planning and priorities

February is upon us soon, and before I know it, April will be here and the trip to MAM with the boys.  Next thing we'll know, the race season will be up and running.  As such I've decided to put the MZ project aside for now and will be concentrating on making sure both bikes are ready for the season.  The 'mono is still at school, with a number of things left to do to complete it -- again, lots of time remaining, but other things always get in the way of a plan not officially scheduled, and which always places second to the admin stuff I need to do first.  What is left is basically reassembly, but I would like to make a proper throttle cable of normal length... but that's it.  Those supplies should be here shortly and my student assistant should be able to lend a hand to get that job done.
In the interim, I've been coming up with 2011 and beyond plans for the mono -- the 650 will remain as is, and could eventually find its way back onto the street depending on how the supermono progresses.  The next step is to address the aerodynamics and rear swingarm... this won't even take place until next off season, but I've been keeping an eye out for some deals, and mocking up/sketching out my vision in the meantime.

More modern and lighter rs125 bodywork has been found for a good deal.  This is fibreglass, and should be half the weight of the OEM stuff I've been using currently.  The gaping "intake hole to nowhere" on my current fairing can't be helping my cause, and so this stuff should be an improvement.  I'll do some test fitting when I have the time this summer --  a new upper fairing stay may or may not be needed to work with this stuff.

A lot of my thinking about aerodynamics, specifically with the wee 400 came from this video -- an interesting study in drag...



The next project has to do with the rear swingarm.  I've spent some time with the RG125 swingarm, removing unnecessary tabs and brackets, and getting atom-jet to modify it to work with the engine and the rear wheel.  It's ready to go, all that is left is the fitting and alignment, and coming up with a side-mounted shock arrangement.  Not unlike the ex650/versys, the idea is to use the "bow" in the swingarm as a mount for a cantilever shock mount, and then attach that to the frame.  I'm thinking a 900ss shock would be a starting point.  You've seen a pic of the ex, here's one of a home-made aluminum-swingarmed supermono...

Spring rates would be a wild guess to start.  This would then result in a drastically different rear end to the bike, incorporating a different tank, different tank mount, different shock orientation, new subframe, a different seat, etc. etc.... that's all as long as the engine and bike in its current configuration is reasonable competitive in ULGP...
Carbon fibre wheels!  Sheesh!

Here's the early vision, from my twisted mind.  Photoshop lessons, anyone???

Old skool, analogue product development...