YAMAHA FZR600
Meet Brookie, former racer, top photographer and all-round nice guy. Seems like nostalgia has bitten once more!
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Paul Brookes joins CMM with this racer build!
Time to introduce someone here to CMM’S pages: Paul Brookes. Don’t know the name? Then read on… Now, if you look down the roll-call of British Supersport 600 championship winners over the last two decades you’ll see the likes of Cal Crutchlow, Sam Lowes, Karl Harris, Jim Moodie, Phil Borley, Ian Simpson and – way back in 1990 – John Reynolds on the Kawasaki ZZ-R600. Legends all! But, one year before JR’S win on the sports-touring ZZ-R was one Paul ‘Brookie’ Brookes, a chirpy lad who took the 1989 Supersport 600 title on a Yamaha FZR600. He stayed in the paddock and raced many other machines and even hung around in the BSB championship as a very talented photographer. Well, he still goes out on track, and – one day – he woke up and decided he needed a large dollop of nostalgia in his garage. Brookie, it’s over to you…
Hello CMM readers! Now then, I had wanted to build a replica of my 1989 championship winning Yamaha FZR600 for a while: more so for my two boys who are now 16 and 21. I guess it was the age thing as I’m now 50 and was just 21 when I was riding the FZR. I still feel 21 if I’m honest! So on ebay back in November 2015, I came across this FZR, but it was a 1990 model. The only difference really between the ’89 and ’90 versions was the front brakes: four-pots instead of the two-pots and different graphics. It wasn’t a million miles away from my Sheffield home, so I borrowed a mate’s van and parted with a paltry £325 and the bike was mine. It was a runner but with tatty bodywork and crap tyres, but was all there even though I had to arc a wire out on the frame to enable it to start! This didn’t really bother me, as this was going to be a full-on race bike, just like my original was back in the day. It wasn’t until April 2016 that it was stripped of all its bodywork and road gear and before I knew it, all the unneeded road stuff was in a pile on floor. First job was to get the lugs and metal work off the frame that were no longer needed then get the finished frame off to have it dipped and re-painted. After that the forks needed looking at as the oil that used to live inside them had found a new home in and around the bottom of the forks by the brake calipers. I fitted new fork seals, built up with the alloy spacers that I used on the 1989 winner along with thicker fork oil. This was to compress the fork springs, making them stiffer and the thicker oil to slow the damping down. This was the original idea of Tony Dawson. He was the inventor of the Astralite wheel. Tony was offered the 1989 FZR600 by Mitsui Yamaha back in the day and I was chosen as the rider. This was because he had helped me in the past with wheels for my FZ750 that I had raced at club level and I’d had a couple of outing in the Superstocks series. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of brakes, although this was going to ‘look’ like my old race bike – I also knew that (as I was no longer restricted to rules of the day) I could actually make the bike better in many areas and better brakes would be one key area. To this end I found some Yamaha YZF-R6 5EB brake calipers and pads to replace those ‘upgraded’ twin-pot original Yamaha brakes. I also found an article on the old inter web about a R6 rear shock conversion. All it needed was shorter dog bones and some top bushes turning up. The bottom of the shock mounts wanted rounding off to fit the original linkage. All the bearings and seals were replaced with genuine Yamaha items. Back in 1989 I ran a Proflex shock but these are no longer available so finding an ‘as-new’ R6 shock (the original bike was going to be a racer) was spot-on. It even has a red spring like my old Proflex!
Motor-wise, I was just going to run the standard engine until a mate said I should get it refreshed, so I sent it to a tuner (who will not be named) and all he did was keep it for more than a year and strip it into a thousand parts. As my old tuner John Noble had retired years ago, I didn’t know what to do! Because of this, the rolling chassis sat in mothballs for a year until I got the urge to go back on ebay and finally find an ex-race engine with only 8000 miles on it. Again, it wasn’t from a 1989 bike. This motor was from 1991, with a water-cooled oil-cooler and a lot better than the solely oil-cooled one. This meant it needed a return hose pipe welding on it so a trip to Paul at Oneoff Welding and Engineering just two miles from me was made. I knew that for this build his place would become a second home! While I was at it, I spent a lot of time sorting out bent fins on the radiator… The wiring was in a bit of a state and the starting issue was a corroded plug connector. I was soon checking ebay once more but the replacement harness I got hold of was just as bad: then a mate Ashley (Crashley) Law – another ex-racer – had an R6 loom which had a bit of a harness that we could use. Bingo! Footrests: now, I never had rear-sets when racing (it was more standard and we didn’t have any being made at the time) so I figured I’d adapt the originals. But then I had some SES rear-sets on my Fireblade track bike and thought I’d make them fit: back to Oneoff where Paul made some stainless inserts to fit the mounting bracket so I could bolt the pegs to them. Paul also milled a U-shaped bit in the gearbox sprocket cover so I could flip the shifter-arm upside down. This would then give me a ‘one-up, five-down’ race shift pattern I needed. I also wanted a U-shaped piece cutting out of the sprocket cover, to see the front sprocket like they did on superbikes, which we sorted. Then it was a couple of coats of silver smooth Hammerite paint to finish. I have fitted titanium nuts and bolts where I can and even the steel engine mounting bolt spacers and wheel bearing spacers have been made in alloy by Paul. I’ve also used NRC heavy-duty engine covers. When taking the right-side engine cover off, I noticed that this was cracked on the inside: good job I looked! Back when I was racing if you crashed on standard covers, they’d fall apart and lead to an engine re-build! When it came to the carburettors, I could not find any bell-mouths anywhere, so thought I’d make my own out of some cold-air ducting trumpets, ordering a size bigger to cut down to fit the 32mm carbs themselves. I cut slots in the top of the trumpets, then folded them back, removed them, de-burred them and got them to fit. I then realised I needed some Ramair velocity stack air-filters too! When it comes to other bits, I’ve fitted a li-ion battery that weighs next to nothing but I hope it copes! The rear brake caliper has been swapped for a tiny red Brembo off an Aprilia: again Oneoff sorted the bracket – but it’s all for show as I never use the rear brake! It will be complete with a trick-looking rear disc. Now, I was under the Team Astralite banner back in the day and I had some trick gold wheels which were lighter than those you could buy, but they stopped making them years ago. I would love to find some to finish off the project. I’ve spotted some red ones from my old Loctite bike of 1990, but we shall see how I go. Another headache was a race exhaust. I ran a Harris as they took my original fairings to take moulds off for race versions, as well as the seat, fuel tank and full exhaust system. A fibre-glass fairing I managed to get from a place near Louth but no seat so will stick to standard. As to the exhaust: no chance. Then a mate called Antonio found an FZR600R Foxeye with a full Akrapovic on it which he let me have if I got him a replacement. This can didn’t quite look period and wouldn’t fit straight on, but Oneoff engineering helped once more! I turned up at 3.30pm one Saturday, had a cuppa and then cut it, chopped it, turned bits around and machined a factory-looking mounting bracket too! By 10pm we were done! Cheers Paul!