Project Moto3 .................................
Bruce’s Moto3 bike’s been treated to a spot of fabrication this month, and there’s a whole lot more on the way...
I’ve heard of people going for suit fittings, dress fittings, and even shoe fittings, but rearset fitting was new to me. Still, I rocked up at Chaddy’s workshop for said engagement and got a bit of a surprise while I was at it. I knew him and his mate Neil had been hard at work on the Moto3 bike, but what I didn’t know was they’d dressed it up as a hipster mobile, complete with a minimalist seat that was suitably sized for a fouryear-old, and a tank so huge that it could fuel you all the way to China. Thankfully both components were quickly removed from view, leaving some impressive welding work to drool over. Having dropped the bike off with the guys a month back, they’d been busy working out the best options for producing the bike’s much needed subframe. The challenge is that the TYGA seat unit is very sleek and long, so short of running large, exposed sub rails from the lower parts of the frame to support the subframe, they’d have to come up with a minimalist design that allowed the unit to be out of sight but strong enough for the job. And as was always going to be the case,
they absolutely nailed the task, using some fancifully welded sections of ¾in steel tubing. It looked an absolute treat and proved more than strong enough to hold my fat arse when I cocked a leg. This meant I could give the guys a realistic idea of where the rearsets needed to be mounted, which turned out to be quite a bit further back than I’d first thought. I’m not going to bore you with every minute detail, but making those rearsets is going to prove one hell of a challenge, because they need to sit a good foot back from the Suzuki’s main frame. The hope is that we can make a bracket to suit the fitment of some ‘off-the-peg’ rearsets, but we’ll know a bit more about whether that’s the final direction we take next month.
In other news, the guys had also been on with removing the top of the standard fuel cell and welding on a new section to make the tank tall enough and long enough for our needs. The plan has always been to cover the enlarged cell with a TYGA fuel tank cover I got with the fairing set, but Clive from Rapier Paintworks isn’t so sure this awkward shape is going to be so easy to rework onto the bike’s narrow frame. It’s probably only four inches wide near the headstock end, which is absolutely tiny compared to what you’d typically see on a sports bike. Clive’s got a plan of action though, using a VFR400 tank, and I’ll leave that in his capable hands to sort. He’s absolutely gagging to get started with cutting and shutting the TYGA fairings to make them fit our little bike, which is great news to me because I haven’t got a bloody clue what to do. It’s only when you’re in such an environment, looking over a bike that’s needing so much thorough consideration and skill to get it to the finish line, that you realise how useless you really are.
Of course, my teachers told me that a long time ago, but it’s finally sunk in. These guys are nothing short of genius with what they know and what they produce, and I’m currently just a passenger in this process; good for nothing but fetching, carrying and making the odd cup of tea. In reality, I’d never start another gig like this, because I now know just how much goes into it. This bike is going to be absolutely awesome when it’s finished, but there’s a hell of a long road left to go.
About the only thing I have sorted this month is a new exhaust can for the bike. I popped by the Pipewerx stand at the NEC and had a good old look over the multitude of offerings they had on display. We were after a long, oval can for the Suzuki, and Pipewerx had just the thing in stock, in the option of either carbon fibre or titanium. I went with the latter, and I’m hopefully it’ll be with me in the next few weeks, as then Chaddy will have chance to start working on a custom link pipe from the standard header. It’s all good stuff, and I’m confident it’ll look pretty damn trick once it’s in place. There’s not much else to tell, I’m afraid. As is becoming my rhetoric with this project, we’re another step along the way, but there are still a shed load of steps to be taken. Where’s a bloody springboard when you need one?