FZR/XR650R Build Thread....... It's Alive!

[dash]

The stock engine did not have an oil reservoir? If not, should be a good method to keep the oil cooler and scavenging less.

[tgold]

For the XR650R the oil tank was the frame downtube. Eventually I want to make the tank out of sheet aluminum to help dissipate heat faster. But I'm not super concerned about oil temps because I think that the relatively huge radiator will allow me to manage the overall engine temperature fairly easily. That in turn should help keep the oil temps reasonable.

[tgold]

Hope to be doing some dyno runs by the end of March.

A few more shots:
YFZ450 ATV gas tank:



Tank from other side:



Tank with cover on:



Rear tank mount:



Exhaust header 95% complete:



Other side exhaust:

[pefrey]

That certainly is an interesting looking tank.

[tgold]

The FZXRR project bike lives! I went home for lunch and (if not for insuring that the kill switch does indeed work as designed!) I bump started it on what would have been the second or third try.

Sounds like an angry tractor, which I think will be it's new name.

No leaks so far, it may have been getting a little warm, so I've got to get a temp gauge on it, There was one exhaust header bolt that I forgot to fully tighten, and the idle needed a little adjustment. I'm definitely planning to go over it with a fine tooth comb today & tomorrow before its race weekend debut.

I'm stoked!


Just a few days ago:
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[gsxridiot]

Bravo!
that is a fantastic creation
be sure to let us know how she was on the track

[greasemeup]

Cool, never seen a Honda motor in a Yamaha frame before. Looks good, betya can't wait to ride it!


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[Genesis]

That thing is awsome, very, very nice work, I am thinking I might do a 400 frame now.

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[tgold]

Interesting weekend.... I got the FZXRR project bike started for the first time on Thursday at lunch. Just the motor starting was very good news since I had bought it off ebay and (other than a complete disassembly to check) there was no good way for me to know if it was actually a good motor. Thursday and Friday were spent finishing up the bare minimum tasks to make the bike safe to ride on the track. I even put off mounting a numberplate on the bike because there wasn't enough time. I did a little more stuff to the bike on Saturday morning before my wife and daughter helped me to load up the truck and trailer and then heading down to Pittrace. After getting to the track around noon, we set up a few things and I unloaded the bike to take it through tech. Just unloading the bike off the trailer and pushing it around was a revelation of just how light this bike is. No problems with tech except for the axle needing a cotter pin.
I bump-started the bike and did a few full-throttle runs in an empty part of the pits. The bike would accelerate cleanly if I didn't open the throttle all the way, but would fall on it's face if I whacked the throttle open. I didn't have time to mess with the carb right away, so I suited up and took the bike out on the track. When the motor ran cleanly it would pull pretty good, but there was a lot of stumbling. Even on partial throttle in the corners it would stumble, so I didn't want to really tray to carry any corner speed. As for the chassis, the feel was very direct with the pavement with very responsive steering, but not nervous. Overall vibration was lower than I expected and definitely tolerable. The seat felt pretty hard since there was only a half inch of soft foam, then an inch of very hard foam glued directly to the carbon fiber tail. Not exactly cushy, just very direct-feeling. Since I couldn't really trust the carburetion to be smooth, I pulled in to start checking it out.
One thing that I forced myself to do was to only do one thing at a time when sorting out the carburetion. It was tough to stick to that rule, but I didn't want to get lost in making multiple adjustments or fixes. This approach eventually paid-off. The first thing I did was to take the float bowl off where I found some water in the bottom. I cleaned out the carb and put it back on and it definitely ran better so I headed back out on the track. It did run better on partial throttle in the corners but it would still stumble under full throttle, enough-so that I was concerned about someone being directly behind me exiting a corner and not expecting my bike to hesitate under acceleration. I did get my knee down once or twice before I came in, so that was cool. Back in the pits I drained the entire gas tank and took out all of the anti-slosh foam in an effort to clean out any water or debris. Back to full throttle runs in an empty part of the pits, but no improvement in the stumbling under full throttle. The time on the track came to a close and I was running out of time to get the bike running good enough to race on Sunday. I took Amy and Mercede back to our hotel, picked up a fuel filter and a few other supplies from Pep Boys and then headed back to the track. After installing the fuel filter I did a few more runs with no improvement. Because it was getting dark, I decided to at least put a numberplate on the front of the bike before heading back to the hotel for the night. I did a little searching online to try and get some direction for the morning and eventually I decided to that I would check the sparkplug in the morning to see if that would give me an idea of what to do. When I got to the track in the morning, I took out the plug and it was as black as sin on Sunday so I took out my small selection of mainjets that I had jut gotten a few days before and put in the smallest one that I had. A bumpstart and the thing was pulling like a stripe-assed ape under full throttle. There is still work to be done with the carburetion, but it was definitely good enough to race, so I headed out to practice. The bike felt good and pulled much more cleanly, but I thought that the gearing was a little tall. I came back in to give the bike a once-over and I saw a few drops of oil forming, I wiped them down and headed back out. I was feeling more confident on the bike and starting to push things just a little and wound up doing a 1:15 lap. Not fast, but fairly respectable considering that it was started for the first time three days prior. When I pulled in, there was smoke from oil dripping on the exhaust and I decided that there was too much to race it in that condition. Since I didn't have time to track down and seal the leaks I decided that the Angry Tractor was done for the weekend. I really wasn’t disappointed with the progress I made with the bike even though I wasn’t going to be able to race it.
I took the GSXR600 off the trailer to get it ready to race and soon realized that I didn't know where the key was! Now the weekend outlook was looking pretty bleak! I went over to Todd Karam the race director to see if what I could do and he suggested hotwiring the bike, but that would have meant no practice time so I wasn’t really too keen on that idea. I was starting to walk away, when he said: “Wait a minute and went over to another racer (Rob Grabowski) and proceeded to ask him if I could race his spare bike. Rob said “sure”, so I introduced myself and talked with him for a few minutes, then I hopped on his bone-stock ’05 Yamaha R6S and went out for practice. What a fantastic handling bike! I loved it! It was super confidence-inspiring and I had my knee down in several corners in the first few laps. I came back in for a splash of gas and went out for the last few laps of practice. Todd K had already changed my class entries when I went to check, so I was pretty much set for the races in the afternoon. As I said, the bike was stock, and I mean really stock. The only things that weren’t stock were the black rattle-can paintjob and the Pirelli race tires. It had 19000 miles and still had the original chain! But I was so impressed by the handling and very controllable power delivery that it’s on my short list of potential racebikes. Anyway, I started in the back of the grids for all of the races I was in and had a few good battles with a low 1:07 laptime as my best of the day. Not too bad considering that I was riding someone else’s bike that I really didn’t want to crash!
Overall a great way to end the year getting my project bike out on the track and having a few fun races on a borrowed bike. I’ve got plenty of plans for improvements to the Angry Tractor over the winter, but before I do anything to the bike, I’m building a set of powered rollers so next year I don’t have to push that thing all over creation to get it started!

