Well, it’s time to report a major success! This should explain that rather bland looking low-quality photo just on the right.
I’ve said several times that I was working towards being able to start the engine and I finally got there this weekend. After considerable prevarication I finally ran out of displacement activity and set up the camera to take that photo on the right. Then I pressed the starter button and, right on cue, it started! If you click on the photo you’re quite likely to be able to watch a little low-quality video of the excitement. If you look hard you can see the blue flames coming out of the exhaust ports. As you can probably tell, I’m wearing ear defenders as I’m always very careful about my hearing after a mis-spent youth. Hence, I don’t really know loud it really was. But, I can tell it was actually LOUD.
The amazing thing is how easily it started after all the faffing about. I spoke to Andy about it later and he said that this was normal for the CBR1000. After all the fiddling about that was necessary with the CBR900 it was a nice change. Mind you, I’ve since realised a couple of things I should have tried. First of all, I should have checked that it actually responded to the throttle. I’m not sure I mentioned it but I installed the throttle cable a couple of days ago. As is normal for me I used some expensive MTB brake cable bought from Wiggle. I managed to patch a “noodle tube” into one of the adapters that connected the original bike twistgrip cables to the throttle bodies. That makes a nicely firm mounting for the cable.
Secondly, I should have tried connecting up the Power Commander and running it like that. I’ll probably try this in the next day or so just to check that the Power Commander is OK. In fact, I really ought to get it out of its box to see if it actually works.
I did, though, have the logger connected and on the left you can see the trace from one of the runs. One difference I did notice from the CBR900 is that it seems as though pulling starting current out of the battery has a more deleterious effect that it did before. This is the reason why this trace starts here: pressing the starter button actually stopped and restarted the logger. I had the in-car video running as well. (I haven’t included a sample here because you can’t see the blue flames!) and it seemed to have a horrible effect on that as well. However, you can see that the RPM settled down quite quickly to about 1800 rpm and the oil pressure shot up quickly to about 74psi. That’s pretty much on spec so that’s good. Of course, the oil’s cold at the moment but it’s a good sign.
With that done, I feel as if I’m on the downhill part of the process. As such, it’s probably time to start re-attaching the bodywork. So, I retrieved it from the shed where it’s spent the winter and put the left hand sidepod back on (although, of course, that’ll have to come off again when the exhaust is made). For some reason this stage is very important as the car suddenly starts to look like a car again.
While doing this I was thinking about all those things that I would normally have done to the car, such as checking the suspension alignment, that’s probably going to have to wait until after the Snetterton test. I have, though, started a process of reducing the weight of the car by reducing the weight of the fat bastard that’s driving it. There’s a long way to go though. Mind you, if Anthea can reduce her weight so dramatically then so can I.
The next problem is fitting the bonnet which is always a real faff without any help. I don’t feel as though I can ask Anthea because although she’s recovered well from the bypass she’s taking a long time to recover from the physical effects of the operation and in particular it’s hard for her to lift things. So, I’m going to have to struggle. However, the good news on the bonnet is that Andy’s new airbox has apparently seen the light of day. With luck I can get one this week. With that done I’ll be able to make an appropriately sized hole in the bonnet. In readiness for that I’ve taken off the rather neat little aluminium hump that I made at about this time last year for the CBR900. Seems an age ago really…