So been doing a bit of tinkering with the Hejira over the past couple of weeks.

First little job was backgrounds and race numbers, as its a 250cc its the same backgrounds and no’s as the TZR so whacked these on and gave the body work a clean up.

I have also ordered some T.W Fuggle Stickers for the bikes as this is my title sponsor who helps me out alot so I want to get his name on the bikes as a thank you.

I have got some new Hejira logos being made too for the tank so people knows what the bike is!

As you can see in this pic the clutch cover is off awaiting some new gaskets.

The parts I ordered from Peter Knight turned up so got to work fitting these, first up was the Power Valve rubber, from my Karting mechanic days this is a critical part of a Rotax engine so a new one of these makes alot of difference to how the power valve performs:

Power Valve!

So after this was done I put it back in the engine, then put in the new Clutch Cover O ring and then onto the the engine gasket, this was an engine out job as the engine is a very tight fit in the frame but is fairly easy to get out.

The engine and rad is all on a engine cradle so it all drops out as one unit, the gasket replacement was an easy job:

Rotax 257

I had a look through the Rotax manual to find out the gear box oil levels and read that in fresh new form this engine puts out 50hp so should go pretty well I think and as you can see in the next pic there isn’t much to the bike really!

I have also done a few other little jobs, new clutch lever, changed the gear linkage to race pattern shift and made a chain gaurd as the bike didnt have one on it

Chain Fin

I have also got one of my tyres fitted on the rear, I put on a Bridgestone 003RS on the rear and took of the Avon Road rider tyres and have a new 090 coming from a fellow YPM rider at the meeting so we are getting there now!

Not alot to do now really, put the engine back in body work on and give it a clean up and run the engine up, then its off for a holiday at Spencer Reeves house to wire up the digital dash as I hate wiring! Then its time to hit the track,not literally we hope!

So Yats from the YPM found this little Jem on tinternet!

http://ticket.motorsportvision.co.uk/calendar/2010/june/100627-bmcrc-cp–.aspx

Tom, Me and Moose!

Some people know the bike in question as I have pics etc on the YPM forum but for those who dont here is a breif run down on what I know about it.

The Bike was orginally owned by John and Janet Ansell and was raced with Bemsee, the bike frame is belived to be 1983 and was orginally fitted with a Honda CR motorcross engine.

The bike has been fitted with a few upgrade parts during its life, it now has a Rotax 257 250cc engine fitted and has a Harrison 6 pot caliper and AP racing master cylinder, the rest of the bike seems original to me.

The bike won the Single Cylinder championship in 1993 with Bemsee.

The bike was given to Dave Gardnder a good friend of mine who I used to work with, we both have a love of bikes and I was racing MX at the time, he was sprinting the his various bikes (Norton,F2 Kawasaki, Honda RS125) with the club and said why didnt I have a go.

We collected the bike from a friend of his John and I got it cleaned up and I sprinted it in 2007/2008, I did various bits of work on the bike new steering damper, repaired the fuel tank leaks, new digital dash etc, it was a fairly competative bike at the club and ran low 13sec quarter miles.

In 2007 I was having some good fun on the bike and pushing for the tenths of a second here and there on the drag strip, we raced at various air fields across essex and suffolk and had a good time! I was still racing MX and doing a few enduro’s.

In 2008 I went to meet John and Janet Ansell and picked up a new fairing they had for the bike and saw lots of photos etc of the bike and had a good time chatting to them about Johns racing career, they were really please the bike was being used and still winning trophys!

As I picked up a few pots in 2007 I thought i would do the full championship in 2008 and give MX a rest as I had been doing it for 8 years in a row. I was top 1-2 all throughout the season and the bike ran well and didnt let me down, I fitted the fairing (it didnt have one in 07) and got a few tenths quicker because of this.

During 2008 we enetered the Classic bike sprint at North Weald airfield and I did a few runs on the Hejira and did some parade laps on Daves Rob North Kawasaki and Daves lovely Sealy Norton, I was crapping myself riding the Norton as its worth about £15k! and the blody gear change and rear brake are on the wrong side! Still I kept it shiny side up and had a good burn with a 6 cylinder Honda.

I was leading the championship with enough points to win just if i turned up to the season finals at Santa Pod, its a bit of a drive up there but we took my Hejira and Daves Kawasaki and RS125, Dave again just had to run his bikes and wrap up the 500cc class and the 125 class, he also got the overall club championship.

I ran my fastest time at Santa pod of a 13.1 and won my class and the 250cc championship so was well pleased!

Some pics of the sprinting season:

Hejira and RS125 and Dads GPZ500

Exiting Clearways

I did another track day on the FZR with some mates, thanks to Jamie for the wanker sign!!

Another pic I have found of me Dave and Murray Tourque motor sports head man getting our trophys!

Winners!

My pit crew at Brands, all they did was take the piss and eat burger and say how much faster their crappy Lotus Exiges were! We all know real men ride bikes! Cars are easy!

Pit Crew!

So anyway back to th story, after winning the 2008 sprinting championship I and doing the few track days on the Hejira and FZR I thought about Circuit racing and got my mate Tom into it!

We went along to Bemsee open evening and chatted to lots of fellow racers about it and decided on the Yamaha Past Master who we are still with in our second season of racing and loving it!

In the winter of 08 I stripped down the Hejira and gave it a full re-build, powder coated the frame, filled the fuel tank, lots of new fasterners etc and painted the fairings up with the help of my brother in law from Phipps Motors, it looks stunning btw! After this it has been gathering dust till a few weeks ago! …………………….

Some pics of it that the YPM boys wanted to see:

Shiney!!

The rather good brakes!

