I haven’t got round to finishing the blog post about the Brands weekend yet. The less said the better really, Friday testing was OK but not stellar. Qualy on Saturday was marred by air in the clutch hydraulics meaning I couldn’t downshift, the race on Saturday was in monsoon conditions and I couldn’t see a thing and on Sunday my rear cover pins sheared and I trailed the bodywork round for a couple of laps before spotting the black flag and coming in. I wasn’t desperately upset about the damage to the car, I’ve certainly had worse and I didn’t think it would be terribly challenging to repair.

I removed the rear cover and stripped all the brackets, spoiler etc. off it. The main spoiler was OK, the the side strakes definitely weren’t, the hinges were OK but needed rebonding in once the GRP was repaired. Clearly the pins at the front had sheared, the cover had flipped back and the hinges had hit their stops then ripped out of the GRP. Since the spoiler was attached all the way across the back of the cover that had remained attached and it was its attachment to the hinge plates that was holding the whole lot onto the car. There were cracks across the wheel arches and the narrow bridge below the airbox intake had broken making the whole thing was pretty floppy.

I cleaned up the inside of the GRP with acetone and set about patching it with resin and chopped strand. Once this was sorted the panel was much more rigid again and I could then sort out the airbox cover. After lots of measuring I mixed up some of the 2 part foam and built this up so I could cut/sand it back to a shape that would fit over the airbox. I then oversanded it a bit and smeared it with filler.

After several cycles of sanding and refilling I had it looking roughly as I wanted.

It then got a liberal coat of high build primer followed by a bit more filler to sort out the defects made obvious by the paint. After a couple more layers of primer I cut this back and waxed it up ready to make a mould from it.

The rear valance also got some attention as this had sustained a bit of damage, it’s also fair to say it was a bit tatty beforehand anyway the previous paint job having been a bit rushed. The light units on the right hand side had been melted, I think the flopped over rear bodywork had been deflecting the hot exhaust gases back onto the valance.

With loads of layers of wax on the plug I masked off the bodywork with parcel tape then daubed gelcoat onto it. Once that was tacky I started adding layers of chopped strand mat and resin.

About 12 hours after the final layer I made my first attempt at separating the mould from the plug. Although the edges were easy enough to separate indicating that the wax had done its job getting the two bits apart proved quite tricky. Eventually I gave it a few taps with the rubber hammer while prising it apart as hard as I could and it popped off neatly. And here it is after some trimming. It’s not perfect but it’s plenty good enough and any minor defects in the final part can be sorted before painting it.

The next stage involved attacking the rear cover with Ken Greenway’s favourite tool, the angle grinder. I chopped away all the foam etc. and enough of the old part of the airbox cover so the mould could be plonked back on and the new shape grafted on by laying up GRP on the inside.

Separating the mould was much easier this time and I was quite pleased with the result although it needed quite a bit of work with filler to tidy up the join.

Once I was happy with it I tidied up all the other repairs to the cover with filler and got it prepped for painting. The first coat of primer went fairly badly – it was going swimmingly well but unbeknown to me (as it’s in the garage and I spray up in the garden shed) the compressor had tripped out and as the pressure dropped the gun started splurging gobs of high build primer everywhere. It took a bit more work before the surface was ready for top coat and by now the end of the weekend was looming so I had to compromise a bit. The top coat went on well and the finish is generally good although there are a few minor defects. That said the finish is quite a bit better than last time I painted it and from anything above a couple of yards away it looks perfect and that’s all you need for a race car!

On Sunday night I just managed to drop the cover into position and glue the hinges on with the 2 part acrylic cement. Monday evening I then lifted it off and bonded the underneath parts with PU sealant. While that was drying I set about the somewhat mangled bits of aluminium that together make up the spoiler and the side strakes. The spolier was pretty easily salveagable as was the offside strake but I had to make a new strake up for the nearside. By the time I went in on Monday night they were all back in place on the bodywork.

At this stage I could be confident the car would be ready so I booked testing for Friday at Snetterton. We’re on the 300 circuit which seems to be quite popular with racers, I haven’t driven that configuration before so it’ll be good to get a few laps in on Friday.

Tuesday saw new vinyl cut and this was applied and the car given a quick clean ready to load up on Wednesday evening. This shot shows the new profile to accommodate the airbox. the vertical shutline is a bit wide but then it was before, the sidepod actually needs repositioning a bit further back. The sidepods need repainting anyway so I’ll address that when I get round to that.

Now I’ve got the vinyl graphics stored it’s very easy to cut them out on the vinyl cutter and sticking them on only took a few minutes. It was then time to get the motorhome loaded up ready for the long trek on Thursday night.

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I got back from Mexico a bit jet lagged but eager to get everything ready for Brands the following weekend. The finals were out and for the first time ever since I’ve been in RGB we have a split grid with Class F in one race and Classes R & A in the other. It means more space on track but does also mean I’ve got less places to hide and I’ll need to push myself along to make sure I’m not on my own off the back!

