Topic: The 740 cc"Nazgul "cafe , its awakening

[Emokid]

Well riding season is over up here in the cold north , so its time to start tearing into my 76 550f , been riding it for a few months now , just to get to know it ( and of course enjoy the riding  ) .

So whats the plan you might ask
In brief my main goal is to get a good looking well performing vintage/racing/cafe style bike .
I will be tearing it to atoms , and start from there 

Engine - keep the 550 bottom , add 650 crank cylinders and head , try to keep the 550 valve cover for the    looks , machine in a cycle x 915 cc overbore piston and sleeve kit , i hope by machining down the outer diameter of the sleeves from 74 to 72 mm i will be able to fit them in the 650 cylinder (fingers xxxxx)
If that is impossible i will go for a 836 kit that will give me a 740 cc (this plan is all thanks to paulages very educational hybrid engine thread , thanks a million for the info )

Body - keep it light , will build my own seat and tank in epoxyresin and fiberglass , leave out all things not essential to performance and looks , so no practical stuff like fenders, chaincover , centerstand -------


Weight - figure its easier ,and cheaper to loose weight than to add hp , so i have a goal of getting the dryweight below 160 kgs /352 lbs , so i will loose all non essential weight like starter ,fenders,instruments, battery will be a lit/ion 2,4ah

so i hope you all will aid me in my quest to finish this project by mid April , all suggestions and input is highly welcome , and i hope i wont bore you to death 

[Emokid]

strip time 
Thats what it looked like a few hours ago , and a little later with a mockup of what i imagine the rear part of the frame should look like , and some brackets removed

[Emokid]

I left the engine in the frame , so i can see what it will look like while i make the plugs for the tank and seat .
Started off with a few pieces of Styrofoam and glued the together with spray on glue .
The seat part dried first so i started with that one 
I'm tying to make the lines of the frame tubing flow into the bodyparts , so the back of the seat padding is going to look like an extension of the rear tube in the triangle , the frame tubing will also be visible under the seatpan and cauling( i just have to do something to that ugly upper attachments of the rear shocks to make the frame lines flow more naturally)

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

Man, youve got my attention. Looks like the start of a great build.

[Emokid]

THIS IS GREAT FUN , I've built cars , and other stuff before , but boy ... I'm creating something from blocks of puffed up plastic !!!!!!!!!!!!
Now for the tank , again i want the lines to flow up from the frame into the body , trying to line up the front tube of the triangle with the back of the tank , and the front of the frame with the front of the tank , and just "bending " those lines together

[Emokid]

a little more shape

[Emokid]

rounding it of a bit

[Emokid]

So some sanding , and then adding some indents for my knees , i will have to wait for my clipons to arrive to see if i have to make some indents for them also , hopefully they will be here in a couple of days now .
And that's how far i got today , i think i will shave some of the top of the tank to make it less square , and look smaller .
please give some feedback to the shape while i can still change it easily ,speak now or forewer hold your peace

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

I found a great epoxy for lining fiberglass tanks. I dont know the fuel properties in Norway but here it will eat the fiberglass resin and gum up the carbs. Caswell is where I got the epoxy. I heard that POR15 doesnt last too long on the fiberglass.

I like how you cleaned up the floor before taking the pics! no mess, just a magical transformation of foam into parts. Great work so far!

[Tews19]

WOW a master with the styrofoam. Seats looks great . is that a mock up? or actual riding seat?

[Emokid]

I found a great epoxy for lining fiberglass tanks. I dont know the fuel properties in Norway but here it will eat the fiberglass resin and gum up the carbs. Caswell is where I got the epoxy. I heard that POR15 doesnt last too long on the fiberglass.

I like how you cleaned up the floor before taking the pics! no mess, just a magical transformation of foam into parts. Great work so far!

Thanks I knew i had to find a liner for the tank , but i figured that would be no problem since fiberglass tanks are pretty common .
Can you give me a link to the supplier ?

[Emokid]

WOW a master with the styrofoam. Seats looks great . is that a mock up? or actual riding seat?

