Project Mille .................................... The next step for Dangerous’ Mille is to try and get it running – preferably without starting a fire.
Having nearly set the Mille alight, Dangerous decides to seek some professional help.
There’s a time and place for a fire, and in my garage, on my Mille, wasn’t it. I’m easily distracted at the best of times, but hearing the Aprilia boom into life for the very first time completely consumed me… so much so that I didn’t clock the leak from the fuel tank drowning the rear exhaust manifold. To prove the old adage wrong, there was smoke, but thankfully no fire. Just at the point of robbing the contents from my daughter’s sand pit to smother the inevitable flames, the excitement seemed to edge off quicker than the atmosphere in a room after Boothy’s told a joke. I was buzzing, not just because I’d avoided the great fire of Horncastle (my hometown), but because I’d been in disbelief that this box-of-bits bodge would actually work. Better still, to my primitive ear, the motor didn’t sound too bad. But what did I know? When it comes to 60o v-twin motors from the turn of the last millennia, my knowledge is up there with the best ways to make geraniums flourish. I’ve come into this world of Milles with a hell of a lot to learn, often left scratching my head as to what’s right, wrong or generally considered the done thing with them. I’m not a chancer, especially when it comes to motorbikes, so the time had come to seek out some expertise and to get my RSV a much needed health check. Speak to anyone about Aprilias and there’s one name that typical arises: Griff Woolley. He’s a guy who’s been around these bikes since day dot, kicking
off his love for them as an official Aprilia UK technician, before opening up his own service, tuning and development centre, AP Workshops (Aprilia Performance). A quick chat on the phone was all it took to convince me there was no better bloke to contact, or person to look over my bike, so a date was set, the van was loaded and a three-hour drive to Tamworth got underway.
From the moment the AP Workshops’ doors were opened I was immediately made to feel right at home, with a cuppa slotted into my hand as Griff and his mate Angelo wheeled the Mille on to an empty workbench and lofted it up in the air. In the company of the venue’s immaculate Factory Racing Tuono, RSV Mille SP and Nitrous-powered Gen 1, my bike looked a real eye-sore, but the only criticisms were coming from my mouth. Griff just took it all in as I reeled off the reality of the build, told him what I was hoping for and asked him whether the project had any potential? Of course it did, or at least to his experienced eyes. “To be honest, I was expecting it to be a lot worse,” was his consoling answer, before the tool box got unlocked and the first job of the day was set to get underway.
The gist of the visit was to get the bike running right, to check there were no blatant flaws and to send me home in a state of reassurance that when the time came to ride it the Mille would make it further than my garden gate. Arguably, that leaking petrol tank wasn’t doing my maiden ride’s odds any favours, so off it came, to be replaced by a later Gen 1 plastic unit I’d bought for £60. Although the tank shapes are different, the pumps cross-over impeccably, and the similarities don’t stop there. A common issue with Gen 1 Mille tanks is the warpage of the plastic aperture where the pump slots in. That turned out to be the cause of my fuel leak, and the reason why the bike’s previous owner had invested a year’s supply of Araldite to try and plug the gap. It might have worked short-term, but there was only one way to solve this particular quandary, and Griff was straight on the case. While a new pump seal was being plucked from his stores, he set about gauging whether my new tank was just as knackered; it was. “It’s the ethanol that does it,” he explained. “It causes the plastic to lose its form and the next thing you know your tank’s leaking like a sieve.” A hot air gun, a straight edge and a bit of muscle proved the tonic. He carefully set about warming the aperture evenly before manipulating the plastic back into form, checking the face with a straight edge as he went. Ten minutes later, and with the fuel pump ridded of any trace of Araldite, the time had come to slot the new seal into place and screw the pump on to its new home.