I did a bit of work on the motorhome first, giving it a good clean and checking the water system and heating was all owrking OK after the winter lay up. On my way back form Silverstone in October the heater had refused to work too so I investigated that and discovered a low coolant level which I presumed was because it hadn’t been bled properly when the new engine was fitted. I topped that up then went out to fill her up with diesel and check the heater was working OK. The next morning she got a new set of wiper blades and it was when I was fitting them that I spotted the damp patch under the engine bay

After a bit of poking around I discovered that the top hose and heater hose join onto the thermostat housing which then sort of plugs into a round port on the side of the cylinder head. This whole assembly was quite wobbly and was clearly the source of the leak. A bit more poking round discovered that it was retained by a torx bolt that was completely loose! So that didn’t take long to fix. While doing this though I spotted something else to worry me – air bubbles in the clear plastic hose from the fuel filter to the fuel injection pump. I couldn’t see any leaks anywhere and was puzzled about where the air was coming from. A search on the Transit forum suggested either dodgy o-rings in the QR hose connectors, a badly seated fuel filter or a damaged filter housing. None of these seemed to apply and I was left somewhat worried about this over the weekend.

I carried on prepping the car, first of all wheeling her out into the spring sunshine for a good clean. Then with her back in the garage I checked the rear wishbone bushes and spherical joints etc. These were all moving freely with no play so after removing the uprights I didn’t bother removing the actual wishbones as that would mean removing the rear body mounting frame. With that all back together I gave the wheels a wash then flushed the hydraulic fluid through then bled the brakes and the clutch.

I’d ordered a new fire extinguisher as the one I’ve had for 2 years from FEV needed servicing but I hadn’t been happy with it as the pressure gauge had gradually dropped and was suspiciously close to the red zone. JJC Race and Rally had an offer and I got a new kit including hoses and cables for £106 delivered. When it arrived it turned out to be a JJC badged Lifeline one. I was hoping the cylinder would just accept the existing hose but it needed a narrower one so I ended up replacing the hoses and nozzles as well.

I could then get on with sorting out my tools ready for the weekend, followed by getting all my race gear – helmet, overalls, boots etc. – sorted out and packed in the motorhome.

I rang my personal specialist Transit helpline on Monday morning, speaking to Darcy Smith at Banwell Garage over the Severn Estuary in Devon. Darcy races a Radical having moved on from RGB a few years ago. He’s also a ‘proper’ mechanic and advised me that what I was seeing on the motorhome was normal and that he reckoned the bubbles I was seeing were in fact vacuum being formed in the fuel pipe rather than air bubbles.

So with that worry out of the way it was all systems go ready for the Brands weekend. The BDN got a trip out to fill the fuel tank, a trip to Tesco sorted out provisions for the weekend. The only slight fly in the ointment was finishing work at 6:30 on Thursday followed by the 225 mile drive to Brands.

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On Wednesday the new gear cables arrived. I’d ordered the next gauge up from the usual ones and these turned out to be pretty heavy duty indeed. The decreased bend radius isn’t an issue but the bulkhead fittings are 16mm diameter so I needed to make new brackets at each end. I didn’t quite get this finished by the end of play in the evening.

Easter weekend saw me back out there finishing off the gear cable brackets making sure I had plenty of adjustment to keep the lever clear of the dash. The new cables don’t like bending much but eventually I was happy with the routing and tightened up the fittings then refitted the bulkhead panel.

The exhaust secondaries run fairly close to the block and the airbox and of particular concern the wiring loom for the FI system including the Power Commander connector blocks isn’t too far away from it so I spent a bit of time making an aluminium heat shield to protect that.

On Monday I took the car out for a spin again to check out the gear shift and it’s a definite improvement on the old system, it feels more direct and it’s easier selecting neutral which is a good barometer. The plan was also to log the run and have a look at the air/fuel mixture to check for lean spots. Trouble is you need to have the thing under load at full throttle really and holding it at full throttle for any length of time in any gear at all let alone one of the higher ones on Her Majesty’s public highways isn’t really consistent with maintaining driving licence, liberty or General Medical Council registration. So to cut a long story short my log wasn’t very useful at all. I’ll get it on a rolling road when I get chance, there isn’t much sustained full throttle at the next race meeting which is at Brands so I’m not too worried. Here’s a little clip of a quick buzz through the gears joining the M4.

Planned maintenance for the winter had also included checking the front disk run-out and going through the suspension. The discs because I never did track down the front brake imbalance at IVA and when he drove the car Tim wondered if there was a slight issue. I got the front wheels off and checked both front discs with a dial gauge. I couldn’t detect any run-out at all so moved on to the suspension. I started with he left front corner, removing the upright then removing both wishbones. The top one was moving fine but the lower one had quite a bit of stiction. With the metal bush removed and the acetal top hat bushed out I could inspect the housings in the wishbones and these were fine with no signs of corrosion etc. I cleaned everything up then dressed the outside of the tighter acetal bushes till they slid into the wishbone a bit easier – it’s surprising how a slightly tight fit in the wishbone significantly tightens the fit of the metal bush. Once that was done I regreased them all then refitted the wishbones, cleaned up the upright and refitted that.