Thanks 
Its a mold for the fiberglass I'm going to use for the seat , just had to squirt some black paint on to see how it would look 

[Greggo]

You're ambitious with the motor.  I like it

[FrankenFrankenstuff]

I thought it would be no problem as well. I got my hands on a vintage tank and was researching around for a liner. All I found were horror stories about the liner peeling off.

http://www.caswellplating.com/aids/epoxygas.htm

[Emokid]

You're ambitious with the motor.  I like it

Im going to be ambitious with it all , you ll see

here is today's effort in a couple of pics , made the indents deeper to better fit my legs when i tuck in , and rounded of the top a bit .
extended the seat that was a little bit short yesterday .
And sprayed on a little black just for fun (i don't think the pink styro is that pretty  )

Started picking apart the 650 engine I'm going to use as a donor for the crank and cylinders.....
The guy that sold it to me claimed he had turned it just to make shure it wasn't stuck , but that he would not turn it much because the camchain was of........ well he lied , plain and simple , the number three piston was rusted solid to the sleeve , no force could have turned that engine   
I'm using neither the pistons or liners , so it doesn't matter much after all , but still.....
At least the rest looked nice and clean , so i hope the parts will do the job .

Soooo, the original sleeves on the 650 is 65 mm outside diameter , and there is a distance of 11 mm between 1&2 and 3&4 , the 915 sleeves are 74mm OD, witch i plan to turn down to 72 mm OD ( it will keep a 2,5mm wall thickness) but that means there will only be 4mm of aluminium left between the 1&2 and 3&4 , will that be enough , any thoughts on this

[Emokid]

Cylinders and sleeves parted , OMG . i read on the forum that its just to heat up the cylinders a bit , and "tap" the sleeves out ......NOT on this 650 cylinder at least , ended up heating quite a bit , putting the cylinder upside down and knocking the sleeve a bit down , then turning the thing over and using a extractor to pull the sleeves out by the collar one by one , while heating with a propane torch .
It took a while , but i managed to get the 650 sleeves out , and then repeating the whole procedure on the 750 cylinder 

so here it is , 650 cylinder and 750 sleeves , ready to go to my machinist , just to get his opinion on how big a bore i can do on the cylinder , he is pretty damn good at high performance tuning so if he says no to the 72mm bore , I'm going to listen and go for a 69mm with 65 mm pistons .
Fingers crossed 

[SF]

WHAT DOES "NAZGUL" MEAN? INTERESTING BUILD BTW

[Emokid]

WHAT DOES "NAZGUL" MEAN? INTERESTING BUILD BTW

The Nazgul ,they  are the black riders of Sauron the dark lord , they are the undead that can come back in many shapes , just like this plain old cb    ( yes I'm a big LOTR fan / nerd )

[Emokid]

OK so i brought the cylinders over to my machine guy , and he says lets go big 
So then i stick to plan A , and one of these has to be ordered:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Honda-cb750-Cycle-X-915cc-Piston-Kit-big-bore-Cafe-Chopper-Race-/150663092083?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2314385773

[SF]

KOOL THEAM, WOULD MAKE FOR KILLER PAINT JOB.

[Tews19]

OHH MAN, thats going in the 550!!!!! I can't wait. What kind of time period are you looking at to get the engine running again?

[articblue]

watching interested in the theme / name

[MoMo]

So some sanding , and then adding some indents for my knees , i will have to wait for my clipons to arrive to see if i have to make some indents for them also , hopefully they will be here in a couple of days now .
And that's how far i got today , i think i will shave some of the top of the tank to make it less square , and look smaller .
please give some feedback to the shape while i can still change it easily ,speak now or forewer hold your peace

I agree with the tank shape, aesthetically the top does look too heavy and square-at least in the photo.  Ambitious plan, I will be following.  I would have thought the block space between the liner walls insufficient...Larry

[henrikm]

[norwegian] Veldig interessant, følger med! [/norwegian]

Very interesting start. Just about to start my 750 cafe build and am also planning to do my tank and seat in fibreglass. Will follow your build closely.

[Emokid]

So some sanding , and then adding some indents for my knees , i will have to wait for my clipons to arrive to see if i have to make some indents for them also , hopefully they will be here in a couple of days now .
And that's how far i got today , i think i will shave some of the top of the tank to make it less square , and look smaller .
please give some feedback to the shape while i can still change it easily ,speak now or forewer hold your peace

I agree with the tank shape, aesthetically the top does look too heavy and square-at least in the photo.  Ambitious plan, I will be following.  I would have thought the block space between the liner walls insufficient...Larry

Yep , will take a bit if the top to make the tank more slim, and look smaller .
About the liners -they may actually show between the cooling ribs of the 1-2 and 3-4 cylinders , im not quite shure , but we will machine a smaller collar , and see how we best can adjust the outer dim of the liners , with 72mm OD there should be aprox 5 mm left between the liners .