VTR1000.ORG

Hi Firestorm peeps!!

As a new member I thought I'd introduce myself. I'm a 60 year old ex bike (250GP) racer, I retired from racing in 2011 and to be honest, up to about 2 weeks ago I haven't missed racing at all. Just lately I have been driving a bit too fast in my car and realised that I still have a need for speed!!

Here's where a Firestorm comes in, I've fancied one for a while and have made the decision to build a road legal track day bike out of one. I've started off with an almost complete 1998 bike that's spat a cam chain off & had some bits sold, I intend to use this as a spares/donor bike. Wheels, forks a swingarm to modify with a tow guard & paddock stand bobbins etc. I'm now in the final stages of buying another complete 1998 bike & out of the two I'll build my trackday weapon of choice & have spare wheels for wets.

I was wondering what handling mod's people who race/trackday their VTR1000's do to their bikes, also sensible performance modifications. The bike I'm negotiating on has done 40k miles so I imagine it might be needing a refresh on the motor, I'm happy to rebuild if necessary but other than cam chain tensioners what are the usual high mileage wear & tear things to look out for that might let it down?

A lot of questions I know but despite my advancing years & decades of racing, I still get excited about bikes and the anticipation of getting back on track is filling my head with thoughts of riding bikes fast. (well, as fast as a fat old bloke can go)

Thanks in advance.

Ross.

Greetings.

Dump excess weight and get the handling sorted with 'Rogered' forks and an aftermarket shock. Increasing outright horsies is an expensive proposition as performance parts i.e. Moriwaki etc. are increasingly getting rarer (or are getting stockpiled in a Welsh glamping campsite for future episodes of the Antiques Roadshow ;-), but a free flowing exhaust and jetting can boost it significantly.

Search the site for Moriwaki and Roger Ditchfield and it'll lead you to some interesting threads relevant to your project.

Also for your reading list > Bike Maintenance and Upgrades/Modifications > http://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic ... 45#p304638

bonus tip!

Welcome to the club Ross. Wicky' covered all the basics and a search on here will give you plenty of other ideas.

welcome to the forum buddy.
as wicky said, get the suspension sorted first, it might be worth having a chat with our resident racer malc, or popkat as he's known to us. keep us updated with your progress fella

Welcome Ross. Where are you based?

As above. I got my forks sorted by Roger and got lucky finding Penske shock already setup for my weight. They're on my bike and it handles much better than I can deal with.

From what I've read from other racers on here these bike make up for outright speed in handling. Your 250 skills should see you right but if you're pressing on then the bottom yolk is a bit flexible, so I'm told. Apparently a fork brace helps a lot or transplant 'blade forks.

Welcome to the forum Ross. Loads of help and advice here

Just paint it red
Nuf said

welcome along Ross. get some pictures up so e can see how its coming on. i wouldnt worry about the miles on the engine, these old beasts run for a long time. cheapest mod for the engine is a lightened flywheel and it brings the engine alive.

good luck. oh and painting it yellow is worth 20 bhp

welcome to the fast old gits club....... we enjoy confusing the young lads on their new bikes when they cant work out why they cant shake off some old bike they have never heard of

on the engine:
as said above it can get expensive to make big gains, but for a reasonable budget, go for.
a lightened flywheel,
fast action throttle,
BMC street filter [suits the bike better than a K&N as it is a bit less free flowing],
race cans [or a full system if you can find one],
modified inlet trumpets,
then set carbs up on a dyno...... and you will get close to 110 at the rear wheel.
carbonardi carbon fibre clutch and generator covers for crash protection

on the frame.,
Forks - you either keep the RWU forks and have them redone by roger and fit a fork brace, or you retrofit a USD set of a doner bike... the latter is better, but less fun.
if you stay with the std forks, then change the brake master & caliper to a set off a CBR600F4i, or a Blade or SP1/2
Rear shock - get an aftermarket one and also put about 6mm extra on the ride height to steepen the rake angle [you can do this with C shaped spacers under the top mount]
swing arm - a brace off a blade welded on
rearsets for better ground clearance
bin as much of the road gear as you can to save weight and fit a race seat

Thanks for all the help & welcomes guys, I hope to have the complete bike before the end of the week so I'll get some 'before' photo's up. I've got another 2 projects to run alongside the Firestorm, 1 is a 1974 TZ350 in component form the other a 1991 Yamaha FZR1000 Exup.

Priority will be to get the VTR up and running well and hopefully out at Oulton before the end of May/June. I'll get Richard from Maxton to sort & re-spring the spare forks & price up a rear shock, pref' with some ride height adjustment but will happily give it a run out on standard suspension & keep shopping for a 2nd hand one.

