UKDRN

shasta wrote:Although the 7 second run attributed to this bike is generally regarded as having been spurious, what times did this bike run? Did it ever get near the magical 7 second barrier?

8.2/8.3s were the best if my memory is serving me correctly...

I was contacted by Bob Webster regarding this bike and he gave a different view of the seven second run. He is definite that it was a true time, the bike was running 8.0's prior to it, and the nitro load was upped beforehand. He is dismayed that people do not accept it, it could not be backed up due to damage sustained during the run. Does anyone have a record ot the times run that meeting Aug 28/30 1982?
The bike will be on show at the Chichester College Bike Show 2013 held at Chichester on 23rd June.

timetravel wrote:here it is at Snetterton 1977...

67.jpg

That's Pat Neal in the far lane, a nice photo of the two bikes/riders

Kelv

shasta wrote:The bike will be on show at the Chichester College Bike Show 2013 held at Chichester on 23rd June more details from bikeshow@chichester.ac.uk .

Would you be prepared to show the restored bike anywhere else this year, like Long Marston for instance?

Been a while since I put anything on here, although the bike has been mentioned in the feed 'Multi-engined bikes' in General Nostalgia Talk. The major problem of the tyre and missing piston have now been overcome and the build is progressing nicely with the ignition system nearing completion having just been timed up. I can say at last that the bike will be out in 2019 at selected venues and hopefully running satisfactory (of sorts)! I'm guessing demo runs will be the order of the day as it is so unlike anything that I have ridden, it is probably going to take ages to sort out.

Exhausts are now finished and fitted, made from stainless steel down-pipes from various 4 cylinder Jap motorcycles 'cut & shut' to fit and secured to the heads with stainless springs. Two exhaust pipes exit to the right and two to the left on each engine and as the engines are timed to fire every 90 degrees of the crank like a V8, it will be interesting to hear what it sounds like when it runs for the first time!

As there seems to be a lot of views on this thread, I thought these photo of the bike when I first went to see it would be of interest. They were taken in Bob Webster's lock-up in Slough sometime in 1988 and show the state of the bike after being laid-up for several years and gradually broken up for spares and sold off piece meal. We were interested in buying just the rolling chassis as we had our own plans for a blown V 8 based Kawasaki engine to go in the bike.
The top picture of the left-hand side show that the front cylinder head, Hilbourn fuel injection system and clutch had already gone. The mass of piping were for the air operated gear-change and the wheelie bars are on the garage wall.
The left-hand view is unfortunately a bit dark but does show the drives on the front engine for the Hilbourn fuel pump at the rear of the block and a 4 cylinder Vertex magneto at the front. The white cover of the drive for the rear engine Vertex can be clearly seen and just behind it is an upright air bottle for the gear-box operation. The air piping is easily seen in this view.
The bottom photo show the two tops of the magnetos more clearly and also the fuel pump behind the front engine. The air bottle complete with a pressure gauge is behind the rear engine.
When we realised that our engine plans were going to be outside our budget range, we returned to buy the engine plates and what was left of the set-up. This was about a year later and all that remained were the engine plates, and the two bottom ends with the cylinder studs still fitted to one engine.
I did manage to buy back the two original cylinder heads that had been fitted to the bike from a racer who was changing from Kawasaki power to Suzuki engines.
If anyone has any photos of the bike taken in the pits, especially close-ups, please share them on here or any other info, timing results etc.

