SlingshotSteve

Thanks for all the replies, on with it now, I’ll use a little grease as suggested.

As per usual things haven’t gone to plan, my wife has 2 new ceramic hips, but the second operation got delayed which in turn messed up a lot of things in our lives. Good news is she’s on the mend and back out on her Yamaha. I decided to get another road bike, a cheap gsx600f teapot came up for sale near me, so have that for the road now. That will do short term but I still fancy another road bandit to sit alongside this one. Last time the bike was raced there was a very small oil leak coming from the front right of the sump. I was worried that I might find a hairline crack in the sump, but I’ve pulled it apart, the sump and engine look fine and I found the gasket to be damaged at the point where it’s leaking. It’ll be back together in the next day or 2. I need a new rear tyre, the one on the bike has been on it for a few years now, amazingly it’s had a few thousand road miles and lots of drag meetings and has lasted way longer than I expected. It’s fine at the prepped track at Santa pod but at Melbourne there’s no grip left in it. So it should be ready to race again very soon.

I have a small leak coming from the sump on my Bandit drag bike, hoping it’s just a gasket failure and nothing more serious. Its a long long time since I’ve changed one over, for the new one, what’s best when fitting it? Put it on dry? Oil it? Little smear of gasket seal? Cheers.

Not sure on Sv forks, I know very little about them. For now I’m just leaving the usd ones on.

I've thought about getting another b12 for the road. The drag bike doesnt need its gsxr usd forks. Be good to get a second one and do it up nice, and put the gsxr forks from this on it.

Not sure why I wrote 1.5, it is indeed 2.0. I’ve drag raced on and off for 20 years and it’s always been in bracket classes. Can’t wait for dial in. I think I’ll get another bike for the road too at some point next year.

Some interesting news has came my way. Straightliners, the club I run with, have decided to scrap most of the bracket classes. So the existing 12.1, 11.1, 10.1 classes are now gone, and for next year, we can dial in our own times. At first I wasn’t sure about this, but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. As I wrote above, I had a very good year in 11.1 but the jump up to 10.1 was a mistake as I was nowhere near the time. With dial in I can start at 11.0, then as I improve I can knock of a 1/10th at a time, and dial in at 10.9, then 10.8 and so on. The eliminations at the end of the day can see me up against any bike in the final. The lights will be staggered so for example if I dial in at 11.0 and my opponent is 9.0, then I set off, he gets a 1.5 second delay and then sets off and we should cross the line very close together. I’m really looking forward to this new format.

I had a chat with my friend who had my arm, he’s had a few runs with it in and he has decided to go back to using a much longer arm. As per our agreement I ended up giving him his money back and I got the arm back today. I still plan to put it back on the road for a little while. But what I will do is use the long arm, and keep the suspension at normal height, as it’s not safe to run it lowered on the road. Realistically I think getting another bike for the road is also a good idea then I can do whatever I want to this bike. The clocks on my bike have been damaged since I got it, they worked but were always wobbling around and were held together with tie wraps. I got hold of a mint set but with a cut loom. So I spent an hour and put my good loom into the good clocks. Best of all, theres only 300 miles difference on the clocks. Next I need to decide what bars to use, the Gsxr clip ons felt good on the strip, but I had run with severely restricted steering lock to stop them hitting the tank and the fairing. I don’t want high up road bars, so might go for a flat bar. I am also thinking that I might remove the S model faring and fit a small nose cone type.

Looking forward to seeing this on the strip mate.

This looks cool, I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread.

At the moment, the swingarm has gone to a mate to test on his bike, he’s given me a fair price for it, but we have a gentleman’s agreement where I can have it back any time for the same money. I’m seriously strapped for cash at the moment, so the best option is to have it both on the road and in 11.1. I was toying with the idea of having it for road and 10.1 .The longer arm actually felt ok on the road, but with the forks dropped through the yokes it was way too low for the road, and too much of a risk of it bottoming out. I had my other drag bandit on the road years ago with a similar lowered front and I had a very scary moment when the down pipes hit the ground out under hard braking. The best option long term will be to get another road bike. Although a busa or gsxr1000 is tempting, it seems an easy way to go fast. I’d much prefer the challenge of making an old skool bike go faster. Back when I used to race in early 2000s, I just wanted once to dip under the 10 and run a high 9. So for now I’ll stick with 11.1 and long term when my money problems are over, I think I’ll get another bandit 12 or Gsxr 1100 and really go for beating my 10.3 time and then eventually a 9.