Rohan said:
marinatlas said:
A tale said this particular bike was built with the left over of the racing dpt and the factory was not so happy to see them nearly winning the race ...................
Were they unhappy they didn't win, or unhappy that leftovers were being used ?!
P.S. Why were there leftovers in 73, the race dept was still going strong.
If it had won, would the factory have put out a Spa replica, rather than a JPN replica ??
Anyone know what is in it. ?
That zorst looks interesting - details part obscured though.quote]
Sorry to disappoint, but nothing exotic in that bike. Basically a Combat motor (skimmed head, 2S cam, shimmed rockers, everything else standard) gas-flowed by an ex-BRM engine development engineer, 32mm Concentrics, 33T engine sprocket, the 'Mk3 Atlas' one-off clutch mentioned elsewhere, outrigger bearing in a boss welded into the back of the primary case, Quaife 5-speed, Norton's F750 AMA Racer exhaust with 1.75" pipes and short megaphone, Boyer ignition. Standard frame, forks, wheels, etc..
There was no support or surplus parts from the JPN race team, quite the opposite, but Wolverhampton production 'reject' parts were always available at bargain prices and the factory gave me £50 towards the cost of each race.
We had a home-made quick-filler, designed around a BSA Gold Star inlet valve, which could add 5 gallons in 9 seconds; the body of that was cast in the Villiers foundry from a styrofoam pattern.
The stars of course were the two riders, near-novices at International endurance racing, who consistently lapped at the same pace as each other throughout the day and night.
The 750 crank was standard apart from roll-peened fillet radii at the mainshafts and did over 6,000 racing miles that year.
Next year, we ran an 850 with a 'carefully-ground' standard crank that fractured in the night at Spa. Engine still running, but grumbling loudly. Barcelona was a disaster too in '74 as one of the riders was brought down early in the race and taken to hospital.