I spent a couple of hours doing the same on the right front corner then refitted the wheels and dropped her back down off the jack. I still need to do the rear suspension and want to bleed the brakes and clutch but that can wait till after my hols.

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in the evening with the rear of the car jacked up I removed the gear cable and put a slightly longer lever on the gearbox shaft. With the engine running I was able to shift the gears OK by hand and the shift mechanism felt pretty normal. So I wondered if something had been jamming at the gearbox end of the cable although it had all looked OK.

I ended up with the day off on Friday so late morning I refitted the gear cable and had another go. It went into first OK then into second but then I couldn’t get it back into neutral and was giving the lever a good push when the inner broke! I wondered if it was the cable failing that had caused the problem but swapping it for the old one didn’t improve the situation.

I stripped out the reverse motor and its mounting plate to get a better look at the gear shaft and stuck the longer lever on again. It was then it dawned on me that I could get it to go through the gears and back again but it was operating in the reverse direction! I plugged in the bike dash and sure enough the gear indicator confirmed this. I then went back to the Kawasaki manual and compared the rearset mechanisms and indeed the 08/09 mechanism operates the shaft in the opposite direction to the 06/07. Doh!!

I was tempted to simply stick it back together and take it out for a road test but decided I really didn’t want the gear lever operating the wrong way round. So I started looking at ways of routing the cable so it came in on the other side of the shaft. I decided to make a bracket to mount next to the reverse motor with the cable routing very close to the existing one (over the top of the alternator housing) and had almost finished this by close of play Friday evening. The old cable is just about long enough but I planned to order a new slightly longer one on Monday.

On Saturday I finished off the gear cable mount, then decided to look at the alternative routings again. The most appealing was to run the cable straight down from the lever then along the floor under the fuel tank in the little tunnel for the handbrake cables. It’s a tight squeeze but I did get a cable through then discovered it means angling it up quite acutely to the gearbox. Routing the cable just over the top of the tank but underneath the alternator housing gave about the most direct route and it meant I could make a bracket similar to the one currently in use bolted on via two of the alternator housing bolts. This took quite a while but gives a fairly direct routing and the cable will be about a foot shorter than the current one.

I was still keen to get the car out on the road however so I routed my old cable (the one I swapped out at Silverstone cos it was binding when it got hot) onto the first bracket I’d made then stuck the reverse assembly back together and replaced the bulkhead panel. The engine hasn’t been mapped of course but Tony sent me his map so I uploaded that to the Power Commander. Looking at the map it’s very rich up at the top end, up to +24% around 11k rpm and 80-100% throttle, my exhaust won’t be as free flowing as Tony’s so I shouldn’t be at any risk of it running lean.

Time then to get the car out of the garage again and wrap up warm – including my motorcycle helmet – and make a further attempt at a shakedown. This one turned out much better The first couple of miles were in pretty slow traffic but I did then get a bit of clear road to open her up a bit more to make sure there were no flat spots and that she revved out freely. There weren’t and she did! It’s a while since I’ve driven the car so she did feel incredibly quick, I know people say bike engines lack torque and aren’t terribly drivable, and the 08/09 Kawasaki engine is meant to be more peaky than the 06/07 but she felt very tractable pulling vigorously from under 4k rpm in 3rd and 4th gears with no trouble at all. Here’s a still from the on board video, probably best not to publish the video!

And here’s a little shot driving through our village. If you look carefully you can see that one of our local strobe lights appears to be malfunctioning. So that’s it, engine transplant done. It’s now just under five weeks to the next meeting which is at Brands Hatch. I’ve got quite a few routine maintenance jobs to do on the car but she’s ready to rock and roll right now if need be. I’m really looking forward to building on the significant improvements in my driving towards the end of last season and it’ll be interesting to see what difference a few more ponies make

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And then I was off to London on Wednesday not getting home till late on Saturday so that was it until Sunday. I was now very conscious of time pressure, the first race is now less than two weeks away. I’ve got no chance of testing before then and realistically wouldn’t have even if the car had been ready sooner. I also won’t have time to get it mapped. In the expectation that the car [b]will[/b] be ready for Donington I’ve booked the untimed practice session on the race day.

I fitted the engine/reverse mount along with the lower chainstay section then got the isolator and battery fitted and connected up. I connected up the remaining coolant hoses and refilled the system. Then it was time for the bits I’d been putting off – rewiring the engine bay to connect up the engine loom and all the sensors. With the new layout the oil pressure sender, oil temp sender and the fuel pressure sender are all close together so I made up a small sub-loom to connect them along with the water temp sender and connected that into the main loom via a 6 way multiconnector. With that done I could check that the dash worked and that the sensors were displaying correctly.

