The Mikuni carb was swopped for a Keihin PWK 28mm flatslide and new exhausts were made for both bikes. We decided that it was time to move on from 125cc and have begun developing them with Malossi 172cc kits and this continues on the next page. The final results running as 125cc were very good but as most scooter tuners immediately turn to the 172 kits as a first step we don`t have much of a benchmark for comparison. Best results achieved by Red Dwarf were:  16.162sec at 71.66mph. Blue Dwarf achieved a best of 17.028sec at 72.11mph.