New hosting!

New hosting!

Been a real rollercoaster here at the TGR back end – I’ve had a heap of work stuff on, and we had a bit of a hosting hiccup. The previous webhosts broke a few things and support was non-existent in an appropriate timeframe. Consequently, we’ve moved hosting and now should have much better availability!

Current projects being worked on include a 1983 Honda XR350R, the 1977 Honda C90 Supercub and the RD250LC engine rebuild – so expect plenty more updates to come!



Penetrene dispenser on the cheap

I’ve been looking for the right dispenser for my bulk penetrene for ages, and I finally found one: an old 60 mL Tabasco bottle. The dripper works perfectly with it! I bought this penetrene a couple of years ago and it’s been a royal pain to decant for use – but not anymore.

Just gotta be a bit careful at BBQs around here now.



Chops’ 2015 PCRA season report

tl;dr didn’t race much, went fast, blew some stuff up. Had fun.

Mick’s season report inspired me to actually sketch down what I did. Not as a competition – he had way more success than I did, but so I can set some goals and see how it’ll pan out. Click on the ol’ read more to check out how it went for me.



Who needs carbs when you have start ya bastard?

A true TGR carb free diet. This one is from the archives; Whickle provided the video and Charlie and I tested out the theory we didn’t need a carburettor on a recently unearthed Honda CT125. Note the bike had been found at the local dump; the engine will live on in a TGR gokart.

Start ya bastard FTW.



Migrating content

… slowly working on collecting all of the various worklogs I’ve written. Right now I’ve just migrated my epic post on how to install time-sert thread inserts. Rome certainly wasn’t built in the day, but we are slowly adding more stuff to help you find all of your motorbike mechanical tips and tricks in one place.

Also, now’s a good time to plug the Team Ghetto Racing Facebook group in case anyone reading hasn’t found us over there.

– Chops



TGR approved 2012 Street Triple front sprocket cover

Not worthy of a full worklog page, but today I helped out some mates by fitting a 520 conversion/alloy sprockets to a 2012 Street Triple. These bikes are a bit of a pain to get off the front sprocket cover and the owner wanted to make it easier to clean the chain gunge off. 45 minutes, some 2mm aluminium and a bit of thinking, and I had it made. Couple more pics below the break.

2012 Street Triple: front sprocket cover



MotoGP 2014, Aragon: a tale of what-ifs

What an absolutely fascinating race the 2014 Aragon MotoGP presented. It had it all – lots of battles, drizzle slowly getting heavier and some clangers of decisions made in terms of a flag-to-flag race. Lorenzo scooped up after the Repsol Honda boys binned it trying to hang out too long on slicks. The race itself is covered extensively everywhere else, what I thought I’d do here is present a race history chart and then, below the jump, look at the what-if scenarios for Marquez had the weather been a touch more favourable. First up, the race history chart

MotoGP 2014 Aragon: race history chart
This chart is fascinating for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the big thing is you can see the effect of getting the call right in terms of lap to pit. The rain steadily increased, making it a tougher call. Even the fastest guys on wets, e.g. Lorenzo, were only doing 2’02-2’04 laptimes, and until lap 18 Marquez and Dani were increasing their lead.

Nevertheless, slicks don’t keep their heat forever and the rain steadily increased, catching out those who stayed out a bit later… the biggest losers here were both of the Repsol Honda runners who really screwed the pooch in this race. That said, it was far from a clear-cut decision because the decision was being made only a couple of laps from the end. Looking at the lap times, the cost for pitting was about 28-30 seconds; with 4 laps to run you just have to be doing 7s/lap slower on slicks to still end up winning by not pitting. Below, let’s look at what would have happened had the weather gods smiled a bit more on Marquez.



MotoGP 2014: Aragon pit stop analysis

Just a quick one while I look at the madness that was the 2014 MotoGP race at Aragon. This is a quick look at pit stop times for each rider and their rankings.

MotoGP 2014, Aragon: pit stop rankings

First up we have the rankings. Aleix Espargaro ended up with the fastest combined sector 4 and sector 1 time, which includes the time in the pit lane. Hector Barbera had a hugely long stop as he only had 1 bike available and had to swap wheels. Of note is that Marc Marquez didn’t end up with a blistering fast time, although he would have been riding gingerly back to the pits after crashing due to staying out on slicks too long.

If Cal Crutchlow had stopped 2 seconds faster, he would have easily beaten Aleix to 2nd… this is the difference between a slightly tardy and a speedy bike swap.

Of interest for me was if there was a trend of slower pit stops the later the riders stopped. This didn’t really seem to be the case. Maaaaaybe there was a slight trend as the wetter the track got, the slower the riders had to approach the final few corners before negotiating pit lane but still, there is very little evidence for a major difference. Certainly the spread due to how gingerly or aggressively the riders took it on their in and out laps, and their speed swapping bikes, has more of an effect than the increasing amount of rain on the track.

MotoGP 2014, Aragon: pit stop time versus pit lap



Review: Pro-Lift rolling creeper stool / toolbox

IMG_3472

Something you find after owning a 2-stroke race bike for more than half a minute is that you need to fiddle with them. While kneeling on the ground is a glam way to show your bike the respect it deserves, a rolling stool is a way better way to do it. I’ve been on the lookout for one for a while, and below is a review of the pro-lift toolbox stool I bought from ebay last week. I’m gonna call it the Stoolbox.

It’s a pretty good buy at $80, and it took me 2 days from ordering it to delivery. Can probably find them cheaper but I didn’t want to wait 8 years.

Read below the jump for my full review, or check out my video testing its rolling capabilities.



Scott Jones: tips for photographing motorcycles

This is a quick one, but one of the best MotoGP photographers (Scott Jones) has written up a little guide on the effect of shutter speeds and photographing motorcycles. It’s one of the better discussions and is straight to the point:

http://photo.gp/2014/09/08/shutter-speeds-for-motorbikes/