I then sorted out all the wires for the main loom side of the engine loom connector and got the terminals crimped and soldered onto that. With the starter solenoid connected up to both the isolator switch and the starter motor that was about it. At this stage lots of components were just dangling in the engine bay but I didn’t want to tidy them up till I knew everything was working. The time had come to try switching on the ignition. This was very undramatic as absolutely nothing happened at all. What should happen is that the fuel pump relay should click on for a few seconds, you usually hear the fuel pump while that’s on ad you usually hear the throttle butterflies move. But none of that happened. So reached for the secret weapon – the bike dash – and plugged that in and tried again. This told me that the ECU certainly was alive, it all lit up, the neutral light came on along with the low fuel warning light. Also there were flashing FI and ignition key symbols. So I nipped into the house to the Kawasaki manual and worked out how to display the fault codes to discover four of them on there – 35, 34, 56 and 67. 35 is “Immobiliser Amplifier Malfunction” so I wasn’t too pleased about that but the other 3 were trivial expected things, 34 is the exhaust valve actuator, 56 the radiator fan relay and 67 the oxygen sensor, all of which are indeed absent.

I checked that the immobiliser module was correctly plugged in which it was, then turned my attention to the key and antenna which I’d dismantled from within the ignition switch assembly. I undid the tape and tried turning the key round so it poked through the antenna ring from the back as I wondered if it was pushed in too far. This did the trick as next time I tried it the flashing key symbol had gone along with code 35 and I just had the 3 others.

So I refitted the oil cooler and filled her with oil then tried the starter button without having the stick coils on. The engine turned over but I didn’t get any oil pressure. I wasn’t terribly surprised as all the hoses were empty along with the cooler itself and the filter housing. I turned it for a little while but had really run out of time and the battery was starting to drain so I abandoned for the day.

On Monday evening I disconnected the oil cooler and filled it with oil then backfilled the feed hose. A bit of cranking with the oil filter loose soon saw oil dripping from the filter housing. With the filter tightened I was then seeing over 30psi just on the starter button. I then refitted the stick coils and tried starting her but the battery was a bit weak. There was a spark and the FI system is running so I was confident everything’s good to go.

But I was wrong! Spinning away but not firing. Fitted a new set of plugs but no better. Decided to have another look at the fault codes – there’s now code 23. Camshaft position sensor. That would be because it wasn’t plugged in. A few seconds later and she’s running with nice blue gouts of flame from the ports

On Tuesday I got the exhaust manifold fitted. My original plan was to get a new one made but in the end I haven’t had either the time or the money. The block and port dimensions are identical so it fits fine, it’s probably just losing me a bit of power. I then discovered I couldn’t start the engine. Immobiliser again, it seems the key position within the antenna ring is critical. I really don’t want to have to refit the actual ignition barrel so tried stuffing the housing with a big lump of blutac which seems to work OK.

Once that was done I refitted the reverse motor and made some mounting brackets for the starter solenoid and the voltage regulator along the top edge of the engine mount just above the reverse motor. During short stints in the garage during the week I got the rest of the wiring tidied up and refitted the exhaust manifold.

The Donington finals came out and I discovered I wasn’t in either the race or the untimed practice session. A phone call to the 750 Motor Club office confirmed that they hadn’t received either my bulk entry form which had been emailed in January or the form I’d faxed for the untimed practice No problem for the race as there were still spaces but the untimed practice was full.

On Saturday I refitted the rear undertray and the rear framework and silencer. I also fabricated some steel plates with welded on captive nuts to replace the M8 rivnuts in the rear aluminium channel the bodywork bolts onto. I discovered I had a problem in that the battery wasn’t receiving any charge although it was fine when I’d checked it at the first engine start. A broken connector in the rectifier outlet plug explained this so I found a similar female blade connector and soldered that on.

Sunday was then the big push to try to get the car finished and road tested as I was due to leave for London early evening for a few days. I had to completely replumb my breather system and catch tank. The ZX10, in common with the R1, tends to naturally breathe a lot of oil out and needs a system to return the oil to the engine. I’d spoken to Tony Gaunt and was planning to copy his system. The first requirement was to modify my catch tank to stick a hose onto the bottom of it to return the oil. It has an M6 bolt in the bottom to drain it so I removed that, drilled the hole out and tapped it to M10. I then turned down a short length of aluminium, threaded one end of it then bored it out and screwed this into the tank so I could attach a hose to it. I then had to find some way of mounting my catch tank as high as possible within the engine bay which proved quite tricky and took me ages. Once that was done I connected the gearbox breather via a tee piece with one hose going to the top of the tank as a breather and the other to the bottom with an inline one way valve to allow the oil to drain back to the engine. The breathers on the top of the cam cover were connected to the other spigot at the top of the tank. That took me till lunchtime.

I then refitted the rear bodywork which of course needed modification to accommodate the airbox. After making a cardboard template I took the angle grinder to the GRP and gradually trimmed the hole until it fitted around the airbox. This left only a thin strip of GRP across the front edge of the bodywork so I reinforced that with a strip of aluminium. In fact the airbox doesn’t protrude very much at all and doesn’t look anywhere near as bad as I’d expected. My original plan had been to mould a new bulge but it’s been too cold for GRP work and in any case I simply haven’t had time. I’ll get that done after the Donington race meeting. Here’s a pic of the engine/airbox, I didn’t have time to get a shot of the modified bodywork.

