Radiator Fan Move

Have been thinking about moving my radiator fan to behind the rad for some time, but hadn't got around to it. The objective was to improve the cooling capacity and to provide better air flow through  the radiator. 

I removed the fan and spaced out the radiator with M6 spacers, then adjusted the coolant hoses a little. I then fixed the fan to the read of the radiator. 

Not changed the rotation on the fan yet but may do later. Now the fan will sock air form the engine bay and forces it through the radiator. Ideally I want the fan to suck air through the radiator from outside.

Will see how effective the fan is and then may reverse the direction and compare results.

Now I have space for a large front mounted intercooler.

Track Day - Donington 2nd June 2014

Attended a track evening at Donington Park with Leon, had a great time catching up with a group of fellow MNR owners. 

On track I managed a best time of 1:28 with a passenger in the car compared to a previous best of 1:35 solo from my last outing. Feeling a lot more confident with the car, but there is plenty of opportunity for further improvement.

Feel that the car feels a little over geared with the 3.14 differential and takes a while to rev out, possibly a 3.38 is a better choice for a relatively stock Hayabusa.

This time I managed to get the GoPro working and I've attached some of the video's of the evening's track action.

Towards the end of the session there was some smoke coming from the exhaust area which turned out to be the TDC plug had come loose and fallen out. This then caused a small amount of oil to spay onto the exhaust. Luckily it was nothing serious and I replaced the plug.

Sighting Lap:

First Session:

Ride out with Chris Forster:

Chris Forster driving my car:

Ride out with Leon Morrell:

Carpets & Fire Extinguisher

While at Stoneleigh I picked up a roll of waterproof carpet and some spray glue. Wanted to fit the carpet between the chassis rails. As the powder coat floor was looking a little scuffed.

Made up some cardboard templates for the floor panels and used these to cut out the carpet shapes. Glued the carpet in place with contact adhesive. 

While I was fitting the carpets I fixed a fire extinguisher in the passenger footwell. 

Track Day - Donington 6th May 2014

Attended my first Track Day with the MNR at Donington Park. Had a really enjoyable day where I spent time to learn how the car handles. To start with while the track was still wet, I left the car at road setting with the suspension (3 clicks front and 6 clicks rear).

When the track dried out and I gained a little confidence I changed the damper settings to 6 clicks front and 10 clicks rear, must say that the car felt really well planted with very little body roll. Tyre pressure wise I went with 16psi front and 18psi rear with cold tyres.

One big concern on my mind was noise, I didn't get black flagged so during the afternoon session I spoke to the guys in the control tower to measure my drive by levels. On the pit straight I made sure that I used the full rev range and shifted at 10,500 rpm and pushed as hard as I could. The noise reading over 6 or so laps was consistently reading 94db and one at 96db. I'm pleased with the results.

When I was revving out the engine and changing up at redline the oil temp went quite high up to 100 Deg C as I shifted lower down the rev range the oil temp reduced to around 90 Deg C. Need to understand better how high I can push the oil temp before causing a problem or look at cooling and see if the Laminova cooler is up to the job.

The Race Technology DL1 logger worked really well. I managed to capture my sessions on track, I got detail of lines through the corners and also some lap times. The data analysis software is quite easy to use and gives a good insight in to the detail. As a first time this will be a benchmark for me to progress from. 

I tried to use my new GoPro, but this was an absolute failure as the camera decided to randomly stop recording after 20 - 40 seconds so no video clips this time. Need to look at this to see whats wrong.

Aero Screen

Collected my carbon aero screen from Chris of MNR yesterday while at the Stoneleigh show. Wanted an aero screen as at higher speeds there is quite a lot wind resistance that lifts my helmet slightly, wanted to reduce this as much as possible.

Opted to tiger seal the screen in to place as I don't want to screw it on to the dash panel. Applied tiger seal and then taped in to place. Wiped off excess with garage wipes.

Turbo Rebuild #1

Started work on preparing the turbo engine and to fit the billet output shaft and also the gen 2 crank that I bought some time ago.

Removed the head and cam chain etc, I then stripped the engine and split the crank case. The main bearings look quite worn and will need replacing (supposed to be new !!!!). Removed the clutch basket and balancer gear.

After some discussion with Karl at Extreme Engines, I found out that the bearing sizing had changed between gen 1 and gen 2 engines with two size options on the gen 1 and and three on the gen 2. The only real way to get the correct bearing clearance is to Plastiguage the gaps and try different bearings until there is a good fit.

As I don't want to buy a selection of bearings I decided to get Karl to size and fit the new main, thrust and rood bearings. I also decided to add a few things to the list...

I have also asked Karl to:

Balance the new crank with the magneto fitted
Remove crank balancer
Fit new crank and bearings
Fit new ARP rod stretch bolts
Fit the Billet output shaft
Replace the worn out middle sifter fork
Check tolerances of worn gears & replace worn items
Undercut second and sixth gears
Clean & shot blast engine casings to remove paint

Then also to supply:
Billet shift rods
Billet Clutch basket
2mm aluminium spacer
Clutch centre spacer and springs