What’s he doing?

I know, I know. It’s been ages since I posted here. I’ve got the obvious excuse, though, that things have been rather frenetic with respect to Anthea. However, she seems to be slowly on the mend now so my thoughts are turning back to car things. Inevitably, I didn’t do the Birkett. It might have been just about possible but, to be honest, my mind was on other things.

Essentially, there are 3 things I want to do to the car this winter, as in the following list. I’ve given myself a target for getting the car done by booking up for a track day at Snetterton on February 14th. That will probably be about a month before the start of the season proper and should give me a chance to see if the car actually works.

The to-do list is, then:

1. Fit the new engine. I actually already have the engine as I got it from Andy as he was driving home from the Birkett. However, we took the engine into the garage and it’s been sitting there ever since. There’s a whole stack of things that need to be done as part and parcel of fitting the new engine which include:
   • Modifying the fuel tank. The new fuel pump fits up into the bottom of the tank and I either need a new tank, or to modify the existing one, as to weld in the fuel pump mounting plate that I’ve got from Andy.
   • Engine mountings. Obviously, I need a complete new set of mounts doing. Mildly annoying as I made some super new mounts last year for the 919 engine.
   • New electrics. Needless to say the CBR1000 engine is much more complicated from the wiring/loom point of view. I’ll have to work out how to graft this into the existing loom. Kind of a bummer really as I remade the loom last year with absolutely all the wires I needed in it and nothing else.
   • Get a new exhaust system made. This will have to include a catalyst because of regs changes. (Barking changes in my opinion but there we are.)
   • Propshaft changes? I’m not sure about this but I’m wondering if the propshaft will need changing slightly.
   • The clutch actuation will need changing as the CBR1000 has a hydraulic clutch. I think I can buy a new pedal for the existing pedal box. I hope so anyway as I wouldn’t want to change all that again.
   • The gear linkage is quite different, so I’ll need to work out what to do about that.
   • I’m worrying that the snazzy new driveshafts won’t be up to the torque produced by the CBR1000. That might be stupid as the current torque is limited anyway by the tyres letting go and I’ll have essentially the same tyres on the car anyway.
   • I don’t know how to fit an oil cooler to the CBR1000. I might need to make up some sort of take-off plate myself. It may be, of course, that the intercooler will be sufficient to it might be that just fitting a temperature sensor and watching the display would be a good start.
2. Modify the suspension
   • I talked about this a while ago. What I’d like to do is to modify the chassis so that there are an alternative set of pickup points available. Then, if I’ve got time I can make the new wishbones, etc., that are necessary. However, if I get closer to the Feb 14th cutoff date I can just run with the existing suspension.
3. A general clean up of the car.
   • I’m sure there’s lots of little things I want to do. I’m not sure that I’ll get time to do too much though. If nothing else though, I’d like to have a huge and complete look at all fasteners and rod ends to see what needs replacing.

Before I do any of this, I need to have a big tidy up. I need to do this in particular because I’ve bought a lathe and I need to make sure that I’ve got somewhere to put it between all the rest of the detritus. I think a big tidy up is also going to have to include the back of the house, where the burnt out bodywork still sits, and the shed which has quite a lot of car stuff in it.

I may even repaint the floor…