After the Quail event, Jason Cormier at Odd Bike asked me for an article on the racer project and some of the background - that gave me a good excuse to explain a little how I got to this point and a little more about where I'm going. It's been a fun experience so far, which made it a lot of fun to write. Thanks, Jason!
All of the custom ordered parts have arrived: Connecting rods, crank pin, and hybrid Kawasaki KX500/Ducati 999 primary gear (All from England), Poly Chain GT 8 mm pulley stock (For final drive), and 56 mm Lectron downdraft carburetor (For feeding 706 cc crankcase displacement). And then there's the one and only part I just pulled off the last racer that goes on the next one - it's a part that's getting a lot harder to find.
The engine casting will have to work well with the 2WD final drive arm, so those get designed and built together - after that, the frame and 2WS system pretty much fall into place. The big plan for the bodywork is to have as little as possible, as simple as possible, and as cheap and easy to replace, vinyl wrap, and install as possible - wasting time and money on dysfunctional over-styled plastic that gets vinyl wrapped anyway seems really stupid on a racer, where bodywork is considered a consumable item, like tires, safety wire, cash, collarbones, etc...
So where does a home built supercharged single cylinder 2 stroke 2WS 2WD motorcycle race? Obviously not any of the "Professional" OEM-centric racing organizations. The local club's rulebook is very helpful - since I'm making my own racer, the supercharger isn't aftermarket:
And then there are always those therapeutic track days....
But there's many years of work left to be done in the shop. Thankfully, it now has something every race shop needs: Lots of hot air!
