Performance Bikes January 2009 sampler

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New bikes///ModerN legeNds///used Metal

ÂŁ2.99

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the first ducati +new test1198 zx-6r

zx-10r

fa tion sec shifter

ker e quic e mad ik b your

best kwak ever

166bhp 214kg scalpel

quicik ilter & a refst t

177bhp 267kg sledgehammer

ÂŁ2.99

JAN 2009 usA $8.95

hyperbikes v sportsbikes

awesoMe hayabusa blackbird zzr1400 v gsx-r1000

But which is Best for Blasting British roads? p1 PB jan Front coverPDp copy.in1 1

19/11/08 10:00:15

PB Analysis

Is thIs bIke faster than yours?

The BMW R1200RT is The Fed’s neW Weapon oF choice.

Think you could ouTRun iT? words Olly CriCk Pics rOry Game

what happened to the pans With the demise of the police’s fleet of ST1100 and ST1300 Pan Europeans, the R1200RT is now favoured in policing circles. The Pans were withdrawn following a fatal accident and a coroner labelling them unstable after hearing they weaved around a bit at speed. Well no shit, Sherlock, given all the crap they were loaded up with. After the inquest, forces went health and safety mad and all serving Pans were restricted to 80mph, not by any mechanical or electronic means, but by officers being told not to go beyond that. And because they’re all tracked by GPS, it was fairly easy to tell if they had been. Pity the bike-loving plod who’d only signed up to legitimise his messing around on bikes.

But the 80mph limit was short lived; it wasn’t long before all serving Pans were rammed into a lock-up in Bicester with their frames angleground to ensure they couldn’t be reused. enter the BMw r1200rt The new kid on the block in its basic form is a stock R1200RT. To you and me that’s BMW’s very stable sports tourer punting out around 110bhp@7500rpm and 85lb.ft@6000rpm. The police model is the R1200RTP where the ‘P’ stands for police. It will do around 55mpg at 80mph and has a fuel tank capacity of 27 litres (six gallons). With all its kit and fully fuelled it weighs in at an estimated 260kg, giving a powerto-weight ratio somewhere around 0.42bhp/kg. Some way short of a performance bike. You’ll only take us alive, copper, by taking advantage of your superior tank range.

Some forces, still a bit windy about ‘instability’, have already placed a speed ceiling on them. Thames Valley, for instance, have a 111mph limit. But other forces have no limit. At PB’s photoshoot, we overheard officers discussing their day: ‘138mph flat-out on the A14.’

Modifications and equipMent Apart from police bolt-ons, there isn’t much difference between force and stock bikes. Engines aren’t tuned or chipped, brakes and suspension are standard BMW, and tyres are Bridgestone BT020.

Swingarms, frames, steering geometry etc are all stock, even suspension settings mustn’t be altered from standard. ‘It’s all there, we can see it but can’t touch it,’ PB was told. How frustrating, officer.

Bolt-ons have to be BMW approved, including strobes, switchgear, radio and siren – that’s just about all the extra standard equipment police riders now carry, apart from a big extra gel battery to power the lights at a standstill so the engine doesn’t have to be kept running, thereby overheating it. And apart from the riders’ boot-mounted CS sprays and batons, other kit is down to the individual rider – there’s room in the panniers for all sorts, this bike had a map, a ‘life-hammer’ for smashing crashed vehicle’s windows and a seat-belt cutter. style Billy-bolt-upright coppers are not always the case now. We hear some police instructors are actually encouraging a bit of weight transfer here and there, although it’s still unlikely you’ll ever witness a police bike

with its pilot’s knee on the deck. But although police riders have stringent tests and assessments, just like the wider biking fraternity some will have natural ability, others won’t. You can’t turn Elias into Rossi. And you can’t turn a bike cop into a performance bike-bothering state trooper when he’s stuck on a lardy tourer loaded up like a refugee from the Long Way Down. so can i outrun it?

