November 2nd

Well we got loads done last month but we've hit a bit of a lull. I'm waiting for the air filters to arrive, due next Friday at which point the bike is heading Mark Dent's way. To appease my need to keep things moving I ordered the Ohlin's rear shock, and Mark Drysdale's shift shaft support and Clutch housing.

Spoke with Mark again yesterday and he's dyno'ing a bike at BDK's next Saturday. So hopefully I get up there to have a long chat. One interesting little snippit is news that Mark Dent is taking delivery of a new crank assembly with 103mm rods to experiment with. the theory is that the RG500 is already overbored and it's worse still with a 570 kit, the way I would like to go ... but if the stroking works better we shall have to try that instead :o)

November 9th

Well what an enjoyable day. I spoke with Mark Dent today at BDK. He was there with an RGV500 to sort out on the dyno. Instantly likeable, Mark really knows his stuff, and if you can ever get an word in edge ways, he might actually answer your questions ;o) James at BDK also makes for interesting conversation, and if he can pull off a favour for me I will be one happy chappy (I can say no more and my lips are sealed). Hearing an RG500 on full song for the first time definitely got my blood pumping, and this one was supposed to be quiet! Yeee bloody hah is all I can say. See this, this is one excited mofo!

Once my two remaining filters arrive from those useless barstewards a Cambridge Discount Autoparts, the bike will be heading down to Mark's gaff. His remit will be to take out the engine, fettle a 570 kit into the motor, build some pipes to suit, bore the carbs to 31.5mm, install the grose valves and return said motorcycle in a reasonable high but (reliable) tune. We expect to know more of what hp to expect nearer the time, but with some advance curve messing about, a BDK powervalve control adjuster, it is not unlikley that we won't be knocking on the door of 115-120 bhp, showing a lovely fat midrange, and all without over revving the engine.

Some discussion was had about machining in some extra boost ports, but I'll leave that in the capable hands of Mark to decide.

Also talked to Clive Baker, who is building a gorgeous RS500 also - I'll hope to talk more with him when I take the bike down to Mark ... he lives just around the corner.

Kevin Cordina is making another trip up to fettle electrics tomorrow .. so more on that later ... but we hope to plumb in the petrol pump, standard RS clocks, charging circuit, and lights also hopefully. More on that tomorrow. We'll see how we get on.

11th November

Kevin completed the temporary loom yesterday to incorporate the charging circuit. The loom is all separate wires at the moment, and we've used some blue plastic splices to connect into the live and earth feeds - these will eventually be replaced in the final finsihing stage of the loom when we have everything wired up. The advantage of having a loom built is that you can place clusters of connectros where they make sense ... for instance to help make iot easy to swop out the road fairing, complete with lights, for your track day fairing. With the temporary loom done, Kev is drawing up his wiring diagram for the next stage, and will be sending me a list of parts to procure for the job.

The bike is now ready to head to Mark Dent's emporium for fettling the pipes, 570cc kit, ITG filters etc. The K&N filters I ordered have proven problematic to source, and I buggered up when measuring the space behind the fairing! I made the mistake of not accounting for a small bulge in the fairing lower which robs much needed space on one of the carb pairs. As a result the mounts are way off on the rear of the fairing, and I'm detrmined to use the standard fairing in road trim. I toyed with the idea of drilling a hole to allow the filter to poke through ... but then I came to my senses, so I'm opting for Mark's recently released filters from ITG. They'll fit perfectly, and will flow sufficient air for any tune I want to put on the bike.

In addition to all that the bike now also has a chain and sprockets. I've gone with 16/42. That's 2 teeth larger on the rear over standard. Any larger and I'll be concerned about the chain run fouling the cross member on the lower frame over which the chain runs. The shake down runs will help sort this out, and there's always the option of reducing the front to 15.

I also spent some time sorting out the fuel pump trying to decided where to mount it. I tried a variety of different brackets before I settled on one which is mounted off the back of the power valve actuator mount. The fuel piping routes away from the exhausts as best as I can and is heat shielded with some carb springs I found lieing around at Cambridge motorcycles. I'm happy with the location and routing for now, and unless I have a brain wave it will stay as it is.

Anyhow, there some more photos to have a shufty at.

November 13th

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Good news, OK!! I took the bike down to Dent Engineering today taking the day off work to drive the 3hrs down there. So what's the bad news? Well of all the hundreds of hours I spent towing bikes around the country I have never ever damaged a bike in transit .. well until today :o( Damage is minor ... the rear right hand side of the seat unit is scuffed up by rubbing against the side of my box trailer when it shook loose from it's tie downs. Pissed off ... the first bike I really want to keep nice, and I go and scuff it up! Anyhow .. what the hell, it's an excuse to get a self supporting carbon seat unit.

Dent engineering is a buzzing place ... loads going on ... and very impressive! Mark's bike just sounds the business, and the vids on his site do not do it justice. The crackle from those pipes is wonderful. We went over evrything that needs doing, and the options for furtehr tunig keep popping up. It's easy for me .. just get me 120 hp at the rear wheel, with a progressive and smooth curve .. easy! Mark reckon 3 weeks or so!!! CHristmas wil be early this year :o)

Done some checking on the rim sizes ... stock Aprilia is 4.5 inch rear rim, and 3.5 inch front. It runs a 120 front and a 150 rear combination. I think that a 5.5 inch rear with 180 will lead to too many issues for me with chain runs and alignment and while possibly offering more foot print (for the drive out of corners), and arguably looking more athestically pleasing, will not offer the turn in of 3.5 or 3.75 inch front and 5.0 inch rear with a 120/60 160/60 combination slicks. On the track this should be great. There's a bike show in Brum on the 20th, so I'll be mostly checking out the magnesium wheel sellers.

November 23rd

So .... let me see, what's happened recently. Well I stopped by Dent Engineering to see how things were going and drop off the fairing, shift shaft support, and clutch housing. Mark has bored the carbs out to 31.5mm. They look great, a really nice job that unlike some carb bores does not lose the brass insert that injcts oil into the air fuel flow - this often just simply gets ground off with the rest of the material during the widening. We've ordered the carbon end cans from Swabrick, and the engine is out and barrels ready to be bored to accept the new pistons.

I also discussed electronics again with Mark, and have finally bitten the bullet. For now I'm going to wait for the Wolf 3D igniton and forget about modifying the standard box. We'll lose some power initially, but when the Wold ignition box becomes available with Mark Dent's maps, the whole system will be that much more flexible. We'll still use the SEAC adjuster provided by BDK.

I also visited the NEC show and have pretty much decided (convinced myself more like) that the 5 spoke Carbon rimmed wheels Dymag have released have got to be on the list of purchases - gorgeous looking things, and I'm on a promise to receive a discount. Just need to sell the TZ250 to get there. They look a little like the wheels shown except have 5 spokes obviously!

November 27th

We had a slight problem now resolved! Seemingly the Disc Vavles had previously been messed about with ... only with no real rhyme or reason and each one varied in it's duration. Mark was unable to apply his preferred tune to them as the durations already applied on the leading edge and/or trailing edge made it impossible. Once again Cambridge motorcycles have come up trumps .. can't speak highly enough about them ... they procured 4 new disc valves for 115 quid, and shipped them direct to mark. Spoke on Friday, ordered Monday, delivered Tuesday repackaged, sent and delivered to Mark for Wednesday .. can't complain can you. Top blokes.

November 30th

Just a very quick addition ... Pipes are underway!! Mark dropped me a mail today to let me know that he'd managed to get quite a bit done on the bottom pipes. Check out the photos section.