Apparently, Paul’s been doing some calculating and he reckons that it’s Derek‘s championship this year. That’s good news really as Derek’s a great guy and he’s a superb driver. It’s only a pity that he’s had so little competition this year, let’s hope it hots up in class A next year.
As for me I’m actually musing what to do for next year, assuming that I can actually afford it. (After all, I’m a mere graduate student these days…) I did wonder about joining Derek and company in class A, in particular because Derek will be selling his car. However, I tried sitting in it at Oulton and, as is to be expected, fitting my legs in is a compete non-starter. Some people might find this surprising as Rob, the chap who drove it last year, is taller than me. However, I know that I’m all out of proportion in that my legs are much longer than ought to be the case for someone my height. You might well think that I’m out of proportion width-wise too but that’d just be cruel. Mind you, that has to be one of the winter targets, methinks.
So, that leaves me with a decision. The choice appears to be:
- Just carry on where I am. After all, the racing’s often good. I’d probably try and make the suspension a bit better and also try and find some way of getting some weight out of the bodywork, which is ridiculously heavy. This is probably still the most likely choice, but I do feel like a bit of a change. I also think that I’m getting close to where I can get. The problem really is that the car, with me in it, is about 40kg overweight. To be fair, most of the cars (we had a mass weigh-in at Silverstone) are about 15kg over but that 25kg is probably significant. However, I should be able to get about 10kg of that weight out of the car by remaking the bodywork in some manner that is beyond Fishers themselves. (I’ve no idea why, but there it is.)
- Build a new car, probably for use in either class A or B. I did seriously think about this for a while, seriously thinking about a Spire. However, I think I’d have the same problems as for the BDN. What’s more, it’s easy to seriously under-estimate the amount of work in a new car, as I know from the rebuild that I did last year.
- Put a new engine in the Fury, probably to move up to class B. The engine would most likely be a CBR1000RR, the new Fireblade. This is one of the current crop of 1 litre “screamer” engines which are producing alarming large amounts of power out of small engines. There are other possibilities such as the ZX-10 and Yamaha R1. These often produce more power than the Honda but their power bands are often rather narrower. For example, at 8000rpm the Honda (a 2006 variant) makes, in standard form, makes about 94bhp but an R1 of similar vintage makes about 85bhp. Admittedly, the R1 goes to a rather higher power peak at a higher RPM, but there isn’t much of a difference when a better exhaust system is added. (All of the power curves for these engines are available at the Akrapovic site.
Currently, I’m tempted to go with the third option. There would be a lot of stuff to do though as well as just fitting an engine, including:
- Connecting up the clutch, apparently the CBR1000 has a hydraulic clutch.
- Getting a sump that would work.
- Making some new engine mountings. (Which, of course, I did last winter as well.)
- Getting a new exhaust system
- Fitting all the new electronics. The CBR1000 is fuel injected engine and would need a Power Commander to allow the ignition and fueling to be mapped.
- Making some sort of bulge in the bonnet to cover the engine. The modern engines are much taller than the old ‘blade, often because they’ve got secondary injectors, and it needs rather a large bulge in the bonnet.
Hmm, this is confusing. I’m also slightly worried that fitting a new engine might be made much more difficult by my larger than average pedal box.
Any suggestions gratefully received, just click the comment button below…