MOLNAR HOW TO BUILD A CLASSIC TT RACE BIKE MANX NORTON
Seniortt race winner Dean Harrison will be racing a Molnar Manx Norton at the 2020 Classictt.to find out what it takes to build the thoroughbred race machine, we sat down with the brains behind the bike, Andy Molnar of Molnar Precision Limited.
CR: HAVEYOU ALWAYS BEEN MECHANICALLY-MINDED? AM: Yes, I suppose I have. My dad was an engineer and, like now, the engineering works was at the back of the house in the old stables.
My father was a genius – he designed and made very complex packaging machinery. But, he was seriously flawed in that it was always the next project that was of interest.
It was almost like in the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – nothing in the house quite worked. It all nearly worked – but it just needed that little bit... and it never quite got that last little bit. But that was my dad.
He was actually the first person to make
“IF ANY MODERN RACER GETS ON A MANX NORTON, AS SOON AS HE SETS OFF DOWN THE ROAD HIS PRECONCEPTIONS ABOUT IT BEING SOME OLD BIKE ARE COMPLETELY BLOWN AWAY.”
replica parts for the 250mm Fontana brakes in the very early 1980s. He made the pattern work, did all the designs and drawings and all the bits and pieces – and eventually, after about 18 months to two years he produced a batch of 250 Fontana front brakes, all of which were sold by the time they were made.
He probably made about 30 – but they were all sold. There were a few bits that weren’t quite right with them – but yes, they all went out the door.
So what do you do next?
You’ve made all the tooling, you’ve sold all the stock, and you’ve got people wanting more. What do you do next? Well, believe it or not, he never made another 250 Fontana ever again. He got bored. But that’s just how he was.
My first bike, like many people before me was a BSA Bantam – rescued out of a hedge. I haggled down the price from £13 to £11 to include several wheelbarrow loads of bits. I think I managed to build four bikes out of the various bits – and then sold them on for between £60 and £80 each – which for a schoolboy was quite a success, particularly in the late 1970s.
CR: HOW DIDYOU GET STARTED?
AM: In 1979 – so 40 years ago – as a student, I turned up at the autojumble Bolton Sports Centre and started offering my wares, which I’d been making in the garage for various British bikes. I made everything in stainless – which was then unheard of.
I didn’t have a car but I did have a trusty Norton Dominator, and I used to go round the autojumbles piled high with nuts and bolts and various fasteners and whatever that I’d made, and offered them for sale.
I got stopped by the police once for being overloaded. Fortunately it was on the way back from a show – what he’d have said if he’d known that I’d actually managed to unload about 100 kilos of stuff over the weekend, god only knows. I actually had to get him to give me a hand getting the bike onto the centrestand, because it weighed so much.
I started working for British Aerospace when I graduated in 1980 and stayed there for 10 years, but at the same time I was starting to expand the business, moving into a unit in 1991 – and beginning to make G50 parts. We started to make 95 bore, ultra-short stroke G50s not much after that.
I took early retirement from British Aerospace at 32 or whatever it was – and devoted all my time to what we do now. In 2008 we moved to our current purpose-built premises here, at the back of my home – and we’ve got 4,000sq ft of modern, insulated, warm, well-lit space. I always refer to it as my shed down the bottom of the garden.
We’ve got eight CNC machining centres, two of which are five-axis – and no one else in classic two-wheeled motorsport has got a single five-axis, and we’ve got two. As a result, we can do a lot of stuff that others can’t.
CR: WHO DOYOU SELLTO?
AM: As our main demographic has got older, the percentage of racers we’re selling to has got smaller. Obviously, it’s still an important part of our business – but our customers vary from the Dean Harrisons of the world to people that just want to buy one to have. They might put it in their office or living room, and just look at it. I mean, the last bike I sold, the guy’s 75 – he’s not going to race it. He just wants it to look right. But I do like them to look right, but go like f**k. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, if you get what I mean…?
There are people out there doing similar stuff to us – but the quality isn’t there. You can produce poor quality copies for a while, but it won’t last for ever. Meanwhile, 80 per cent of our business is repeat – and you don’t do that if the product is crap.
Whatever might be said about me as a per rson – if something doesn’t come out righ ht, it stays here – it doesn’t go out the doo or. The people who work here, there are sev ven of us, they know that you do not sen nd stuff out the door if it is not right.
CR: WHAT IS IT ABOUTTHE MANX NORTON? AM: They’ve always been my life. And back in 1994 I tried to persuade the then holders of the rights for the Manx Norton name – who had all the original jigs and drawings and whatever – that they ought to let us make some crankcases and bits and pieces for the Manx engines. But no; they said there was no market. So we said, well just sell us the stock instead. And they did. And it all went forward from there – 25 years ago now. And we’ve just sold bike number 321.
It is a totally focused design – it is a race bike. If any modern racer gets on a Manx Norton, as soon as he sets off down the road his preconceptions about it being some old bike are completely blown away. Honestly. It’s a thoroughbred racer, and they just can’t believe it. They are fundamentally so good – and there will never be a shortage of people wanting to ride them.