With your left hand on your hip and two cogs to go in your gearbox. Is this the real reason the police have a wary approach to bike pursuits?

Thank you Cambridgeshire Police for allowing us to photograph a bike.

036

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20/11/08 11:31:15

Scott Redmond

StRipping yaRnS

Scottie is PB’s autojumble-lovin’, bargain-hungry breaker. Have a word on reservoircogs@btopenworld.com

I fought the law and the law won.

It’s 2am and the streets are empty, except for me and the Team PB GSX-R750 SRAD , British Summer Time’s just ended. Like it ever began. I’m a few miles from home, the Yoshi RS-3 is singing, the cheap and nasty screen obscures my view of the clocks, I’m probably going quicker than I should, my mirrors fill with blue flashing lights.

I pull over, switch off the bike and get ready for a talking to. Like a 12year-old outside the headmaster’s office my feet are suddenly really interesting to look at.

‘Morning,’ says nice copper. ‘So what we doing out at this time of the night then?’ ‘Testing my headlamps out actually,’ I reply. Well I was, sort of. This will be teams PB’s endurance bike, we’ll need good lamps.

Not a good start with hindsight. Plod spots the PB stickers and recoils like Dracula would at a cross. ‘They’re very irresponsible in that mag,’ he says. Great. Bad to worse. Turns out he’s a biker, he loves reading RiDE he tells me. We’re poles apart, I fear. The SRAD’s new MoT is barely dry, there are few obvious reasons why it shouldn’t actually have one at all, hope he doesn’t spot them. He doesn’t but he spots the lack of a tax disc. ‘It’s a race bike in waiting,’ I joke, again cringing as I say the words. I cobble together a tale about why it’s not taxed.

I show him my insurance and tell him my licence is lost. Not really selling it am I? He’s not even asked me to guess my speed yet, so not all bad. ‘Where’s your numberplate light?’ he asks.

‘Where are your indicators; that pipe’s a bit loud isn’t it?’

I do the international sign for I don’t know, a shrug of the shoulders while weighing up two imaginary bags of flour in my hands.

I take my lecture and don’t butt in, I’m finding my feet again. I explain our plans for the SRAD. How we will race it against our Euro chums and bring pride back to this great nation. He says, ‘That will be a good story.’ I’m winning him over, or so I thought. He then tells me how he sees the script, ‘Get that bike taxed within seven days or we’ll crush it.’

I close my legs to protect my crown jewels at the thought of it.

To be fair he was doing his job. I was maybe going a bit too quick. I feel like a British soldier playing football with a Jerry on Christmas Day. As I turn my back to go, in a true Colombo moment he says, ‘Just one more thing... that black visor...’

Next day I’m down the Post Office quicker than a pensioner on pension day. I drop £37 for six months’ tax. I’m legal and defeated. Next time Meet PB’s new copper, next time. SR photographers

‘get that bike taxed in seven days or we’ll crush it’

037

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20/11/08 11:31:59

obsession xxxIX

One-off expansion chambers (for more midrange)built by a PB forum member.

Twin stingers give big-bike credibility.

T

he Mito radiates red, a jewel in the grey, decaying industrial area that hides in the shadows of Didcot’s powerstation cooling towers. It attracts attention. The Kappa-wearing hoodies love it – the Mito is the poster bike of their generation. ‘It’s a 125, innit?’ they say. They don’t notice the fact it is actually powered by an engine older than they are and twice as powerful as the one it rolled out from the factory with.

researching the internet and came across a Mito 350, it seemed brilliant.

So I rebuilt the standard Mito engine, flogged it on eBay and then went to PB’s Scottie for a Yamaha 350 YPVS motor. I’ve always loved the idea of having a light, sweet-steering bike that could pack a proper punch.’ From then on it was downhill all the way. For two years the Mito battled against family, life and work commitments. It won.

