CBX Racing

CBXs, new bikes, old bikes, cars, trucks, general chat, off topic, this is the place to post it.
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Warwick Biggs
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Re: CBX Racing

Post by Warwick Biggs »

Sorry guys, in trouble again. I thought it was from Wikipedia EMS but it could have been usflags.org. There is too much written about this flag and what it represents and I've stuck my big foot right into it. One interesting aside is that the design went thru' so many variations and one reason was it was too similar to the Yankee flag that soldiers on the battlefield became confused and their Generals couldn't tell who was winning. Another reflection on the ultimate futility of war I guess, especially civil war.

The reason we are meandering into irrelevant dross Rick is because its' our 'off season' for racing, or the nearest thing to an 'off season' that we have in Oz. In addition I have had 2 months of enforced inactivity caused by an intra occular lens operation on my eyes. I have tried every method known to man to stop my glasses sliding down my nose or fogging up during racing and in the end the only solution left was to surgically replace my lenses. It is a horrible procedure and I now have to wear glasses for reading but not for playing tennis or racing (my only 2 half serious sports).

Hopefully, this enforced idleness is about to come to an end as we are booked in for a 2 day ride day next w/e if my surgeon agrees (and maybe, even if he doesn't). My old mate John (pictured earlier) is finally un-bolting his NC30 from his bar (I kid you not) and bringing it down to Mac Park from Adelaide.

When we were but wee little kids we rode around Australia together working at odd jobs picking fruit and often fruitlessly trying to find gormless young ladies who would engage in sex. We were a bit competitive about who was the more accomplished rider. Later, when John was living in Sydney we had a bit of a race around part of Sydney Harbour but that was indecisive and later still when I went on to do some serious racing with a pukka GP bike John helped in the pits but this ancient rivalry was never really resolved.

So, maybe after over 50 years we will put it to bed. We will be on more or less identical bikes. I have rebuilt mine after my last high side. Of course, I expect to prevail, even if he brings his 1290R Kato but you never know....

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Re: CBX Racing

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Or not. John brought his NC30 but it refused to party. Probably water in the carbs because it was a frosty night followed by a warm sunny day. He tried as best he could to fix it without dropping the V4 entirely out of the alloy beam frame. The same old Honda packaging problem with the carby drain screws completely inaccessible being jammed up against the inside of the frame beams. No tool that we could fashion would come close to getting anywhere near those screws. It was Honda's first beam frame so I guess they didn't get around to thinking about that little detail.

At least John's bike looked good in its red HRC livery, unlike mine with my daggy fibreglass repairs all too apparent. Maybe I will get a decent buffing wheel and sand it a bit smoother so it will maybe go better but I couldn't complain in that regard. It steered straight and was strong down the straight with spot on gearing, easily pegging back the kids on their modern 300's. Altho' my frame rails are scratched and indented a bit on the outside, it still steered OK and the new Tyga rear sets worked well with no missed shifts.
I only managed a couple of dozen laps b4 calling it a day exhausted after 4 x 6 lap sessions. I certainly didn't set any lap records and with around 100 riders, mainly on R1's and GSXR's, I gave everyone plenty of room into the corners, still a bit ginger with the front end after my recent high sides. I tend to push the front fairly hard with my old fashioned riding style. The contemporary fashion for using your legs and body weight to tip in I find hard to manage on such a small bike which is a bit cramped for my 6'1" to move around much. But it was great not having to wear glasses and altho' my eye surgeon would have had kittens if he'd seen his patient screaming around at 130mph so soon after the operation, we didn't get anything in the eyes so it was all good. The difference was particularly noticeable on the very tight U bends where you have late apexes a few meres after the corner requiring you to look back over your shoulder as you tip in. This involves some rather acute head and neck stretching that inevitably pushes spectacles down your nose. Without them it was great not having to peer over the bridge of the glasses frame to see where I wanted to go. So my tip to near sighted racers - get your eyes fixed if you can. It really does help. I should have fixed this ages ago but maybe they didn't have good intra occular lens replacement technology back then? I don't know.
So we at least scrubbed in the new Bridgestone slicks and gave the re-built NC30 a successful shakedown even if my joust with John is delayed a bit. I need to get back my fitness levels after nearly 3 months of enforced in-activity and no tennis and attention will then swing back to the CBX once I get the new ignition fitted. People keep asking me where it is at and I say, "Its' a coming."