Michael Dunlop, John Mcguinness, and now Dean Harrison – they just love them. They’re light, manoeuvrable, they go reasonably well – obviously not as fast as a modern superbike – but they go where you want them to go, and that’s what you want in a race bike.
CR: CANYOU RUN USTHROUGHTHE MOLNAR MANX NORTON?
AM: So, you’ve got a four-valve Molnar Manx engine – 95 bore x 70.38 stroke – which makes about 70hp at the crank. It’s breathing through a single 44mm Mikuni carburettor.
It was built to conform to the CRMC rules at the time, which said that you could do anything you like, so long as it looked the same on the outside. So I did. And if you look at it, you will see it looks the same on the outside. It looks like a two-valver. I am so proud of what we achieved there – it does not look like a four-valve engine.
Overall, the four-valve engines have been incredibly reliable – but it’s just not quite fast enough to take on the Patons on the fastest circuits. We really need another five horsepower – but because I haven’t got a huge market, and I haven’t got an inexhaustible amount of time to develop them, there hasn’t been enough done really. They are a nice piece of kit though.
We’re running with period drum brakes – a 250mm Fontana at the front and a works rear hub. So, you know, it’s proper. There’s a Molnar Manx frame, which is made from the original drawings – and we have not tweaked any angles or anything. They are absolutely spot-on. The fork sliders are made from the original Bracebridge Street forgings. We have got modern internals in the forks – we developed a fully-adjustable cartridge kit with K-tech. There are period-looking Falcon shocks, which are black, so you know, everything looks right. It’s also got a bloody big alloy tank sat on the top, which takes 24 litres.
DEDICATED TO HIGH PERFORMANCE BRITISH CLASSIC BIKES FOR THE ROAD AND TRACK, ANDY MOLNAR IS A BIG NAME IN THE CLASSIC BIKE SCENE – BUT HE’S PROBABLY BEST KNOWN AS THE MAN WHO RESURRECTED THE MANX NORTON.
CR: HOW DIDYOU GET INVOLVED INTHE CLASSICTT?
AM: Paul Phillips came to see me in 2012 and asked me if I’d be involved – and I said, there’s not a cat in hell’s chance. I said there’s absolutely no point, because the Patons are so much quicker.
As far as I’m concerned, the CRMC should have never allowed the eight-valve Paton in. If they were restricted at two-valves a cylinder, that would have been fine. Never mind the politics for a minute, just take a step back. You’re allowing a twin cylinder engine to have four valves per cylinder, but you’re actually prepared to go to the courts to prevent a single cylinder engine to have four valves. And the thing is the four-valve Manx Norton actually existed in the period – there’s no question about it.
So, Paul said would you go – and I said no, not unless you let me build a four-valver. And he said he couldn’t see any reason why not.
My thought was that we’d made it into a tortoise and the hare race – because the Patons have to stop for fuel and the Molnar Manx, with its 24 litre tank, wouldn’t. And in 2014 it very nearly delivered that. We went into the last lap of the race leading by about 12 seconds over the Paton, which had to stop and refuel. Dan Cooper was leading by 12 seconds, having lost 18 seconds to the Paton on the previous lap – and that was exactly the set-up that I wanted. As it was, the exhaust broke and he lost by about 40 seconds. But, you know – I said to Paul, I’ve delivered what I promised – which was a race. That’s what you want at the end of the day – you want a bloody race. I don’t care if you win it or lose it, but you want a race.
We really want to get a little bit more power out of them – and it turned out a little thirstier on fuel consumption too. All the singles, when they’re getting up to about the 110mph lap mark, could really do with a bit more fuel capacity – so as to make a good race. And that’s what the punters want at the end of the day, a good race. So you make sure that the multis have to stop, and you make sure the singles can get around without stopping – and that makes a good race, which means people want to go.
Paul Phillips absolutely gets that, but it’s up to people like me to deliver bikes that are good enough to do that – and that’s a challenge. And I’d be the first to admit that up to now, we haven’t really quite made it - but if the business was not so commercially successful, I’d have a bit more time on it. It’s the chicken and the egg. I want to build the four cylinder that Norton never did, but you know… there’s just so many projects in the works.
CR: HOW DIDYOU GET INVOLVED WITH DEAN HARRISON?
AM: Nigel Woolerton, Dean’s sponsor rang me and said he wants a bike for the classic TT and that I was the man to speak to about building a Manx Norton that’ll go the distance.
They came across in November (2018) and they’re really nice people. Dean was dead interested – he was really relaxed and he knows his stuff you know, his dad’s been into bikes forever. But he’s just got too much on – we’ve been trying to fix a date to test the bike and it just never happens. When there’s snow on the ground he’s got time – but the rest of the year he’s just so busy. The plan was to race at the 2019 Classic TT, but time was tight and it just didn’t work out. Instead, he’s using the autumn to familiarise himself with the Manx ahead of the 2020 event – when we’re also hoping to have a (2V) 350 for him to ride.