With the fuel leak a distant memory, a gallon was fired into the new tank before Griff turned the ignition key and thumbed the starter. It gave the occasional bark, but failed to fire into life, which was a little concerning. Even with a booster pack helping to crank over the massive pistons, there was more sign of life on Mars than my Mille. I must have got lucky back home; or fouled the plugs in the process; or simply imagined it had actually started. Nestled on the side of the rear subframe was a bent length of metal. “That’s a pretty rare find,” Griff chuckled. It was the bike’s original tank prop, and it came in really handy as the front of the tank was unscrewed to get to the cylinders beneath it, using the bar to loft it up out of the way. Being the original Rotax motor, my bike had dual spark plugs per cylinder head; the idea being to ensure the most even burn at the point of combustion. When Aprilia updated the Gen 1 they improved the cylinder head shape and managed to bin-off the need for additional plugs, while factoring in bigger
Used fuel tank
Samco radiator coolant hose kit Samco oil hose
NGK iridium spark plugs Silkolene Comp4 (4 litres) HiFlo oil filter
AP Workshops Air Box Kit Used rear shock and linkages Used Fireblade stand
valves to increase the motor’s performance. In time, I’ll maybe look at upgrading the cylinder heads to the later types, but for now the main focus was checking the state of my bike’s plugs, and replacing them if necessary. They weren’t the prettiest, but I had seen worse. Aged 16, my mate had convinced me to drill the airbox on my RS50 for added induction noise; the end result being my bike ran so hot the plug’s electrode melted.
Back to the point, fresh NGK Iridium plugs were fired into the mix before Griff hit the starter once more. In an instant the motor barked back into life, sounding simply awesome once more. It pulsed along around 2,000rpm, hunting a little, but not sounding notably ruff or in pain. “That’s not bad that,” Griff reaffirmed. “These early Milles can sometimes have a rattling clutch basket, but yours sounds sweet. The cylinders are a little out of balance though, so we’ll work on evening them out.” The original plan had been to run the bike through a few heat cycles at this stage before fettling any further, but the next crisis soon hit. There was an oil leak from the forward cam cover, trickling a steady flow of golden nectar on to the front tyre. On face value, it looked like a simple
fix – a lone cam cover bolt was missing – but nothing in life is ever that straightforward. It didn’t take long to work out the missing bolt had been snapped in the cylinder head, with the only solution being to drop the motor to drill it out and tap it. The clock was ticking and it was at this point that AP Workshops really came to the fore. “How do you feel about a late night?” was the question, but before I’d even had time to answer, Griff and Angelo were setting out their stool in readiness for the major operation that was now on the cards. Engine lifts were found, tools were lined up and the bike’s coolant was drained from the newly fitted Samco hoses I’d fitted before heading to AP. The original thought had been to pivot the engine downwards on the rear, bottom mounts, but even this wouldn’t allow enough access for the awkwardly placed, snapped bolt. The only solution was to drop the whole motor, and that proved a pretty big job.
Without wishing to bore you with the ins and outs, this was one of those times when you realise someone knows their onions. The procedure was an exact science, and the drilling and tapping proved just as clinical, ensuring no debris made it into the vulnerable motor. Eventually the time came to reverse the past process and slot the engine back into place. It was a job I wouldn’t have wished on anyone, but Griff and Angelo seemed to thrive on completing it, ready to then crack on with the next part in the process – checking the valve clearances. The job itself wasn’t too arduous, removing the cam covers to get at the shims and lobes with feeler-gauges. As luck would have it the tolerances were all spot on (inlet between .22-.28mm / outlet between .12-.18mm), so no further effort was required
in that department, but Griff took the time to turn the motor over by hand and check there were no issues with the cam lobes while he was at it – such as flat spots or wear on the coating. There was nothing to report.