steve murdoch icoa #5322
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Re: CBX Racing

Post by steve murdoch icoa #5322 »

I suspect moving around on top of something as "roomy" as a CBX would be difficult for you given your past and recent crashes.
Can't imagine doing it while on the tiny NC30.
Good for you, Rick!

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Re: CBX Racing

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When I fitted the Rickman syle seat to the CBX I went to some lengths to give myself more room so I could move around Steve. I could still ditch the period correct Raasq rear sets on the CBX in favour of a more contemporary set like the Tygas fitted to the NC30. This would also lift my feet up a bit and reduce the wear and tear on my boots. My current RST's are covered in epoxy on the top of the toes rather than the sides as a result of my last prang. I should replace them.

I notice that the California Superbike school have a BMW RR fitted with widely spaced outriggers specifically for practising body position. It looks like a good idea because the problem I have is how to moderate your lean angle once you are in the corner. OK, you slide your body over and tip in with your inside shoulder while holding the bars lightly. That is the theory. But if you over commit or need to change position I find it difficult to do that accurately just using my legs. I naturally use counter steering to achieve in-corner adjustments. You cannot do this by just holding the bars lightly. It does require a bit of muscling the bike around, This does load up the front a lot.
Originally, I had longer clip ons fitted to the CBX to get a better leverage ratio but this also had a tendency to exacerbate any instability at speed and required a conscious effort to let go of the bars a bit and trust the chassis to straighten out over bumps in the high speed corners. The longer bars could contribute to tank slappers in the wrong hands.
The CBX is still a work in progress with the chassis settings/ground clearance but that development has been interrupted by the misfire issue. In the meantime, I can only practice on the little NC30. I have thought of buying a modern sports bike just as a practice bike but Fran would have my guts for garters if I bought another bike. My BMW ST1200 road bike is not exactly a suitable substitute. It is a wonderful bike with its on the fly electronic suspension but maybe if I sold it and bought an R1 or R6, she wouldn't notice? And pigs might fly!

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Re: CBX Racing

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Here is another view of the lump. As you can see, from the rider's perspective it is not too wide at all. Incidentally, Bill Brint reckons that puny Delkevic muffler outlet works really well on the CBX. The jury remains out on that one until we get back to the track with the machine firing on all 6.
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Re: CBX Racing

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This is the guy who built the twin cam Sunbeam that beat the Bentleys at Le Mans. As you can see, he had good taste in bikes as well. He worked with Henry Segrave in his land speed records and his cars won the French and Spanish GP's as well as being the basis for land speed records by the Campbells right up to the 60's. All in da' family.
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Re: CBX Racing

Post by swarrans »

Cool!
My brother in law has a Vincent Rapide but he's a lot more wealthy then me!

Simon

Warwick Biggs
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Re: CBX Racing

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Roly rocked up with the new TCIP4 Ignitech ignition, stock Honda coils, new leads, set of resistor plugs (the Ignitech is sensitive to ohms, thus the problem I previously encountered trying to marry my first one to high resistance Dyna coils - despite what Ignitech and Dyna say). Roly was on the way to a CBX rally in the Adelaide hills and had an immaculate Egli Red Baron in the back of his van. So delicate around the steering head???

Much mucking about with the heat gun to get the rotor in the correct (fixed) position with the advance removed. The digital module can do that job (but it has to be lock tighted - it behaves very strangely if it comes loose as I found out mid corner at Broadford a few years ago with my last Ignitech). Roly finally has it lining up where he wants it and reassembled.

