 ..has arrived and I’m nearly a year older as my birthday’s in only a week or so. I haven’t been well over Christmas, having had the worst migraine attack I’ve ever had. That’s a bit alarming actually, enough to actually drive me to the doctors. Of course, that was pretty much a waste of time…
As a consequence, I’ve made rather less progress over the break than I’d intended to. Ho hum. However, I have done a couple of things. Most importantly, the engine is now in properly with the engine mounts all painted properly. You can see the new POR-15 quite clearly in the photo. Although it’s the “same” colour as the old stuff you can see how much the old stuff has faded after a year exposed to the elements. |
 I’ve installed the fuel tank properly and here it is in situ. You can’t see in the photo but the fuel pump is properly installed in the bottom of the tank as well. Mind you, I think I’ve now decided that I really ought to flush the tank out again so I’ll probably take it out and pour a few litres of old petrol through it.
The tank’s held in position by a couple of straps and stopped from moving sideways by a couple of little aluminium brackets which you can just about see on the photo. I had a couple of problems with the previous tank moving sideways and for some unknown reason never thought of just installing some little tabs like this. |
 In addition to the tank I’ve run the fuel line to the front of the car. This is carried by some 5/16″ cunifer pipe that I acquired from Dan. Previously, I’ve just run rubber hose from front to back of the car. I’m not totally sure why I didn’t do that this time either, as the weight’s about the same. However, I didn’t.
For those readers familiar with injection engines you might be wondering where the return is. Essentially, there isn’t one. The engine ECU turns off the fuel pump when the engine isn’t running (there’s a relay in the loom to do that) and the pump includes its own regulator. So, there’s no need for the return line that’s often found in car-engine installs. |
 Thinking about pumps. I made a little aluminium extender for the problematic port on the water pump. However, in checking this the clearance is still difficult. Hence, I’m going to cut off the existing port and weld it back on at a bit of an angle. That should allow, I think, enough clearance.
In the meantime, I’ve been working out how to plumb the rest of the cooling system. It’s pretty much the same as the CBR900 really so shouldn’t be a problem. |
 The other device with clearance issues was the oil/water intercooler. With the engine in its final position this actually fits onto the engine fine, as in the photo here. I’ve decided that I’m going to stick with this, at least for the start of the season, and then possibly get a take-off plate made up with which to plumb in an oil cooler properly. In the mean time, I’ll just watch the temperatures carefully. |
 I’ve now reinstalled all the car electrics, including my bodged about CBR1000 loom. Over the next few days I’ll try and test all this. I want to be careful about things so I’ll take the ECU out first as I don’t want to toast it. However, at some point I’m going to have to actually try and get some sparks. I currently don’t have an exhaust system so I’m not going to be able to run the engine for too long. However, I might try it for a second or so, assuming that it moves at all of course. |
 As I think I’ve mentioned, I made a final engine mounting that connected the rear top of the engine to the top of the pedal box. Realistically, I actually think I could have connected the entire engine on this side of the car to the pedal box as it’s a pretty strong structure. However, this way there’s something to hold the engine should one or other of the mounts fail, something I’m always worried about after the failure I had on the original (although naff Fisher ones) mounts. |
 I’m not sure I mentioned it, but one of the problems I’ve found with the CBR1000 engine is that the gearchange works the other way around. This meant that if I’d connected up my existing gearchange then it would have swapped around the meaning of the paddles. That’s clearly a very bad idea and for a while I thought about going to a cable change.
However, I really don’t like them still and I realised that I could just extend the current gearchange shaft to the other side of the steering wheel, turn the paddle bar upside down, and it would reverse the sense of the paddles.I’ve now done all this, and also added the mandatory protection around the rod, using my traditional technique of an old master cylinder boot which I notice that Dan has copied as well. It’s quite interesting how we all swap ideas like this. There are several things on my car, such as the propshaft central bearing support, that I shamelessly nicked from Dan. |
 The big problem I’ve got now is getting an exhaust system made up. I’ve started phoning around but it’s looking as though making the Feb 14th date for the track day may well not happen.
This little thing here is an adapter to go in the exhaust port of the engine which converts the oval CBR1000 port into a round pipe. That, at least, should make things easier. |
 Unlike this which is the catalyst that I’ve got to fit into the exhaust. This is a really, really, stupid idea as the only effect of this will be to burn more fuel and hence increase CO2 emissions. However, it seems as though the denizens of the MSA don’t understand simple chemistry like this and they’ve decreed that we all have to fit these for the new year. What worries me is that it’s going to make the sidepod even tighter and, more importantly, it’s going to run really, really, really, hot. Putting something like that inside a GRP sidepod is really pretty daft. I suspect that I may well end up cutting most of the sidepod away to reduce the fire risk.
The MSA, of course, think the temperatures are OK because brake discs also get hot. The thing is, though, I don’t run my discs inside a narrow GRP cocoon. Odd that… |