[pefrey]

Sweet write up. Did you decode the oil leak? Maybe I'll see you at PittRace one of these days.

[tgold]

Of particular interest to those with the Deltabox style swingarm would be the Mods that I did to make the chain adjusters captive so that they don't fall out when the axle is removed. (I'll have to do more detailed pics and a how-to writeup later if there is interest)

[tgold]

I weighed the bike last week. Total weight without gas was 287lbs. A bit disappointing since I was looking to get it under 270. The good news is that there are many places where I can shave weight off of the existing parts. More good news is that lighter (i.e. magnesium) wheels should bring that very close to 270lbs. The bad news is that it won't be cheap to do so. I know that the tail can be made a couple of pounds lighter as well, but that would mean making a whole new tail. still plenty of things to do this winter!

[pefrey]

Looks great. I really like the rear caliper holder. It seems like it would make wheel changes much easier. Also, the cap screw on the rear of the axle block, is that like a pinch bolt?

I would not go crazy with trying to shave weight. It's fun but IMO magnesium rims is too far. Try to score some TZ wheels if you can.

[tgold]

Looks great. I really like the rear caliper holder. It seems like it would make wheel changes much easier. Also, the cap screw on the rear of the axle block, is that like a pinch bolt?

I would not go crazy with trying to shave weight. It's fun but IMO magnesium rims is too far. Try to score some TZ wheels if you can.

Thanks.
The cap screw is part of the captive design. I wanted to figure out how I could keep those wedge-shaped slider blocks in place since that whole wheel reinstallation process requires having about five hands.... Not Yamaha's best design by a longshot. I'll take pictures of it disassembled to show how I did it.

As far as weight savings go, I'm pretty patient in searching for deals aftermarket wheels on ebay... (TZ wheels seem to be generally expensive) I actually have a magnesium wheel arriving tomorrow that I bought for $190.00 shipped. It even has a nice tire that I'll pull off and stick on my streetbike I couldn't see from the ad pics if it was a 5.5 or a 6" wheel, but it was too good of a deal to pass up. If it's a 6" wheel I'll just resell it for somewhere between 3 and 4 hundred dollars and keep looking.

[pefrey]

I know what you mean about those wedge shaped axle blocks. I've been thinking about squaring out the swing arm so I can install square slider blocks.