I refitted the clutch slave next then made a start on modifying the sidepods. In their wisdom the committee have decided to enforce a completely flat floor and despite their assurances that this wouldn’t affect existing cars (other than those they were targetting as pushing the boundaries of the aero rules) the new rule makes the sidepod floor immediately behind the front wheel non-compliant. So the fix was to fabricate some aluminium panels to cover the floor and provide a flat floor with a vertical surface in the wheel well. This took longer than it should and it was getting towards late afternoon before the sidepods were ready to fit.

I was getting very pressurised by now since I needed to leave the house at about 6:15 and hadn’t packed my stuff for 3 days in London. I got the sidepods refitted followed by the rear valance, then the bulkhead panels followed by the seat and harness. By the time I cleared the way out of the garage and got the car out onto the drive it was after 5:30. I got in to find the pedal end of the throttle cable had come undone so I needed to get out again and sort that. I then set off down the drive to find the clutch was out of adjustment and slipping too much so I got the car back up the drive to adjust that. At 5:45 I set off down the drive again to find I got into third gear and then couldn’t change down due to some problem with the gear linkage. So I had the car stuck at the end of the drive in gear. David helped me turn it round then I just had to drive it back into the garage and abandon it to have a quick shower and throw some stuff into a bag for my trip.

So, here I am in London. I won’t be home till late Wednesday evening, I’m working till 6:30 on Thursday and am in Cardiff for the day on Friday. Hopefully the gear linkage just needs some adjustment but I’ll need to do a bit of dismantling to get at it. The car still needs a few minor things doing like race numbers, a bit of heat insulation here and there and I need to upload a map to the Power Commander. I really hope I’ll get chance to get the car out on the road before the trek up to Donington on Friday evening but it’s all going to be a bit touch and go.

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Next on the to do list was making up some new oil hoses. I decided to make entirely new hoses as the old ones were looking a bit tatty in places. This was all pretty straightforward and I got it done in an afternoon.

The new remote oil filter is bolted onto the tank cover and sits in the way of the fuel pressure regulator so I had to relocate that which then meant redoing the fuel hoses. These are again braided hose with the anodised aerospace fittings and redoing these on the -6 hose was actually quite a lot trickier than the -10 oil hoses as the fittings aren’t quite so user friendly.

I eventually got the fuel lines finished but then it was ages before I got back to the car with a busy work schedule that included weekends getting in the way along with a trip to Wembley to watch the Swans lift the Capital One Cup. With only three weeks to go to the first race meeting I was determined to make the most of my day off on Friday 1st March. I decided the next job was to get the engine loom fitted to see where things can sit, I need to have the ECU somewhere visible and try to get the Power Commander and voltage regulator somewhere with some air flow around them. The first minor glitch was when I couldn’t find the starter solenoid which was puzzling as I’d removed it when I did the loom. After a brief search I gave up and decided to use the old one. But by late morning I realised the solenoid was probably sitting with the ECU which I also couldn’t find. It’s a while since I did the loom so I decided I must have put it ‘somewhere safe’ and set about searching. The garage is a bit of a tip with dismantled engines and car parts everywhere so it took a while going through everything. I then tried the utility room in the house, the study, but to no avail. I started searching for it at about 11:30 and by 4:45 it still hadn’t turned up and to say I was in a bit of a mood after wasting over half a day would have been putting it very politely. Of course it’s different to the old one and is even matched to the ignition key so getting a replacement was likely to be expensive.

Shortly after stomping into the house and getting changed David decided to have a look in the cubby hole under the stairs where the vacuum cleaner and his golf clubs live. And there it was. One ZX10R ECU sitting next to a starter solenoid. Obviously I hadn’t put it there, I think Jen or her Mum must have come across it and tucked it in there not realising what it was.

Saturday morning was spent getting the motorhome down for an MOT followed by our trip to the Liberty Stadium, Sunday was an 8am to 2pm work shift followed by a couple of jobs in the house so nothing else got done over the weekend

19 days to Donington …

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Brian emailed me to let me know he’d finished the oil cooler take-off and did I want it posting back. With Friday off I’d been tempted to nip up to collect it but the weather forecast for Friday included lots of snow so I decided that wasn’t a good idea! The part duly arrive on Monday having been delayed by aforementioned snow and I wasn’t disappointed. As you can see from the photo it’s very compact and looks like it should be just the job. The original adapter I’ve been using has ports tapped 1/2″ BSP with adaptors to connect the -10 JIC hose connectors onto but Brian decided to get some -10 JIC connectors welded onto it directly, I think mainly to keep the thing more compact. The welding was of course done by Bob at Concept Racing.

