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Endurance Racing VF500 build.


sportstu

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It took an act of God a distracted cager for me to break my beloved redslut...
 
:mad:
 
 
IMAG5007.jpg
 

Friend of mine had to avoid an unlicensed 17yr old cager on the wrong side of a blind bend, dropped his brand new Kawasaki 660.... Guy ran, but thanks to Facebook and specific car forum he was found, and is to front court this month.
Unfortunately law is too lenient here....

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk

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I found this while researching the oil mod. It would appear, in the right hands, the VF500 can be a tough motor. Your 4 hour race should be a piece of cake if this chaps experience is anything to go by.

 

"- All I might be like a million years behind on this but..... Proper warm up before leaning on the VF500 motor is the key! I have an 84 or 85 model that well. Check out my FB pages Joe Heffernan, Foil Hat Racing, and Bikes Built Better as well as websites. I have been land speed racing the same VF500 since June of 2011. It's turbocharged, and the turbo is fed oil tapped off the oil line to the rear head, regular oil changes of course. This motor had 43,000 miles on it before I started putting it to such abuse. This motor has close to 30 LSR passes on it as well as 20 or more FULL power dyno pulls with as much as 14 PSI of boost applied. The motor has also seen 13,500 RPM spikes as well as sustained (30 sec) at 12,500 (covers two miles in a hurry) I am interested in learning what people have found and am more than willing to share what I know. This is the real deal! I have four records at bonneville SCTA and another four with the ECTA. Best speed is 162.24 from a standing start in a mile. - Joe "

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3 hours ago, Dutchy said:

It took an act of God a distracted cager for me to break my beloved redslut...

 

:mad:

 

 

IMAG5007.jpg

 

That's a mess Dutchy, one question....what's a cager??

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2 hours ago, jeremyr62 said:

I found this while researching the oil mod. It would appear, in the right hands, the VF500 can be a tough motor. Your 4 hour race should be a piece of cake if this chaps experience is anything to go by.

 

"- All I might be like a million years behind on this but..... Proper warm up before leaning on the VF500 motor is the key! I have an 84 or 85 model that well. Check out my FB pages Joe Heffernan, Foil Hat Racing, and Bikes Built Better as well as websites. I have been land speed racing the same VF500 since June of 2011. It's turbocharged, and the turbo is fed oil tapped off the oil line to the rear head, regular oil changes of course. This motor had 43,000 miles on it before I started putting it to such abuse. This motor has close to 30 LSR passes on it as well as 20 or more FULL power dyno pulls with as much as 14 PSI of boost applied. The motor has also seen 13,500 RPM spikes as well as sustained (30 sec) at 12,500 (covers two miles in a hurry) I am interested in learning what people have found and am more than willing to share what I know. This is the real deal! I have four records at bonneville SCTA and another four with the ECTA. Best speed is 162.24 from a standing start in a mile. - Joe "

Wow, impressive. There's hope for me yet! I wonder if he's done the oil mod as well. It reads like he's feeding the turbo off the standard feed.

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35 minutes ago, sportstu said:

That's a mess Dutchy, one question....what's a cager??

 

 

A car driver.

 

In this specific case a Citroen...

IMAG5000.jpg

Redslut hit the rear wheel/axle head on, forks fully compressed.

The panel was deeply dented; the driver had to pull it back to make the car mobile again...

The RH mirror the door handle

 

I fell to the right and hit the rear seat door.

Behind that door stood a Maxi-Cosi with a 2 month old baby...

So not only me was very very very lucky. Had redslut impacted that door full on.........

 

 

 

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Bit of chassis assembly today. Front end on with new taper bearings. Swing arm fitted, again new bearings, the old cones were a sod to get out. 

I'm going to use a different suspension linkage system. The stock one is heavy and impossible to change the ratio easily so I am going to try to use a single dogbone and alloy plate link plates similar to the later VFR and Fireblade models. The shock is offset but I think I can get around that. Been doing a bit of measuring up and I will be using a shorter dog bone with plates made up to give a nice linear movement. It's a bit trial and error at the moment, once I get the dog bone I can measure the swing arm/link ratio and work out the hole spacing for the plates and then get a shock valved to suit.......at least that's the plan.

 

Image110.jpgImage109.jpgv

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1 hour ago, Dutchy said:

 

 

A car driver.