But it won't spark. Hmm, refit the 12v relay across the back of the coils from the ignition. Still no go. Roly has to depart for the rally leaving me scratching my head. What is that extra 2 pin plug from the back of the TCIP4 for? Tacho? It has red (power) and blue (earth) wires. The red shows 13v when earthed to the frame but doesn't earth to the blue wire??? Is it a switchable earth? Where does it connect? Coils? is it part of the switching line?

Ignitech are notoriously hard to communicate with and their fitting instructions for the CBX are rudimentary in the extreme. Incomprehensible is another word that springs to mind but Roly has sent me a useful generalised paper on the TCIP4 from a mob in New Zealand. It doesn't help much with the connection instructions for a CBX however.

The problem arises in part from my electrical illiteracy but also because I don't have the stock Honda harness but rather a customised loom that I've now picked apart to work out the connection problem. Its not that complicated really with only 5 wires up to the ignition switch/neutral light/oil light/ kill switch.

If I work out how the previous Dyna fitted to the Honda harness I might be able to back track to how my previous Ignitech fitted and then from that how to connect it to my custom loom. Of course the Dyna had a direct relationship from the pick up to the coils. The Ignitech is more complicated. So it might be easier to back track thru' my previous connections than trying to figure out exactly how that black box from Czechoslovakia actually works. My last Ignitech that was mated to the Dyna coils was connected thru' the stock Honda harness. That was then replaced with my custom loom. I understand the principle of the MDI but the actual wiring path is another matter. The further you move from stock, the more difficulties and complexities you encounter. This is 'Murphy's immutable Law of Fiddling with Old Bikes'.

Roly has made up a connector for that 2 pin plug and its 'in the mail'. It might work. We wait...

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Re: CBX Racing

Post by Syscrush »

Good luck! I'm looking forward to hearing about how great it runs after this. :)
Phil in Toronto
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Re: CBX Racing

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Happy to report the CBX is finally sparking altho' I have yet to put fuel in and see how it runs or plug the computer in to check Roly's advance map. Can you understand my trepidation after all the farnarcling? But I am fairly pleased that I managed to track down the bugs in the digital Ignitech ignition and there were a couple. When I compared it to my first Ignitech it was obvious there were differences in the plugs and CBX specific wiring, for a start.

They are set up from the factory with motorcycle specific wiring and you have 4 channels to play with meaning they can be configured for a wide range of machines running all sorts of sensors like crankshaft position or cam position or exhaust. Most of that is surplussage on a 1981 CBX but there are a lot of wires with their own coding and all set up to plug into the Honda loom. Except one version has 2 six pin plugs and the later version has multiple plugs. Oh yes, and my wiring loom is a custom race loom and not colour coded.

Roly had made up his own connectors based on some pics of my loom but his connectors were all black. He wasn't far off but it took me a long time with my old stock CBX loom laid out next to the new wiring to work out that we had a missing earth and then to realise that unlike the Dyna coils the Honda ones are not marked for polarity and one had been connected in reverse to the other three and that one was supposed to be sparking my test cylinder. Clearly, they are not reversible. Anyhow once that was sorted we had spark, at last. Once the wiring was tidied up and tucked into some new looms I started putting everything back together in readiness for some real time testing.

Hopefully we can get it runnning and sorted for the 2020 Island Classic in late January. Here is a link to this year's race. Check out lap 2 of the first race where Jason Pridmore dumps t in front of Beau Beaton's Irving Vincent causing the Vncent to shoot straight up only to land on the unfortunate Beaton. I was spectating just metres away and it gave me the willies. A spectacularly nasty crash halfway thru' the fastest corner on the MotoGP circuit. Luckily Beaton survived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2ba98ycPjU

I am in the process of acquiring a GSXR750 as a turn key practice bike so I can get more track time without wearing out either the CBX or the NC 30, which are hard to get parts for. Here is a pic of that bike. Apart from race glass, case protectors and suspension mods it is stock with only 4,000 klms on the clock. This suits me fine and its a more manageable practice bike than any of the mega HP 1 litre bikes around. And there are a lot as the economy continues to flat line thanks to the incumbent of the top office of our great and powerful friend. I suppose I should be grateful for the property developer turned politician because it means there are heaps of track bikes to choose from. I diverge...