Because of the complex shape of the O-ring etc. Brian was originally thinking of trying to use the OEM base but decided in the end to bite the bullet and machine the whole piece from billet, including the groove for the seal. We worked out that the funny looking indentations and channels in the OEM item are there simply to vent void space around the oil pump in the casing to atmospheric pressure so Brian’s done simple versions of those as you can see here.

And here’s the new part alongside the OEM part and the oil cooler take-off I’ve been using. The new part weighs 160 grams, the OEM part 310g and the old billet take-off adapter 590g. Of course I’ll still need the remote filter head but it still amounts to a significant weight saving. The most important thing though is that it’s much more elegant, takes up less space and I can now run a remote filter that’ll be much easier to get to.

I ordered my remote oil filter head with the required fittings, I also ordered some new hose to replace all the oil cooler hoses, they’re a bit worn in places where they’ve chafed a bit, especially the one running across the engine bay floor. On Brian’s advice I’ve got a filter head that takes a 20mm threaded filter – most of them are 3/4″ UNF and the problem then is that a bike filter (which are usually 20mm) will go onto the 3/4″ UNF stub but won’t tighten properly and can blow off with catastrophic consequences. I got the stuff from BGC Motorsport who stock a remote filter head that will allow me to fit the standard Kawasaki filter.

On Saturday morning I got the new take off plate bolted onto the engine. I stripped the fittings off the old oil cooler hoses and cleaned them up ready to make up the new hoses. I also drilled and tapped the new oil filter head to take the oil temp sender.

Brian had also sent some revised engine mount parts. The main engine mount plates are bolted onto the rear bulkhead via aluminium angles and these failed last summer. The old angles were 25mm x 3.2mm, the new replacements are machined from 25mm x 25mm solid square bar. Although the bolt holes are rebated I still needed some longer bolts so popped over to Swansea Fasteners to get some new ones.

On Sunday morning I was about to get the engine suspended from the hoist to lower it into the engine bay when I remembered that I’d wanted to modify the water pump housing. There’s a small spigot that goes to the oil cooler that I’d previously blocked off by sticking a small length of hose with a bolt clamped in it. This tends to get in the way of the gear lever a bit so I wanted to try something else. When I came to remove it I found that one of the bolts was loose, and this turned out to be because the little crankcase stub it was screwed into was split, presumably having taken a knock when the bike went down So I cleaned it up, stuck some JB Weld in it then tapped the bent segment back in then re-tapped the hole a little deeper to take a longer bolt.

Going back to the water pump housing I cut the spigot down, ran an M10 tap through it then ground down the head of an M10 button headed screw down and fixed it in from the inside with some JB Weld. The housing could then be bolted back onto the engine.

The ZX10 engine has adjustable engine mounts, both upper and lower gearbox mounts on the right hand side are threaded bushes so the width can be adjusted but the upper one on the 2009 engine is much longer so I swapped over the old ones once the engine was in the hoist. I then ran out of time so lowered it onto some wooden blocks till I can get out there again, next job is to install it in the engine bay.

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It was then time to make a start on the loom for the new engine. The first part was to label all the connectors on the loom so I know what’s what. Oh for a nice Haynes manual with a colour wiring diagram! The Kawasaki manual has the wiring diagram in black and white and to make it more interesting it’s spread over two pages which makes tracking the 50-odd wires that cross the page real fun. With all the connectors identified and labelled I then stripped off all the loom tape, in this case it’s all adhesive backed so that took quite a while. Then it was time to start cutting bits out, the easiest bit to start on was the lighting wiring as I know I don’t want to keep any of that – by the time you’ve cut out the wires for the headlights, sidelights, indicators and brake light quite a bit of wire and a few connectors are gone. I then worked from the main handlebar switchgear which is also going. I kept a record of all the important wires from the last time I did this and the important ones remain the same – the main ignition feed, the starter button, engine kill switch, clutch switch etc. On the Kawasaki there’s a bank of 5 relays in a relay box which include the headlight, fan, fuel pump and starter circuit relays along with one that doesn’t get used. The starter circuit is complex with inputs from the handlebar clutch switch, neutral switch and sidestand switch along with the starter button. This wiring can all be stripped out leaving three wires running to the ECU, one of which tells the ECU the clutch is in, another tells it the starter button is being pressed (this enables the starter motor) and the final one tells it that the sidestand is up and the engine is either in neutral or the clutch is in (enabling the FI system).

My previous install was with an American loom and ECU which doesn’t have the immobiliser circuitry but this one’s a UK model and therefore has complex immobiliser circuitry with a transponder in the key. On these bikes if you lose your keys and the master you have to buy a new ECU and ignition switch. So I made sure I got the ignition switch and key with the engine, I’ll need to strip the transponder receiver out of the lock and tape it into the loom along with the key. Like most bikes the loom also incorporates a tilt sensor which shuts off the FI system if the bike falls over and while these can be either mounted upright or filled with silicon a neater fix is to snip the wires off and bridge the input (blue) wire and the output (yellow/green) wire with a 68kΩ resistor. This steps the +5V input voltage down to the required +4V and keeps the ECU happy. This photo shows the stripped loom ready to be tidied up and rewrapped.

