13th June 2003 - Cadwell Park

Having rebuilt most of the bike after my off at Brands I very nearly didn't make it to Cadwell at all. I ended up needing a new tank and fairing as well as assorted rear set parts, clip ons, a screen and an exhaust. At first the bike wouldn't start and it turned out that the front cylinder had filled with oil after the bike had come to rest upside down at the bottom of Graham Hill bend. The usual trick of taking the plugs out and putting it in gear pushed most of the oil out of the top and the rest burnt off once I got the engine going.

Called in at HM Racing in Orpington on the Thursday to get the carbs set up for the new Akrapovic system that Stephen at Rhencullen had supplied. I had already jetted down to 142s for Brands having been using a 150/145 combination with the MHP system I had on there previously. That was running far too rich for the Akrapovic set up although the curve looked good and it was putting out 66 hp. We pulled it apart to revert to the 137.5 jets which come as standard. We also removed the carb heater wiring to make the job easier although somewhere along the line we seemed to have lost the end of one of the spade connectors!

On restarting we heard what sounded like a regular knocking noise coming from the rear cylinder so turned it off immediately. We removed the cam covers to check the clearances and they proved to be spot on which was a relief as they had only been set a few weeks earlier. We started it again and the noise remained so it was suggested that the big end had gone. Apparently this is common on R6s that have run upside down as the oil pump tends to pick up small amounts of air which leads to the big end failing shortly afterwards.

It looked like my weekend was over before it had even begun so we put it all back together and figured that the cost of a replacement engine was probably going to be cheaper than getting it fixed so if it was going to die big time we may as well continue and see what happened. The knocking noise had gone but there was a loud bang followed by lots of rattling shortly followed by the engine running normally. The knocking had gone and the dyno curve was as before except we now had 68 hp. Nobody could explain what had just happened, what had caused the noise or where the spade connector had gone from the carb heaters!

We ended up jetting down to 134s, i.e. even leaner than standard, which didn't give any more power but sorted out the CO% better. The guys at HM Racing proved most helpful and were very friendly. Their suspension guy even spent some time talking me through how to sort out my front end woes. Having spent most of the day there I didn't get up to Cadwell until around 9 pm although Red had kindly saved me space for my van and let me abuse her new awning which proved rather useful for keeping out of the sun over the weekend.

The practice day was rather sunny so out I went in the first session only to find that I had problems stopping, I was worrying about the state of my tyres and the state of my engine plus my rear sets were still a bit bent. After wobbling round for a few laps I came in and set about fixing a few things. My brake pads were down to only a few millimetres of the backing, I changed the damaged rear set parts and adjusted the position of the foot peg and changed the oil in case there was any bits of metal in there from the dyno incident. I finally got the new tyres back in just in time to go out in the last session before lunch so I wobbled round a bit more trying to scrub in my very cold and very shiny tyres.

The afternoon proved to be much more positive and I gradually found my pace and remembered my way round the circuit. The hairpin on the short circuit was a new experience, one that I never really got to grips with but the rest of the time was spent building up my nerve for the Gooseneck and Park corner where I was getting in Red's way - Oops sorry! I did manage to get down to 1:16s in the first session and eventually got that down to 1:14s by the end of the day.

Quite happy with the things as I heard that the short circuit is around 30 seconds quicker which would put me bang on the times I set on my CBR600 in my Rookie year. I got scrutineered and then decided to rejet my carbs back up to 137.5s as I'd rather be on the safe side, particularly if it was cold on race day.