I'll try to add an image of my last GP250, it was taken at Brands in 2007 in the middle of Clearways. (assuming I can add it correctly)


Well, that worked surprisingly well, that was the last racebike I bought new, it's a 2006 TZ250 with SJK engine upgrade 'Kit'. At 18 1/2 stone I was always far too big for a 250 but I've always believed we should race what we want to, not what people think we should & I shocked a few 'young guns' in the wet.

I'll get some pic's of the latest addition as soon as I can, and once again, thanks for the good wishes.

Ross.

Nice picture if you just leant a little further forward and stuck your elbow out it'd be down, but then that wasn't the fashion back in 07

The best forks I've had were Maxton and Richard is really helpful. Not keen on their mono shocks though as to make compression adjustments you need to remove the spring, I know they have a fine tuner but the last one I had made little difference so I couldn't find a dry/wet setting with minimal adjustment, that shock was a good few years ago so maybe they have a better option now. I raced with their Twin shocks and they were brilliant.

I think the best track day mod (after suspension) for a storm would be a slipper clutch, not tried one on my own bike but the engine braking is quite strong and rear wheel lockups can slow you down. They aren't cheap and you would need to upgrade the brakes for sure.

Shame the TZ350 isn't G it could be competitive at CRMC meetings, you could still have some good fun on yours when you get it done though.


.

popkat wrote:Nice picture if you just leant a little further forward and stuck your elbow out it'd be down, but then that wasn't the fashion back in 07

The best forks I've had were Maxton and Richard is really helpful. Not keen on their mono shocks though as to make compression adjustments you need to remove the spring, I know they have a fine tuner but the last one I had made little difference so I couldn't find a dry/wet setting with minimal adjustment, that shock was a good few years ago so maybe they have a better option now. I raced with their Twin shocks and they were brilliant.

I think the best track day mod (after suspension) for a storm would be a slipper clutch, not tried one on my own bike but the engine braking is quite strong and rear wheel lockups can slow you down. They aren't cheap and you would need to upgrade the brakes for sure.

Shame the TZ350 isn't G it could be competitive at CRMC meetings, you could still have some good fun on yours when you get it done though.


.

The only time I ever got my elbow down was at the same time I got my shoulder & butt cheek down too!! I had a Maxton rear on an OW01 some years ago and it worked brilliantly but as you say they could be a pain to adjust, that said, Richard worked wonder on the 06TZ front forks which needed quite a bit more compression damping as the adjustment became less linear in the last few clicks of its standard adjustment range.

I have experienced a slipper clutch on the odd trip into 4 strokes, this was the last 4 stroke bike I raced. It's a Superstock spec 999R with about 140bhp but great fun in club racing on slicks, I never got to race it in red as I was made an offer I couldn't refuse just after I got it painted.

I won't be racing the TZ350, it's just a nostalgia trip from my early years of racing.

freeridenick wrote:Welcome Ross. Where are you based?

As above. I got my forks sorted by Roger and got lucky finding Penske shock already setup for my weight. They're on my bike and it handles much better than I can deal with.

From what I've read from other racers on here these bike make up for outright speed in handling. Your 250 skills should see you right but if you're pressing on then the bottom yolk is a bit flexible, so I'm told. Apparently a fork brace helps a lot or transplant 'blade forks.

Other than modifying the standard forks & the fitment of an aftermarket shock & exhausts I want to keep the bike looking fairly standard and I'm also trying to keep the costs down. A set of Fireblade forks with radial callipers would be nice but they could give the wrong impression and lead people to think other modifications were hiding within, & we can't have that!!

Ross.

I started on a TZ350B. Or was it a C, I can't remember now. Anyway, it was a twin-shock model. Graduated to a D (first of the monoshocks?) and ended up on an F. I still have the rotor puller sitting in my toolbox if you ever need one...

KermitLeFrog wrote:I started on a TZ350B. Or was it a C, I can't remember now. Anyway, it was a twin-shock model. Graduated to a D (first of the monoshocks?) and ended up on an F. I still have the rotor puller sitting in my toolbox if you ever need one...

Hi, there wasn't really a 'B' model. The 'A' was the first TZ in 1974, it went unchanged for 75 which was the 'B year', in 1976 the first monoshock 'TZ c' came out and at the age of 19 with the help of Bill Smith Motorcycles in Chester I bought my first ever new bike, a TZ350c. The main visible difference between the 1976 250/350c & 1977 d was that the 77 bike was fitted with silencers, again 1978 went largely unchanged but the 1979 'TZ f' had the first 'low boy' frame and on it went.

Great bikes!!!!