Project Fast Hamster

Phase II - Development

So, Project Fast Hamster has now completed it's first race , so anything else is now purely development work, and so gets it's own web page...

There will be three main areas of development:

Weight will be tackled by just hacking bits off until there's nothing left to hack off. I can't afford to use any exotic materials, so it's purely down to taking bits off that aren't essential.
The intake will primarily be a series of mods to the airbox. There's considerable scope for experimentation within the rules of the class here, so I expect this to take up a fair bit of time, and probably completely ruin the power delivery.
The exhaust mods will be easy. I've got a spare pair of Swarbrick pipes to bolt on and see what happens.
Finally, there may well be some sundry chassis mods to help the handling. I can't think of any at the moment. Basically, this means that if anyone else in the paddock has any good ideas, I'll copy them and pass them off as my own.

Now then, what are the goals of all this development? Basically I want a light, responsive TZR with a torquey motor. I'm not interested in chasing pure peak power, unless I keep the nice fat midrange. I want a bike that is easy to ride quickly so I'm not completely knackered by lap 3

Of course, if anyone wants to fund development in cash, spares, beer or just kind words of encouragement, please mail me and I'll love you forever.

15-May-2003

It has to be said, that the first phase of development was deliberately unadventurous. I cut a large hole in the sprocket cover. This has two benefits:

27-Jun-2003

Well, development has been put rather a long way behind schedule by the nice folks at MCI handing me notice of an impending P45 when they close the office. So, I've been busy looking for work, and saving money rather than frittering it away on something as trivial as a 16 year old bike. That said, another small bit of development has occurred: I removed the coolant overflow tank. So that's another 3 ounces saved then.

If I want to actually do any development this season I'd best get my skates on. I've only got three races left this year, one of which is this weekend at Brands Hatch. I guess the next logical step is to book a day on the dyno with a stack of CDI and YPVS units, my spare Swarbrick pipes and a large stack of jets. Sadly this will cost a fair few quid, and to be honest, I'm not sure I've got it at the moment.

14-Jul-2003

Development continues at a snails pace due to the aforementioned reaons. Also, it turns out that there's not much actually wrong with the bike, so there's no need for an accelerated development schedule part way through the season. Still, I had to do something, if only to fill the gaps in these pages, so I've removed one of the choke cables and the preposterous choke lever gubbins. This has three advantages:

I've also started getting the Swarbrick pipes ready for mounting to the bike. First thing to do is re-pack the cans, as the wadding is fairly tired at the moment. I also need to fabricate some little loops for the springs to attache to the heads. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to so this yet, but it's probably going to be another of my famous meccano and string lash-ups.