Race update
Hello sohc’ers, been away for a while wrenching and racing, time for an update
With my bike running pretty well at the end of last season and a heavy winter looming I decided to try spend a bit lees time in my cold underground garage. I limited my work to fitting new valves in the head (pattern from David silver), adapting a half fairing (Ducati 750 Imola replica) and creating a new braking system with small Brembo calipers. The last job turned out to be quite long with lots of fitting, shimming and turning of special spacers. Glad how it came out though. With all due respect for the modern calipers that some fit to sohc’s, I think this is the way to go if you want your CB to look period. Just by switching to these from the original Honda heavy items I’ve saved a good 3 pounds of unsprung weight and after hooking the lines up the lever firm more solid than ever. See them here:
http://forums.sohc4.net/index.php?topic=44616.msg470555#msg470555Managed to bring the bike to the dyno before the first race in Rome, alas the dyno SW has crashed but at least I used the occasion to make a few pulls, check for oil leaks and stuff. We packed the car, drove down to Rome and happily I did the right thing and booked two free practice sessions Friday before the race. As I went to the track turned out that bike wasn’t running well, just not pulling as it should and my lap times were crap. Not that I knew why…. As it was very windy, I decided to try and lower the gearing as see if it helps. So lucky! As I took the rear wheel off it turned out that two of the four the bolts studs that transfer torque to the CB350 hub were broken. That would have been a DNF! Quick trip to the near town got me high grade steel 12mm bolts, so that problem solved. As I pulled out from the second session, bike was still running badly, time for a plug chop…. I usually do it by pulling the number four plug out but this time decided to see number three and found out that the HT wire was half out! That was the reason for the misfire! With that problem fixed bike was running like a gem. Another positive note is that the Brembo calipers transformed the braking, it is now constant, strong and fade free, really important in racing and the fairing helped a lot in the long straight of Vallelunga were you easily hit 120-130 with our CB’s. That straight has a serious kink that you take flat out at 120… pretty scary that one.
Qualified well in the middle of the 500 field, race went really well with me getting a nice 9th place out of some 18 starters in the class at my first time in this difficult track.
Race two was a month later and went even better. On the two wet qualifying sessions on Saturday I’ve ended up sixth out of 20 on the gird, the first time ever that I start from second row! Looks like I do well in the wet. Shame that I somewhat blew the start on the race on Sunday, losing quite few places. Then I lost some more places when I had the bike crossed up in one wet turn! (see pic). The track was only half wet and drying so I held my own to finish in eight place out of 18 while the pace slowly picked up. The nice thing is that I fell like my riding improved lots this year, so looks like I finally need to invest in a set of 29 CR’s or VM’s to close the power gap that I have. If anybody got a set he’s not using, I’d love to hear from him.
Next race is in two weeks time near Milan and I’m quite pumped up. After this race I have a longish break and I am going to pull the pistons out (they are a season old) as the bike is starting to smoke pretty heavily now and seems to need a rebore.
Cheers for now
TG
