Saturday, December 1, 2012

Short and Long-term Projects

The off-season... the time to maintain or improve fitness, do work on the bike, and for the privateer, scour the internet for deals on consumables.  Its time to stockpile and hoard what you will need in the future.  To illustrate both the packrat mentality and the patience of my long-suffering wife Kate, here is a pic of our exercise room (don't be too impressed -- we have a modest 4-bedroom house with no kids).  Spare engine in boxes to the right of the "Le grand tour de Michelin".

In the short term, I'm sending my forks off to my sponsor, Racetech, for a rebuild, installation of a G2-R Fork Cartridge Kit, and springs to suit my weight.
A long-term project is the rebuilt engine.  After considerable research, I am shipping the cylinder head across the pond to Rick at RLR Motorsport in the UK.  A hassle, perhaps, but the Brits know a lot about tuning EX650s for their supertwin classes, and the price of the headwork and cams is much cheaper, even with exchange, than what I can get done in North America.
Here is a pic of the stock intake tract... room for improvement, even by my untrained eye!

The cylinder head, including the stock cams which are to be exchanged for Kent cams, in a spec to work with my stock-ish (by UK standards) engine.

I think it is important to note that gains to this engine will be made without "cheating" -- I'm using stock pistons, stock rods, a stock bore, and simply building the engine to a higher degree of tolerance.

Boxed, with build instructions for Rick inside.

Ready for a trip to Canada Post.  It won't be cheap, but it needs to be done.

2 comments:

Mick-e said...

James,
you're killing me.
I've got Rick as a friend on Facebook. I'm going to have KC at BRG do my head this winter, and he and Rick go way back. Is it really cheaper to send to UK than have the work don in US?

The Kids Cafe said...

It is -- I emailed KC with Rick's prices and he couldn't touch them. A set of Kent cams for 175 pounds -- compare $550 for a set of web cams in the US! The hassle is the shipping -- cost me $100 to get the head to the UK, and its on a slow boat.