 

In this specific case a Citroen...

IMAG5000.jpg

Redslut hit the rear wheel/axle head on, forks fully compressed.

The panel was deeply dented; the driver had to pull it back to make the car mobile again...

The RH mirror the door handle

 

I fell to the right and hit the rear seat door.

Behind that door stood a Maxi-Cosi with a 2 month old baby...

So not only me was very very very lucky. Had redslut impacted that door full on.........

 

 

 

Car driver...got it. I thought it must be an ex con or something. Not a term I've heard before. Good to know everyone was OK, someone was looking out for you.

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3 hours ago, Auspanglish said:

Ute: Aussie slang for Utility Vehicle

 

Or Pennsylvania/New Jersey term for young person...

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22 hours ago, CornerCarver said:

 

Or Pennsylvania/New Jersey term for young person...

 

 

Shame about red slut, it can be rebuilt though, glad you are OK

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On 1/5/2017 at 9:46 AM, sportstu said:

Something like that mate. We mainly race in the national endurance series over here on modern kit.I haven't ridden street for years now, too much traffic and too cold in the Uk! I just fancied something different so we're doing this classic endurance race for a bit of fun. I was going to buy the bike, get it running and race it almost stock but when it turned up the sump was full of petrol and the head gasket had failed so it turned into a full on rebuild and then snowballed from there. If it survives then it may come out again sometime but there's no plans at the moment......

I did want to mention one quirky thing about these bikes/engines to you.  I have found with both my 84 (now defunct) and my 86 engine that without the fairing installed the bike will overheat when pushed just a little bit especially at highway speeds.  Whenever I've done extensive work and ridden the bike without the fairing installed for testing it always runs much hotter.  I thought you should know that in case you do testing without the fairing installed.  I know it sounds kind of crazy but I can certainly confirm it has been indeed true with the two engines my bikes has had.  It could be that the standard stock, uncovered dash scoops the air away from the fairing at higher speeds.  I really don't know.  

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Something else to check is that your spark modules are for the right engine. I only discovered this recently but US 86 engines have less ignition advance than the 84/85 so if you mix and match spark modules (CDI/igniter boxes/whatever) you can end up with 5 degrees extra or less advance than the engine design calls for. How significant this is and whether you can actually tell or not I do not know. As far as I can tell UK bikes are not affected and my two UK 86 engines both have 15 degrees of advance at idle. The US 86 engine has 10 degrees of idle advance.

 

if you mix them up the advance will be affected at all RPM levels, not just idle, btw.

You can tell by looking at the starter clutch markings and measuring the angle or using a strobe on the starter clutch timing marks. This assumes you can correctly identify the 84/85 spark boxes and the 86s.

 

I was given this information by the guy that makes replacement spark modules and sells them on Ebay (dualcam). 

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Cheers for all the info. My plan is to have a larger radiator made and maybe fit an auxiliary one as well. I have to lower the fairing in order to have enough clearance  for the clip-ons so I will end up modifying it anyway. The timing is interesting. I usually use ignitech ignition boxes. They will make them with any fitment if you send them the old ones but they are programmable so you can create any map on the dyno. If there is already something like that available I'll buy that instead.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, sportstu said:

Cheers for all the info. My plan is to have a larger radiator made and maybe fit an auxiliary one as well. I have to lower the fairing in order to have enough clearance  for the clip-ons so I will end up modifying it anyway. The timing is interesting. I usually use ignitech ignition boxes. They will make them with any fitment if you send them the old ones but they are programmable so you can create any map on the dyno. If there is already something like that available I'll buy that instead.

 

 

 Have a look at http://v4spark.com/

They can be configured to change some parameters using a config tool he provides.

I emailed him and he is helpful. I am buying a set for my VF500. I have UK 86 engines so it took some figuring out that I actually have to buy the set preconfigured for US 84/85. Although even If I bought the wrong config it can all be changed in software.

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There's not much that's straightforward on this engine!

Took the clutch off the shaft today in order to fit the oil pump chain and torque the input shaft bearing retaining plate and fell on to two problems.

Problem one. The VF has a large 27tooth oil pump drive sprocket behind the clutch but the NC30 has a 22tooth one. I would assume they would interchange but unfortunately they don't.