The bike originally had the rear engine driving the clutch via a duplex chain; the sprocket and chain tensioner were still present when I bought the remains. However I was presented with a major problem as the Miller gearbox and clutch I purchased had the input chain drive on the inside of the clutch and not the outside! Somehow I had to get the drive inboard to drive the clutch with very little room between the rear engine and gearbox to do so.
The answer was to put in a jack shaft made from a Yamaha R6 output shaft, through the engine plates with a duplex sprocket on the outside and a 530 sprocket on the inboard side with support bearings on either end. Space dictated the size of the inboard sprocket, but this arrangement does give some reduction in shaft speeds between the engine and gearbox.
Chain tension of the inboard chain is achieved by making the two bearing housings adjustable by having the shaft off centre, so rotation of the two housings causes the chain to tighten or slacken. From the photos you should get some idea of the limited space this had to be achieved in.
The outboard duplex chain is also affected by the movement of the shaft housings so it also has it's own roller tensioner on the non-drive run.
The top photo shows the duplex chain drive to the jack-shaft with the outboard adjustable bearing housing.
Next photo shows the duplex chain roller tensioner, the 3rd photo shows the limited amount of room to place the shaft through the engine plates and how the space dictated the diameter of the drive sprocket.
The bottom photo shows the inboard 530 drive chain, the cover to the bottom right is over the clutch, the outer carburettor is at the top left hand side. The engraving on the clutch cover is the firing order reminder!

When I bought this bike it came with it's original front end, which although was cutting edge in 1977 when the bike was built (actually I do not know when it was built or when and where it made it's debut), is now looking very dated. The top photo shows the original set-up which I have been told came from a Kawasaki KH model from 76/77 but all the bikes of that time had the disc on the left hand side of the bike, so it appears the fork legs were fitted the other way round, so that the brake is now on the right and the caliper behind the fork leg. The cast 19 inch tubed, 7 spoke wheel was very heavy and fitted with a standard drilled stainless disc, the caliper being a single-acting single piston item. There was no form of fork brace which was normally built into the heavy chrome standard mudguards of the time.The brake hose was still the original rubber/rigid brake pipe and as the legs had been reversed the brake pipe takes a strange routing which appeared unsupported.
The second photo shows the front end when work rebuilding the bike started; the wheel is leaning on the wall behind the front forks.
The bottom photo shows the current front end. The forks are still the originals, stripped and cleaned with new seals and the lengths of old steel pipe used to increase the spring stiffness, replaced with aluminium spacers. The wheel is now a cast 18 inch tubeless three spoke item from a 2008 Honda 125, sporting a single fully floating disc from a Kawasaki 1200 which bolted straight on. The caliper is a Nissin four piston double-acting unit from a Triumph Speed Triple, with a one piece stainless brake hose, it only needed the aluminium bracket and spacers to make it fit. A fork brace was made and fitted, picking up on the original mudguard mounting points, all the fasteners are stainless and even an aluminium spindle nut has been made to save weight!

Latest parts to have been completed are the safety guards over the engine coupling belt, clutch, final drive chain and the ignition drive. After consulting this year's ACU building regulations for Drag motorcycles it was then time to find the suitable materials. For the clutch it has to made from 3 mm thick aluminium or 1 mm thick steel, so the steel was chosen as it is easier to bend than 3 mm aluminium! Perforated stainless steel was purchased with 6 mm holes and after making up a cardboard template first, the steel was cut, bent and fitted directly to the main engine plate.
To fit the other covers I had to space them out to clear the relevant drive, achieved by using 13 mm, thick walled tube with a 6 mm bore. By fitting 6 mm Helicoil inserts into either end the spacers were fitted either by using studs to pick up on existing bolts or by drilling the engine plates and using 6 mm set-screws from the inner side.
Aluminium sheet was then cut to the correct width and length and fitted, using the spacers to attach it to. Finally 1.5 mm perforated aluminium with 10 mm holes was cut to shape and fitted; all the edges finished with rubber edging. All the materials except the ali sheet were purchased off ebay, the sheet came from my local Metal Supermarkets who cut any amount, to any size and only charge for the metal bought; they are an excellent outfit with no minimum order and don't mind you looking around the stock to give you ideas!
Finally the chain guard was made from the 13 mm thick walled tube. To achieve a crease free bend without having any pipe bending gear to hand, hard plastic tube was hammered into either end, and tapped with a 6 mm thread. The pipe was then immersed in the bath to expel any air and whilst still under water 6 mm set-screws were wound in both ends. It was then a simple matter of clamping it to the flywheel of my Lister stationary engine and bending to the correct shape; crease free as the water inside is in-compressible. When happy with the result, the screws were removed releasing the water and the plastic plugs drilled out!