The Mille’s engineering is pretty exceptional. It was a trailblazer for many technical features back in its day, and was one of the first fuel-injected bikes to hit the market with impressive results. Ok, the metal-clad ECU might look as though it was developed to withstand a nuclear bomb, but behind that hard casing is some great electrickery. Angelo popped the ECU’s cover off and seemed quite pleased to find an FR100SV EPROM (Small Valve – as in the early Mille motor) fuelling chip plugged in. This is a fundamental enhancer to the ECU and the general running of the bike. At a higher state of tune (such as when you mod the exhaust collectors with added slave chambers), different chips can be added, but for us at this stage, it was exactly what was needed. We were working to a firm foundation and ready to adjust the bike’s fuelling. “One of the things I love about Milles is their set up’s analogue,” buzzed Griff. “Look here, these two screws trim the fuel supply to the cylinders.” He went on to explain that the fuelling was typically balanced with the bike’s idle lowered to around 1,500rpm, tweaking these screws and altering the injector duration until the motor sounded just right. As the dials were altered, I could hear the impact it made on the motor, which slowly but surely sounded more and more harmonious with every turn. There was no need for a special gauge, a computer or
any other piece of gadgetry, Griff knew exactly the note he was after, and once he was content he’d achieved it, he moved on to the air bleed valves on the throttle bodies and continued the fine tuning. Preadjustment, I’d revved the bike before the engine was dropped – it wasn’t bad. Once this process was done, the pace the motor picked up revs seemed a whole lot sharper. To maximise the fuelling properly, we’ll have the bike on a dyno in the future, but for now it was singing exactly how we wanted it to.
From a mechanical point of view, the bike proved sound. That was the fundamental reason for heading to AP Workshops, who’d given the bike a good going over, had sorted out some pretty fundamental gremlins, and had even tidied the loom neatly into the correct routings… but they weren’t finished yet. Another common mod of theirs is to fit their bespoke designed airbox kit. The standard bike’s airbox is disproportionally small and struggles to provide enough air for the hungry v-twin motor. The solution comes in the form of a K&N air filter (which I already had), a rubber seal and a laser-cut frame that clamps the rubber seal to the bottom half of the airbox. The seal meets with the underside of the fuel tank and the consequence is a much larger airbox cavity. It’s a brilliant product and a great solution to an inherent Mille problem, taking a matter of minutes to fit and costing £120 including the filter. The next upgrade was to my rear shock. The early RSVs had a primitive Sachs shock that got a significant improvement when the Gen 1s were updated. I’d managed to get hold of one of the latter types for £40, including the altered linkage plates, so in it went. The final addition was a Fireblade (2004-2007) sidestand. For such a considered design of bike, the stock sidestand seems like the kind of warped toy you’d find in a Kinder Surprise; it’s useless, standing the bikes too vertical and making them vulnerable to toppling over. The Blade stand is that bit shorter and an easy fit, so it’s the common substitute. The more I look into the world of Milles, the more of those types of hacks I find. They’re seldom big money, but they’re often very innovative and most people are always really keen to share their ideas. The alterability of the Aprilia makes it more versatile than a Swiss Army Knife with a kitchen sink strapped to it. I like that, and it’s the reason my brain is constantly ticking, looking at all the different ways I can make the bike exactly what I want it to be. The guys at AP Workshops offered loads of great suggestions, literally firing them out as we drew a close to a long, hard day (for them, not me), as we loaded the bike back in the van and bid farewell. The drive back was a thoughtful one, reflecting all the great things I’d learned and considering what part of this puzzle to pursue next. There’s a long way left to go before this bike crosses the finish line, but we’re off to a good start, and in between a busy home life and plenty of flights to test fresh metal, I’m ardently putting every free hour in to make this build brilliant. From an engineering point of view, we’ve got some serious work to do, fitting the bike with new forks and altering the rear swingarm, but the cosmetics are in need of some serious attention. I’ve been collecting/ buying loads of fairing panels and necessary parts in readiness for a trip to my mate Clive at Rapier Paintworks in Hull. He’s never short of ideas on paint design and has been mulling over how we can blend the original Mille spirit with a modern twist. All will be revealed next month, but I’m pretty excited with what he’s got in mind.