But this Mito isn’t owned by a teenager. The product of a grown man, you’d have killed for this at 17. A tuned 350 stroker, shoehorned into the tiny chassis of the sexiest learner bike we’ll ever see. It has 68bhp, weighs 150kg, has proper brakes and paint so deep you could drown in it. Just £2000 and a couple of years of toil get you the kind of bike that we’d all be riding if the world hadn’t abandoned two-strokes.

‘It was all a bit an accident,’ says owner/builder Doug Beaven. I picked up the Mito for just £50 from a 17-year-old who needed the money to fix his Corsa. It had just been rotting on his drive. Originally I just wanted to do the bike up and sell it at a profit, but it all went wrong. I started

The Cagiva Mito is one of the most commonly used chassis for twostroke engine conversions. The frame just begs for a bigger, more powerful motor. Fabricated from cast alloy, the Mito has hugely strong main chassis beams, a sturdy headstock and the kind of crossbrace at the rear of the frame that makes you think Cagiva always had bigger plans for the Mito than a mere 125. The long wheelbase and stupidly long swingarm – over 40 per cent of the wheelbase – mean it can handle extra power and torque. A Mito’s engine hangs in the frame as a stressed member, so without a cradle it is easy to hang something else in its place.

Search the internet and you’ll see SV650 engines, RG500s, big four-

Chassis and engine installation

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20/11/08 13:27:29

Mito shape is now 15 years old. But nothing has bettered it yet. Bodywork needs just minor trimming.

Aprilia RS250 Cup forks.

Just £50 gets you a front end full of adjustability and feel.

‘The Mito’s throttle tube now opens two slides instead of one’ stroke singles, and angry, 500cc crosser engines (PB’s half-built CR500engined Mito is in my garage) all wedged into Mitos. It’s the perfect way to rejuvenate a bike discarded by a feckless teen.

‘The 350 YPVS conversion is by far the best if you want a practical road bike. It offers the most power, has huge tuning potential and is civilized, smooth enough not to shake home-made engine mounts to pieces. The only real disadvantage is the length of the engine.’ In fact the YPVS/Mito union is so common that you can actually buy conversion kits, but Doug decided to build his own.

Doug’s a clever bloke (he pays the mortgage by looking after particle accelerators) so he fabricated mounts from a sheet of 10.5mm alloy plate

p90-94 PB jan ObsessionCDP.sp.RE5 5

‘liberated’ from work. The rear mounts pick up on the swingarm pivot (they run through the pivot on the standard bike), while the front mounts curl around the motor and pick up the mounts coming off the frame. It’s neatly done and there’s no wasted space. ‘I wanted the whole thing to be reversible, just in case it ended in failure. The only bit of cutting and welding needed was at the front engine mounts.’ Machined alloy spacers make up the difference between engine and mounts.

The rest of the conversion made as much use of the Mito as possible. Its curved alloy radiator (too good for a 125, it can take up to 70bhp) was used, but needed the filler cap welding in and new hoses to mate to the YPVS’s water pump. The Mito’s oil tank hooks up to the Yamaha’s oil injection. Japanese electrics meet Italian switchgear and the Mito’s throttle tube now opens two slides instead of one. An R6 gearlever (with the pivot cut off and welded above the lever, instead of below, meaning the bike has a normal road pattern THANKS Andy Peck, change) mates with a home-made shift rod. Each one of Martin77, Craig at these things is dismissed in a sentence, but hours of Cmp racing, Oxford Industrial Finishes, thought and toil have made each one happen. Ó Ó Ó Anthony Jones

20/11/08 16:52:56

GSX-R cup

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20/11/08 11:59:34

PB’s GSX-R CUP

750h to K8 VIA SRAD. how fAR hAVe we Come? words matt wildee, scott redmond Pics james cheadle

the Suzuki GSX-R750 is the most enduring sportsbike ever built. No bike has remained in production for longer, no bike has defined the times of sportsbike Britian like this one.

