Back to the serious business of building ornamental motorcycles....which is how it kinda feels sometimes.
First up, one of those smoke signals I sent out regarding the low oil pressure indication on the 749R was returned: Mick Boasman at Bike Sport Developments in the UK gave me something to try. He is one of those big-brained types who operates on a completely different level and also happens to be a helluva nice guy with a huge reserve of patience for numpty's like me. He actually designed these Nemesis/Digitek Falcon "kits" back in the day.
His theory was the ECU being powered down for so long had resulted in a swag of errors on power up, locking up portions of the logic. The suggested remedy was to reset the errors via the Nemesis ECU diagnostics screen then toggle the alarm "enable/disable" within the Digitek Falcon alarm environment. The first was easy once I knew where to go, the second not so much as I didn't have a shred of documentation on how to really delve into the dash.
As detailed previously, the dash is a powerful bit of gear built for World Superbike duty, with data logging capability, warm-up/practice/race modes, programmable gear ratio's for speed calculations, sensor calibration/configuration, configurable warning/shift lights etc etc so it's not as simple as just jumping in and looking around. But Mick very kindly supplied a manual for the dash, which was mana from heaven.
With that info it was literally a 10 minute exercise and the problem was sorted. I can't speak highly enough of Mick and BSD:
Some images in the previous couple of posts have reminded me that while I took most of the RS goodness out of the bike with swapping engines, I'd also put a little RS back in.
The 749/999 ushered in a previously unknown level of adjustability in the riding position, with 5 x positions for the pegs (only 2 for 749R to allow for a bigger race exhaust) and 3 choices of fore/aft seat position. But how do you incorporate that level of adjustability without leaving unsightly gaps between the seat/tank and seat tail cowling when you move the seat? Answer: you move the whole tank/seat/tail assembly as 1 unit.
The tank has a couple of pins sliding in rubber bushes supporting the front, and is bolted to/supported by the seat at the rear. The seat has a steel base to support the tank, and it is the seat that anchors the assembly to the subframe via those brackets with 3 x position options (look where bolts 22 fastens, above). The tail just bolts to the back of the seat, so the components become one unit, with the seat as the key component holding the whole shit-show together.
Not the best pic but you get the idea:
It is actually brilliant to work on, with that complete assembly removable in about 5 minutes: 4 hex bolts, 2 quick connect fuel fittings, unplug the fuel pump and you're done.
But a heavy steel plated seat sounds like something more suitable for an Iraq bound Humvee, not a light-weight track bike. But as it's an integral component it's not the easiest place to lose weight.
The 999RS is really a silhouette racer, bearing only a similar outline to the road bike it supposedly represents, so it's NASA-spec components aren't much use to us......but the 749RS is something actually of this Earth. WSS mandates many OEM parts must be used, the tank and subframes being amongst them. The trouble is, while the 749RS components mightn't be quite as speccy as the 999RS, if anything they are harder to find.
This simple lil' lump of carbon fibre and epoxy is the holy grail to liberating that mil-spec seat so you can re-fit it to the tractor it looks like it was stolen from:
So now the seat is relieved of its structural duties, the tank bolts to the bracket and the tail cowl actually helps support the seat:
The bracket in the parts diagram is actually one of these, available from Bursi Evolution:
Later versions were the carbon unit further up, because, well....carbon!
And here's the bracket fitted to my 749R:
Yes, that steel bolt is both (very) ugly and heavy, so I've made an alloy replacement and the protruding stainless steel mounting bolts are also gone, replaced with low profile Ti bolts. (note to self, lift your game on updating the photo's!)
Bewdy...but what do you park your arse on?
I already had the fibreglass 1 piece race tail cowl to replace the 2 piece ABS OEM unit, but it still needs to bolt to the now non-existent seat. Turns out that lil' bracket isn't just the transition from tank to seat, but also from street to WSB: time to reach for the RS catalog...and my credit card (sigh).
So I found myself one of these, a 999RS tail cowl:
...and match it with one of these:
...to make this:
As you can imagine the carbon RS seat feels like a weightless sliver compared to the heavy ABS plastic/steel/well upholstered OEM unit.
The next issue is the tail mounting kit. The 999RS (of course) has a dedicated RS subframe but the 749RS must employ the OEM R alloy subframe. So they make these 749RS specific adapters:
A couple of years after the fact and I still haven't seen a set for sale, the closest being this set of billet alternatives which understandably were pretty exxy:
Unlike the above jewellery my solution would only look good to a blind man, but it does the job, and being alloy wouldn't weigh much more than the genuine RS brackets:
Mounted with some Ti bolts:
That stainless exhaust mounting bolt as a fly in my soup though, so I made some "Titanium"...for free:
A few minutes on the lathe and I've "Titanium-ified" the original bolt by halving its weight....it's alchemy, I tell ya!
Ok, maybe not. But let's wack it all together eh? Yeah.....nah....
The 999RS has that extended vented exhaust shroud built in, but I quite like my separate Leo Vince carbon shroud:
I could cut the shroud off the 999RS unit, which is how the 749RS run (Factory Breil bike below) as they have a separate shroud to suit the Factory 57mm Termignoni exhaust. FYI, the 999RS is a monster 63.5mm unit, hence the different subframe.
There's absolutely no pressing rewind on chopping up the RS tail, which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have a 999RS engine sitting there....what if, in some wacky alternate universe, I managed to find an affordable 999RS exhaust system?
The cavalry arrived in the shape of a crazy Frenchman (meant kindly), Kevin at Forza Moto mentioned he had a shorter 749RS tail available:
Carbon would have been ideal but being ordinary ol' fibreglass made it affordable and Kevin was his usual kind self in offering it at a great price. So I was off the hook with cutting up the 999RS unit.
Update: There was initially a little confusion about where it came from, but on a quiet nightshift, in an act of pure escapism, I think I've finally cracked it: the livery/numbering perfectly matches the 749R's JHP (John Hackett Performance) ran on British Supersport bikes. Investigating further this is the entry list for the 2005 series:
And there we have Martin Jessopp, #33 so I'm fairly certain this was one of his. But did you notice some of the other alumni from 2005?
- Leon Camier - British Supersport and Superbike champion, WSBK Factory rider
- Stuart Easton - 2 x British Supersport champion
- Pere Riba - 6th in World Supersport, latterly crew chief to the winningest WSBK rider ever, Johnny Rea 6 x WSBK champion
- Cal Crutchlow - British and World Supersport champion, WSBK Factory rider, 3 x Motogp race winner
- Tom Sykes - WSBK champion
- Eugene Laverty - 2 x WSS championship runner up, WSBK championship runner up
That's some tough company!
Back to the RS tail: the above photo's are quite flattering, it was pretty ratty underneath, delaminating and cracked in a few areas. I tidied it up as best I could, then gave it to Niall at Straightline2ten Panel and Paint who worked the real magic, while I had a crack at installing the minimum amount of upholstery to the carbon seat pan. The seat came out ok, while Niall's work is just brilliant:
The two fasteners in the seat are recessed Dzus fasteners minus the D-ring's, so the tail and seat can be removed in seconds. The alloy tank bolt I made is a simple alloy knurled unit, and the fairings are also Dzus fastened, so the bike can be sitting in her undies in about 2 minutes flat with no tools required.