The real purpose of the gixxer is to improve the edge of a 67 year old who still believes he can improve to something like his form as a 25 year old. Silly, eh? Yeah, I know but once the blood is up you forget all that and just about everything else, too.
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steve murdoch icoa #5322
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Re: CBX Racing

Post by steve murdoch icoa #5322 »

"once the blood is up you forget all that"....while you are on a race track i can use that same feeling when i am out for a romp on the backroads.

That crash [footage starts at 22:45] was nasty. Can't imagine seeing it in person.
Was the bike salvageable? Hard to believe it would be.

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Re: CBX Racing

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No, it was destroyed and the way I saw it go straight up vertically out of a cloud of dust like a rocket, it was hardly surprising. Beaton was lucky it only landed on his legs or it would have been fatal.

The Horner Brothers bought all the original VIncent plans and have a deal with the widow of the original designer (Oz Phil Irving) to re-manufacture them with modern materials and technology (thus the name, Irving Vincent), so they have a few more to play around with. Its a sideline to their engineering business that mainly services the mining industry.

The year b4 I raced TT winner Cam Donald on the sister bike that won the Daytona Twins that year(with Beaton in the seat). I was luckier with qualifying and kept him at bay thru' the early corners until the first really high speed sweeper where he thundered past using all of it's 200 hp. A 35 year old CBX has to suffer the indignity of being passed all the time by bespoke replicas with twice the power and half the weight. No respect for age or experience, I'm afraid.

I'm looking forward to seeing what a modern gsxr can do. This one looks to be well set up and the word around the paddock is they are giant killers, so we will see. And of course, to getting the CBX back on the track. I still have another inch and a half to play around with the custom dog bones. I have a couple and hope to dramatically increase ground clearance and at the same time improve swing arm angle. I have a bit more in the front forks and plenty of trail to play with. Hopefully, that will overcome any ground clearance issues while giving better drive out of the bends.

I need to get that sorted soon because the Supp Regs for the Island Classic will be out in the next week or so. I may have to resort to some back roads in the forest (SHH!) if I can't wangle some track time soonish.

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Re: CBX Racing

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Digging around in my box of electrical stuff that I always take to the track with me I found a spare set of Honda coils in the bottom. I'd forgotten I'd put them in there. They were the original Honda coils from when the bike was first renovated, prior to their replacement with the Dyna set up.

I decided to test them to see if they were any good. Well, they are but guess what I found? Yes, the Honda coils are marked for polarity but only on one side. When fitted these markings are not immediately discernible. I guess it shows how many people are reading this blog that nobody picked me up on it. Alternatively, readers did not want to embarrass an electrical ignoramus.

Just another quick word about Phil Irving, the engineer who put the 2 Comet engines together to create the Vincent Black Shadow. He later worked for a small engineering company in Oz called Repco. It designed and built the engines that took another Oz engineer, Jack Brabham to a world F1 championship - the only world F1 champion to win a championship in a car of his own making (John Surtees tried and failed) - the Repco Brabham, resulting in him being dubbed 'Sir Jack' by the Queen.

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Re: CBX Racing

Post by Rick Pope »

Entertaining stuff. Keep it coming. :text-goodpost:
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Re: CBX Racing

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Well, I've wangled a test and tune day for the CBX and the GSXR on 29 November in 3 weeks time. One of the advantages of belonging to a M/C club that owns its own race track (Mac Park) is track access for testing without having to contend with hordes of track junkies pretending they are Marc Marquez.

My club, the Mount Gambier MCC has just been awarded hosting rights for the Australian Historic Racing Championship to be held in October 2020. This will be a big event with riders coming from around the country and overseas. We had a working bee at the track yesterday and planning is already in full swing. Its a big job for a small group of dedicated volunteers.

Now I guess I have to bite the bullet and try starting the CBX to see if it runs. I have been putting it off.

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