PB has always loved GSX-Rs. The original 750F came out the same time as the first PB hit the shelves and we’ve been inextricably linked ever since. Like the magazine, the bike has been a reflection of the times we’ve lived in – from the weaving and wobbling 1980s to the mass centralised hyperreality that makes modern sportsbikes a miracle.

Today it’s better than ever – there hasn’t been a GSX-R as well-balanced and as sorted as this one.

It’s all down to revolution, combined with evolution. Apart from the dark days in the 90s when obese GSX-R750s wobbled and weaved in the wake of every other superbike, each model has been built with the same thing in mind. Light weight, proper handing, enough power. This bike made the template which all other performance bikes follow.

But how much have they improved over the years? Sense says that every evolution of the GSX-R got lighter, better and faster. But did they? To find out we’ve got a 1987 GSX-R750H – the most refined of the first-gen slabsided models, a 1996 GSX-R750WT – the first beam-framed GSX-R and Tim’s 2008 GSX-R750 K8 – the ultimate refinement of the GSX-R. Let’s race! Your commentator, Scott Redmond. Ó Ó Ó

077

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20/11/08 12:00:19

p98-100 PB jan products testCDP.98 98

19/11/08 18:18:14

µ

Performance Test

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Who is...

Olly Crick

● Price £71.91 ● contact 01995 600500 ● www.dynojet.co.uk

allergic to tat, olly, the uk’s leading product-testing journalist, will only fit the best bolt-ons to his own 98 r1.

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BmC raCe

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Made in california, usa.

Made in italy. bMc are Major filter suppliers to wsb teaMs. they also supply Mat Mladin in aMa.

Made in japan. the paper filter the 04-06 cbr1000rr coMes with as stock.

Made in northaMpton, england.

PaPer

fOam

● Price £50 ● contact Honda dealers

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HOnda

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099

p98-100 PB jan products testCDP.3 3

20/11/08 17:01:57

PB road test///technical

SUZUKI GSX-R1000 ENGINE

Four cylinders, 16 valves and only 999cc are needed for it to make the same peak power as the ZZR1400. If only it were that simple. Of course. the peak is the same but in the midrange it loses 40bhp.

How does it make the same peak? Revs.

The further you can rev, the more power you can make.

CHASSIS

The front suspension is adjustable for preload, rebound and compression damping (both high and low speed). The rear shock gets the full complement of damping too. The steering damper varies the damping force for low and high road speeds so you can still turn around in a car park without it feeling like steering through treacle. rearsets are adjustable too. Blimmin brilliant.

BRAKES

Four-piston radially-mounted calipers allied to 50kg less than the water buffalos gives the GSX-R a completely different feel to its brakes.

On the road they never get too hot, because there isn’t so much kinetic energy to convert to heat. They give ridiculous amounts of stopping power.

TECH highlight: power switch Sporty Suzukis now come with a power switch called Suzuki Drive Mode Selector (that includes the Hayabusa). Mode A gives you the full-fat of the engine (or at least as much as Suzuki decide). Mode B reduces the bottom end and midrange but leaves the top-end unfettered.

Mode C cuts power heavily throughout the rev-range.

Johnny found it harder to ride in Mode C in the wet than Mode A, purely because it needed working much harder and he was spending his time jumping on the gear lever.

gsx-r SPEC

Power 165.9bhp@12,000rpm Torque 78.4lb.ft@10,100rpm Capacity 999cc Bore & stroke 73.4mm x 59mm Brakes 2 x 320mm discs/fourpiston radial calipers; 245mm disc/twin-piston caliper Rake/trail 23.75°/98mm Wheelbase 1415mm Tyres 120/70 ZR17; 190/50 ZR17 Fuel capacity 17.5 litres Measured wet weight 214kg Claimed dry weight 172kg

HONDA cbr1100xx super blackbird SUSPENSION

The front is adjustable for preload only and the rear is only adjustable for preload and rebound. And that’s not enough adjustment to make it work well for fast riding. Obviously the suspension on our test bike isn’t standard. It’s better. There’s more damping and it’s better controlled. If you want the same, see over the page.