In addition to stripping lots of wires and connectors out of the loom I also added a couple, splicing in wires to give me a tacho feed for the DigiDash along with a throttle position feed. These wires were then bundled with the other ones needed to connect to the BDN loom and I set about rewrapping the whole loom. And here’s a photo of the end product along with the box of wire offcuts.

Meanwhile I’ve shipped the oil filter take-off casting up to Brian for him to have a think about the best solution for the remote oil filter. His initial thoughts involve machining a cover for the side of the casting currently occupied by the oil cooler take-off and machining a take-off to go where the filter usually sits. I did ring Brian at BGC Motorsport to see if he could supply an off the shelf sandwich plate and blanking off adapter that would fit but drew a blank.

After New Year I ordered some new connectors from Vehicle Wiring Products, the multiconnector I’d used to connect the engine loom to the main car loom used 6.3mm blade terminals but didn’t have any latch so I had to hold it together with a cable tie. The new 12 way connector has nice little latches and is a bit more compact. Once all the terminals for this were soldered on and pushed into the terminal block I finished off the loom by sorting out the immobiliser transponder. The antenna is circular and incorporated into the ignition lock, it wasn’t much of a job to remove this from the barrel and tape the key inside it.

Having received the oil filter/cooler casting in the post Brian has had a few ideas about sorting out a solution. We did have a chat over the phone and it seems that the solution is going to be massively more compact than the assembly it replaces.

And to finish this blog entry here’s a link to the annual stats for the blog for 2012

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The first job was to get the engine out, so I made a start by removing the rear bodywork, sidepods and the rear body mounting frame along with the exhaust and undertray.

There was then another lull during which I tried to source a take-off plate to re-plumb the oil cooler and filter mounting the latter remotely where I could get at it better. With it in its current place it’s almost impossible to get at and every filter change results in an engine bay full of oil. A post on Locostbuilders led me to BigCC whose website offered an oil filter relocation kit with a rather snazzy looking anodised billet take-off plate as shown in this pic. I ordered that then soon got an email telling me they no longer sell them! I also contacted Muzzy’s in the States who do lots of these kind of parts but they don’t do one for my engine.

I did think of trying to make one myself but then came up with the cunning plan of getting my younger son Chris (who’s doing an engineering degree) to draw me one in solidworks with a view to attempting to persuade the nice Mr. Baldwin to make one on his very nice 3D milling machine. Said Mr. Baldwin actually did a bit better than that and said if I got the current oil filter mounting casting to him it shouldn’t be difficult to make something.

With the engine bay accessible it didn’t take long to drain the cooling system and disconnect the electrics and oil cooler. Once that was done I hoisted the engine out and got it onto the engine stand to remove the sump. The inside of the sump was pretty blackened supporting the diagnosis that one or more of the cylinders has significant blow-by – it’s usually shiny in there.

I also took off the oil filter and oil cooler take-off assembly so I could compare it with the one off the new engine. With the old engine stripped of the parts I need to transplant I got it off the stand and got the new engine on there. Off came all the bits I don’t need – various hoses, the exhaust, sump pan, oil filter and its casting etc. Here’s a photo of the mating face of the oil filter casting, I was a bit surprised by the little chambers to either side of the oilways which have tiny grooves clearly venting something but I can’t work out what space within the engine castings they’re connected to, I suspect something to do with the PAIR system.

And here’s a photo of the side of the casting that the oil filter spins onto. If I can’t get a new take off plate made up then plan B is to get a spin on adapter made to go onto here.

It’s surprising how much stuff needs doing to the engine before it can go in the car. After cleaning off the old sealant the billet sump and pickup were bolted on, the old clutch cable mount removed along with a few other brackets, the thermostat housing taken apart and its front cover swapped around to reverse the direction of the spigot, the small bleed nipple blocked off. I’d ordered a new 16 tooth front sprocket from Talon Engineering to replace the old 17 tooth one. I’d originally miscalculated my gearing and have been struggling to get the car geared low enough all season. The trouble is it needs three M6 tapped holes to bolt the reverse gear to it. Brian had previously drilled and tapped the original one but suggested getting Talon to do it before they case hardened it. This added about £50 and a month but saved Brian a few hours and expensive drill bits! Here it is bolted onto the engine.

The engine’s breather system is having a major revamp. It seems it’s an issue with all the Kawasaki engines – Adrian had trouble at Silverstone using the stock plumbing where the breather goes into the airbox. When the engine dumps half a litre in there over the course of a session that’s not a good thing! Gary Goodyear and Tony Gaunt have also had issues and Tony’s solution has been to have a breather from the top end of the engine into the catch tank with a further hose with a one way valve back to the main crankcase breather. So my first job with the new engine was to sort out the cam cover. With the PAIR valve covers removed I took out the reed valve housings and removed the reeds. On the 06/07 cover I was able to tap the holes through into the exhaust ports for M8 screws but on the newer engine the holes are ever so slightly larger so too big to take an M8 thread. So I helicoiled them then stuck some screws in there. To provide some breathing I drilled holes through the bottom of the PAIR housings, these holes sit above the middle of the camshaft carrier blocks so won’t be subject to direct oil splash. In the pic here you can see the pair of screws at the top with the breather hole about the centre of the photo.