Image113.jpg

 

The VF one is the larger one and works by having the drive teeth in the clutch basket

Image112.jpgLike this......

 

NC30 one is like this........

 

Image111.jpg

 

Luckily the slots are wide enough so I was able to get the sprocket modified like this..........

 

Image114.jpg

 

So, that problem was sorted. I could have gone back to the original clutch but this one is stronger, lighter and also means I can use the lighter primary gear. Happy days..

 

The next issue was the load on the input bearing. Because the shaft assembly is non standard and I had to have it altered to fit there was a slight load on the bearing when the retaining plate was fully tightened. I could still turn it by hand but I wasn't happy so decided to shim it. However, it's almost impossible to buy 2 shimming washers on their own so I hacked up a set of feeler gauges and made a shim. Now it spins beautifully, probably saved myself a whole horsepower there!

Image116.jpg

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It even tells you the thickness...........

 

Finally installed the later oil pump, pick up pipe and the deep sump

Image119.jpg

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Image121.jpg

Don't worry that I forgot the oil pump o rings, the ones in the pic are the old ones!!

Image122.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image116.jpg

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thanks for keeping us posted, nice progress!  I don't know if you'll be interested at this advanced stage but the 86 models have slightly bigger openings for the water pipes coming out of the heads.  The end that fits into the head is the same but the end that connects to the hose is bigger.  Also, there are bigger openings for the 86 thermo housing.  The down pipe from the radiator is also more streamlined.  I don't know if any of this made much of a difference but it does seem like they at least made an attempt to improve the coolant flow over the 84/85 setup.  

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I didn't know that. The return pipe on mine is crap, looks like it's been beaten with a mallet but that's factory! The radiator will be different so I'll be fitting different hoses and pipes anyway. There's no silicone sets available as far as I know, unless anyone know where I can get some?

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7 minutes ago, sportstu said:

I didn't know that. The return pipe on mine is crap, looks like it's been beaten with a mallet but that's factory! The radiator will be different so I'll be fitting different hoses and pipes anyway. There's no silicone sets available as far as I know, unless anyone know where I can get some?

I actually used silicone hoses from the 600 Hornet, just had to cut a little bit but I eliminated the steel down-pipe with a hose similar to what the Hornet has.  Looks a little strange in red but it works just fine.  They were only about 20 or 25 bucks on ebay and come in black too.  Of course, with a larger radiator, you'd probably have to cut em up a bit.  

IMG_20150622_131507.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/10/2017 at 10:16 AM, sportstu said:

I didn't know that. The return pipe on mine is crap, looks like it's been beaten with a mallet but that's factory! The radiator will be different so I'll be fitting different hoses and pipes anyway. There's no silicone sets available as far as I know, unless anyone know where I can get some?

Hey Sports, no word in almost 2 weeks!  You spoiled us with your impressive and steady progress.  Hope everything is going well friend.  

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7 hours ago, jrodrims27 said:

Hey Sports, no word in almost 2 weeks!  You spoiled us with your impressive and steady progress.  Hope everything is going well friend.  

Yes all good, tied up on other things and a short pre planned spell in the hospital but I'm back at the workshop today. I have done a few things like check the cam timing about 10 times because it doesn't look right even when it is spot on, and set the gaps etc but today the plan is to make the pipes for the oiling mod and get the motor back in the frame asap so that I can move on with getting the chain alignment sorted and the bike into a rolling state.

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As a subscriber to the CMM magazine, I read that the 4 hour endurance will be quite a show......

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7 hours ago, sportstu said:

Yes all good, tied up on other things and a short pre planned spell in the hospital but I'm back at the workshop today. I have done a few things like check the cam timing about 10 times because it doesn't look right even when it is spot on, and set the gaps etc but today the plan is to make the pipes for the oiling mod and get the motor back in the frame asap so that I can move on with getting the chain alignment sorted and the bike into a rolling state.

Yes, nice to see you back.  You're right about the cam timing marks, they've never looked dead on for me like the pictures show.  However, one tooth adjustments either way makes a big enough difference that you know it can't be right but you get it as close as you can with the lobes pointing (viewing from the left side of the engine) the way the pictures show and the upper marks on the outside of the cam sprockets lined up (as close as you can) to the edge of the case.  It won't be perfect but get them as close as you can and you should be fine.  I've never been wrong...yet. 

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