After borrowing other ther peoples bikes to compete in the 2014 World Wheelie Competition I thought it was about time that I pulled my finger out and got my own. 18.8.14 The day after the wheelie competition I sourced a local bike. A 13 owner K model Gsxr1100. "Just needs a clean mate" he blurbed on the phone a bit more and declared the asking price of £1000 As with most used bikes of this era it resembled nothing of the advert that lured me in. £500 later and I'm drinking beer looking at it on the back of the trailer outside the pub knowing that Iv just commuted myself to debt and social exclusion. Again. The idea? A "cheap turbo Gsxr". People laughed. I now know why. Honestly. The bike sat in the garden for a few months and I did nothing with it, I stole the gearbox from it to give life back into the EFE to enable me to race at Santa Pod in October. Ok, now Iv had to remove the engine to liberate parts from it I suppose I might as well start building this thing.. They come apart so easy... I through a leg over the Busa and collected the barrels from the engineers and opened my wallet for the first time, an exercise that has become a lot more frequent lately.. Iv spent money on it now so Im in it for the long haul. Mates rates (free, we like free) Soda Blasting on the engine. Let's skip forward a few months of scraping 26 years of crud off the engine and spending stupid amounts of money on a £500 motorcycle. Engine Spec: Re Shelled crank Hayabusa Gen1 rods and pistons 1216cc 81mm bore Refurbished gearbox Refurbished cylinder head Bandit cams with APE adjustable sprockets DID HD cam chain and APE CAM chain tensioner All new seals and gaskets Finished in VHT gloss black sounds easy huh Forgot about the chassis... Il just do the engine I said to my dad. With that complete I thought I was on a winner... Dad wheeled in the Karcas from the garden said engine had been extracted from. No way way I going to be using this bike in its current condition. Down to the frame for a degrease and polish. With the Metchamehemexxxmex rear swingarm sold as it was too long for the job a 750K swinger was sourced. New bearings all round and a rebuild of the forks it started looking like a bike again. The rear wheel was swapped from the standard 4.5" to the later 5.5" to give a bit more contact. Powercoat and new shoes later it's starting to veer off the "Cheap turbo bike" idea I had in my head. After learning that the original shock was knackered it was back to eating beans on cardboard for another month. Maxton the local suspensions gurus up in thems there hills commissioned a one off shock built for me to my weight (Oi!) and requirments. For the front. New genuine bushes seals and oil were purchased, let's face it the front won't be doing much mileage.. New seals, pads, Ti Disc bolts etc on the front cleans everything up (it's still a cheap turbo bike.mum) Billet top yoke and renthals on loan from Dodge from the original Record Holding Egg built "Plumbers Turbo" Refit of the bodywork made all the hard work look rather tatty and that just won't do Strong like Bull Good on Plough Paying a friend in beer we got the motor in using stainless engine bolts Paint had begun with a pearl white base. Id asked for a new take on the original slingshot colours with a little extra thrown in and the obligatory oss logos airbrushed in. Now with more lunch money saved it was ready to be sectioned at the FBM house of pain.... In the few weeks that my bike was at Dave Dunlop's things started to get very real very quick that this bike was actually going to be and there was a chance i might be able to make it to the wheelie competition! Dave and Sam took me in and let me stay a few days here and there so i could help (interfere and slow down) with work on the bike. Alot of you may see Daves pictures on his facebook page of silliness and banter but it is far from it! FBM is a family name for the Dunlops as they all seem to play there own role in creating these turbo bikes, so much goes on behind the scenes to get these bikes churned out. The man doesnt stop... hes a nightmare to get going but after a coffee n a fag the man is unstoppable until the small hours of the day. In-between working on my bike i seen him fabricate other kits, build numerous engines, tune bikes, deal with customers queries every day, day in day out. After seeing what goes on at FBM world headquarters i can vouch that youll be in good hands. so the pipe work started... The bike started to come together with only days to go before the bike was due to be collect for transportation to Elvington. It actually came down to the night before.. Untested the bike was as complete it was ever going to be in time for the World Wheelie Competition. I drove the bike from Daves to Elvington arriving at 11:30pm Thankfully Matt Butler and Zepp helped me assemble the awning etc making us look at right posh Me and Zepp stayed up until 2am to ensure the bike would pass for tech inspection the next morning. The bike unfortunately had some running issues with the bike being untested, no drive through the clutch all Saturday due to an incorrect stack height and air gap meant a brand new Suzuki clutch pack was turned a lovely shade of blue... This didn't dampen our spirits and we still partied with the best of them. Phil Wood drove from North Wales the Saturday evening to set the clutch up correctly, a quick spin up the return road confirmed i now had Drive! it really wanted to wheelie now and we all got our heads down excited for the next day. First out on track on Sunday. I started the run and all seemed well and out of nowhere the bike cut out(like someone just turned the key off) 3/4 the way into a kilometer wheelie. That fault would then haunt us for the rest of the day. So. a full Kilometer wheelie wasn't meant to be but we give it a damn good Go! Changes have since been made to the bike and we hope to have the bike doing Kilo's on every outing. The event organizers awarded me a trophy for the most dedication of 2015 for building a competition bike within a year. That trophy is for everyone who helped me out, you know who you are! Thanks for reading my babble. I shall add extra photos for dramatic value.