With that done I made a start on cleaning up the engine bay before cleaning myself up and heading off to the Liberty Stadium to watch the Swans take on Man Utd.

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After looking forward to it so much the Birkett was a real disappointment. The whole of Friday was spent trying to solve problems, by Friday evening we thought we might have it fixed but qualifying on Saturday morning proved us wrong and I didn’t get out at all in the actual race

The first session on Friday morning was going OK, albeit with the gearchange stiffening up as the session progressed, until about 20 minutes in when I started getting an oil pressure warning round the corners. The dash is programmed to show me a warning when the engine revs are above 6k and the oil pressure drops below 30psi. So I limped my way back to the paddock. The engine had dumped a load of oil from the breather into the catch tank, overflowing it and dumping oil in the engine bay. It had leaked through into the cockpit floor, down the right hand sidepod and generally made quite a mess.

So I spent a while mopping up the oil, refilling the engine then tried adding a secondary plastic bottle to the breather from the catch tank hoping that would be OK.

I’d had a bit of a light bulb moment on Tuesday night and wondered if my gear selection problems at Mallory were in fact perhaps due to a knackered cable – although I’ve got a high temperature cable and have shielded it the cable runs fairly close to the manifold. So on Wednesday I ordered another one from Cable-Tec which arrived Thursday and I just managed to get that fitted before the second test session.

This ended just the same as the first with low oil pressure warnings and an oil sodden engine bay. So after yet another clean-up operation I decided I needed another plan. I had a chat with Brian and we concluded that for the engine to be pushing out this much oil there must be significant blow-by past the piston rings, pressurising the crankcase. We discussed a few options but I thought it was looking pretty bleak. Austen came over and we discussed the way his catch tank works – R1s do this and you need a catch tank with a return to the engine. Despite lots of considering of options we decided we couldn’t devise a way of doing this with what we had, So we instead decided to try to take a breather from the rocker cover via one of the PAIR valve chambers. This actually turned out to be fairly easy to do so I got the car ready just in time for the final test session at 3:55.

This time I was getting low pressure within a single lap and the engine bay was awash with loads of oil coming into the passenger compartment. The catch tank was empty though so I decided the oil had to be coming from somewhere else. Eventually we tracked it down to the braided hose connecting the oil pressure sender. We couldn’t find a replacement but Paul Nightingale at Spire had one of the original bike oil pressure switches so I fitted that and wired it up to the DigiDash.

We thought we might have it cracked this time so with help from Steve Malyon and Gavin we cleaned the car up, topped up the oil and refitted the bulkhead panels etc. and I went off to scrutineering. This went smoothly and I got back to the motorhome well past 7pm to clear up the tools etc. By then it was 8 o’clock and I was definitely ready for a beer and some food.

Saturday morning was sunny but freezing cold with some ice on car windscreens. I was our ‘B’ car so out at 9:20. I was fairly near the front of the queue and the plan was to do a single lap, come in to check there wasn’t oil everywhere then head out to make sure I got the required 3 laps in. It did look fine so I carried on. With nearly 70 cars out it was pretty busy and I was taking it fairly steady but still overtook quite a lot of cars. After a few laps I became aware of a smell of burning oil which was a bit off-putting. Not quite so off-putting as seeing blue smoke coming from the front right wheel arch when coming into a couple of the corners though! I was confident it wasn’t tyre smoke, also confident it couldn’t have been oil running forward in the sidepod and getting onto hot brakes (as the brakes were working fine) and decided it must have been oil mist from the breather getting onto the exhaust.

I was about to come in but the chequered flag came out. Back in the paddock the catch tank was full but hadn’t overflowed this time and the only oil in the engine bay was the residual stuff that hangs around the hoses, chassis rails etc. and is impossible to completely clean out. So it had managed to breathe out the best part of a litre from the rocker cover. I decided this wasn’t a good thing and that it wasn’t worth risking taking the car out in the race – I’d been taking it easy in quali so it would have dumped more oil out at full chat and it would almost certainly have overflowed the catch tank in a longer session resulting in knackering the engine and dumping oil all over the place. More serious though was the significant risk of a fire which simply wasn’t a risk worth taking, so I got changed out of my race overalls, packed up my stuff and helped the team for the rest of the day.

So, a pretty disappointing end to the season. The plan now is to get the engine out again and get the 2009 engine fitted. Hopefully that won’t be too difficult assuming the engine mounts etc. all fit as expected but it will need the wiring loom modifying and I plan to get a new manifold made. I’ll also have a rethink about the layout of stuff within the engine bay and probably come up with a different oil breather/catch tank system. The new engine/airbox is taller so I’ll need to modify the engine cover also.