ENGINE

146bhp isn’t a massive amount from the 16-valve inline four.

However, it does make a decent amount of torque, enough to make the GSX-R1000 feel a bit breathless in the bottom half of the rev-range. This bike has fuel injection making it much easier to fit a pipe to than the earlier carburAted models.

BRAKES

Honda’s linked brakes might be fine for sedate road riding but if you brake with the bike in any position other than bolt-upright things get out of hand very quickly (the rear comes comes around on you when trailbraking). three-piston calipers work well enough though, it’s just the linking we don’t like.

TECH highlight: top speed Although the bike doesn’t make anywhere near as much power as the Hayabusa or ZZR, it still manages to go bloody fast.

The Blackbird is a one-time holder of the world’s fastest production bike title. But the faster you want to go the more power you need. The reason the Blackbird goes this fast on not a lot of power is good aerodynamics. PB just about cracked 200mph with Ronnie Smith aboard a V&M-prepared Blackbird at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground.

bird SPEC

Power 146.7bhp@10,200rpm Torque 83.4lb.ft@7300rpm Capacity 1137cc Bore & stroke 79mm x 58mm Brakes 2 x 310mm discs/threepiston calipers; 256mm disc/ three-piston caliper Rake/trail 25°/99mm Wheelbase 1490mm Tyres 120/70 ZR17; 180/55 ZR17 Fuel capacity 23 litres Measured wet weight 250kg Claimed dry weight 224kg

068

058-069_PB_Jan09 p5.indd 12

20/11/08 12:42:44

KAWASAKI ZZR1400 SUSPENSION

The rear shock is adjustable for rebound, compression and preload. So are the forks. But none of us felt that there was anything to be gained by adjusting them. So we didn’t. It has to be the first time a Kawasaki rear shock hasn’t come in for criticism for being too stiff.

BRAKES

Four-piston, four-pad radial calipers give the ZZR the best brakes on the test – especially when you take the ABS into account (see tech highlight).

The four-pad caliper design gives loads of initial bite with a relatively small amount of lever pressure.

ENGINE

The biggest engine here by 12cc.

Strange then that it doesn’t make as much power as the Hayabusa. It should do because it has a shorter stroke so should be able to rev higher. But both bikes redline at 11,000rpm. Questions aside, the 16-valve inline four is still very fast.

TECH highlight: abs I know. ABS isn’t sexy. But when it lets you gain an advantage over a GSX-R1000 then bring it on.

Most ABS systems that we’ve used cut in too early, especially over bumps, but this one is blimmin’ good. In fact, in wet conditions, we’d call it a performance enhancement. Now, if only it didn’t add 10 or more kilos to the weight of the bike, and it could be turned off – that’d be something.

zzr Spec

Power 166.2bhp@9100rpm Torque 105.1lb.ft@7600rpm Capacity 1352cc Bore & stroke 84mm x 61mm Brakes 2 x 310mm discs/fourpiston four-pad radial calipers; 250mm disc/twin-piston caliper Rake/trail 23°/94mm Wheelbase 1460mm Tyres 120/70 ZR17; 190/50 ZR17 Fuel capacity 22 litres Measured wet weight 265kg Claimed wet weight 257kg

SUZUKI GSX1300R HAYABUSA SUSPENSION

The suspension is fully adjustable for preload, compression and rebound at both ends. It needs a bit of playing with too if you want to use the Busa to take on sportsbikes like the GSX-R. Stiffening it up improves things no end.

BRAKES

A bike as heavy and as fast as this needs some decent stoppers. Thankfully Suzuki have given it them. The radially-mounted four-piston calipers work extremely well and are a much needed update to the old bike whose brakes could be described as adequate at best.

STYLING

Few bikes provoke as much reaction as the Hayabusa. It’s not just the 2008 model either.

All Hayabusas have been outlandish. To be fair to Suzuki, most of it is to make the bike as slippery as possible for high speeds. But as it’s limited to 186mph maybe it’s redundant.

tech highlight: ENGINE No other mainstream production bike makes as much power as this in standard trim – 176bhp is a tremendous amount of horses to have at your disposal. Even though Suzuki call it a 1300, it’s really a 1340. Which makes this ‘1300’ only 12cc less than the ‘1400’ Kawasaki. It has a slightly smaller bore and a longer stroke than the Kawasaki, too, which gives it a higher piston speed resulting in more torque. Twin throttle valves, one controlled by the ECU, give carburettorlike fuelling.

busa spec

Power 176.6bhp@9500rpm Torque 104.5lb.ft@7100rpm Capacity 1340cc Bore & stroke 81mm x 65mm Brakes 2 x 310mm discs/fourpiston radial calipers; 260mm disc/single-piston caliper Rake/trail 23.4°/93mm Wheelbase 1480mm Tyres 120/70 ZR17; 190/50 ZR17 Fuel capacity 21 litres Measured wet weight 267kg Claimed dry weight 220kg

Ó Ó Ó

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20/11/08 12:43:24

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OTP_template_NO.2_PB.indd 1

7/11/08 15:35:38

if words/concept image kar lee

...HoNDA mADe AN NR750 FoR tHe mASSeS, It mIGHt juSt look lIke tHIS

If £38,000 is a lot of money nowadays, imagine how much it was back in 1992, when Honda unveiled their willy waving (and undeniably beautiful) NR750. For the money you bought cutting-edge technology, a showcase of Honda’s R&D department and an investment that, in good condition, would still be worth the same money today. With roots in Honda’s Grand Prix and endurance racing efforts, the road-going NR750 had a limited run of just 200 units to ensure exclusivity - as if the price alone wasn’t enough to guarantee that the chances of seeing one on the road were longer than your lottery numbers coming up.

But we still wonder about the direction Honda’s Spam-shaped piston tech would’ve taken had they pursued the concept. With a broad spread of power from the original 750 and unnatural road composure from the blokes that gave us the RC45, an NR800 for the 21st century is something we’re secretly hoping the much-talked about VFR is going to be. An affordable, sweet-handling 32valved, oval-pistoned performance bike? Yes, please

p131 If NR800CDP.sp copy.indd 1

EnginE While the original NR made a claimed 125bhp, the way it churns it out is the real USP – the incredible noise, the tractability... we’d keep it stock but replace Honda’s early PGM fuel injection system with the refined 46mm throttle bodies from the 2008 Fireblade. With a capacity hike to 800cc and modern ram-air system we’d be expecting 150bhp – a similar power output to the tuned NR that propelled Loris Capirossi into the straightline record books.

Chassis We’ve slung a right concoction together here. Main frame is R6 mated to a CBR600RR and subframe is GSX-R, butchered, sorry, crafted, to hold our V4 lump. Wheels and brakes are nicked off a Ducati and adjustable rearsets are from the latest GSX-R range. The ducts leading into the tank actually funnel cooling air as opposed to merely propping up the front cowl. The 1992 bike weighed in at a whopping 222kg – our virtual’s figure is nearer to the current Blade’s 199kg.

Bodywork The NR is famed for its iridium screen and carbon fibre bodywork. The styling played its part in saving Ducati – Massimo Tamburini’s 916 took many cues from the NR, most notably the underseat exhausts.

We’ve made our bike more viable for mass production by cutting back on the use of carbon fibre, and utilising a tinted screen from Skidmarx. The seat is a modified Yamaha R6 and Aprilia RSV4 item. Mirrors are straight off the Fireblade. Faired-in sidestand not shown.

18/11/08 17:11:05