I found this bike at the Bemsee 100 year meeting at Brands last year, all Carbon! Hejira were way ahead of their time with the Carbon Frame and one of the first to produce one.

So this is how its been looking up till now, about a month ago I chap called Steve Burge from Thudersport GB (you may have seen the racing on Motors TV) got in touch through the YPM forum about my bike and getting it out on track again this is what he said:

I’m involved in the supermono championship and have been playing with (rebuilding?) singles since the mid 1980s. I noticed your efforts to get your Hejira Rotax onto a road racing grid.

The Supermono championship is no longer a National status series, which means we can rewrite the rules how we wish. It also means it’s open to all licence levels (it always was, but the National tag put a lot of people off). We’re running with ThundersportGB which is proving funand every round is televised.

There’s a new supermono site link:
http://supermono.clients.fyldesoftware. … ontent.php

Along with others I’m keen to get the 2-stroke singles back into the class again and we’ve been discussing recently how to do this. What we really need is someone who actually has a 250 (or bigger) 2-stroke single cylinder road racer all fueled up and ready to go, who might be interested in running with us for a while to showcase the potential of bringing these bikes back under the rules. At the moment the rules are “4 stroke single – no weight or capacity restrictions”. It’d be nice to take the “4 stroke” bit off the front and have the simplest rule book in racing “Single”.

Dave Stewart at ThundersportGB has confirmed that we can offer you a free entry for one of this years rounds, if your interested? You wouldn’t be able to score points at the moment, but that’s not what we’re really about. What we are about it’s getting singles out there and having a good time on and off track. Would you be interested in this?

Regards
Steve Burge

After chatting with a few people and the fact I keep scraping my fairings on the floor when im racing it seems I need to improve my body position on the bike.

It seems I have am still in the habit of MX! So after watching some videos on youtube and reading some websites I need to hang off the bike not twist my hips off the bike.

So I needed to practice, my paddock stand is not very strong so I thought I’d try my new style on this!!

Knee Down baby, oohhh yeaahhhhh!!!

I was having a good time taming the beast!

Rich the team manager said saftey first so made me a new crash helmet! Dont think Arai will nick this design!!

We will see of this has an effect on my results this weekend at Brands GP, I think not!!

So my other sponsor TW Fuggle and Sons has helped me this year with some more tyres, thanks very much

I am using the trusty Bridgstone 090 on the front and as we dont have a control tyres this year I am trying a 090 RS for the wet! and a Bridgstone 003 RS for the dry, looks pretty good!

I also forgot to post a picture of this, Tom my team mate thought it would be funny to mail order me some parts to fit as I am now his mechanic (he has moved to Bournmouth!) and changed my address slightly!

My mate trying to be funny

My new seat foam is now fitted, and its has one or two scratch’s after Oulton, I will tell you that story next time!

It used to look like this!

So Just some final jobs that had to be done, sorry its a bit late but as usual with a project it went on longer than anticipated and with Oulton Park looming I havent been taking many pics etc and updating my blog, but here I am doing it now!

I fitted my quick action throttle but needed a place to put the kill swith etc so I moved this to the front fairing bracket out of the way, I would like to get rid of this at some point and have a MX style kill switch and a switch on the carbon dash for the power valves but I have electrics and it will have to do for now!

I also added some new fairing brackets, a friend of mine Graham knocked me up a few sets on his lathe out of black delrin, I have secured these with an R clip, makes getting the fairings off a 30 sec job now!

I also added some new stickers etc, the Yamaha ones on the tank, The Bull Betheresden ones ( our local pub ) and my nice carbon effect fuel filler sticker, I know it doesnt make it go any faster but it looks pretty!

And here is the finished article!! With my mechanic/team manager Rich B!!

A few friends who are 2 stroke nuts are trying to get me going quicker this season, one of my mates Rich had a word with Crispin ( my sponsor) about this season etc and how last year went and got onto the subject of suspension.

I have been bottoming the bike out and getting the silencers scrapping on the track so I think I am a bit heavy for the spring! At the last race of the year last season at Lydden I tried a OHLINS Ducati 1098 spring on my TZR but this was way to hard and the bike handled like crap, I managed to blag a shock of Rangi with an Ohlins spring fitted (we are similar weight I think) and the bike went really well with this fitted.

Anyway Crispin has kindly decided to buy me an Ohlins spring for this season! I have sent an e-mail to Steve Jordan about what one I need for my weight etc so I hope to get one on order next week.

Tyres: There has been lots of debate on the forum about tyres as we dont have a control tyre this season, I liked the Bridgstone 090 front and Dunlop GPR 70 rear and they worked ok for me as a rookie and the rear was only £29 but all the stocks all gone ;-(

So after chatting with Bally I have decided to go for the 090 front again as alot of people use them and I had no troubles with my one and I am going for the Dunop 209GP rear and im going to order a secret wet tyre……..

I am going to try blackcircle.co.uk for the tyres and Crispin (TW Fuggle + Sons) are going to purchase these for  me this year! Thanks again to him for the help, lets hope I dont go through too many this year!

So all thats left to do is:

Pick up leather from Mojo after the repair work

Fit Fairings

Sticker it all up

Run in

Top 15 at Oulton Park job done!!!!

Well my brother in law Russel Phipps of Phipps motors 01233 770171 did my tank, seat unit and front mudgaurd, I did all of the prep and Russel made them look all pretty! He is an amazing painter and has painted some very nice cars in his time (1.5m Le man Porsche)

The famous Bally dent is now gone as you can see and the front mud gaurd has been painted Porsche Orange! Lets hope you can tell our bikes apart now, Tom is going for a yellow front mud gaurd when we get chance to paint his one.

I fitted the fuel cap and tried the tank for size, It wouldnt quite fit as the throttle cable was rubbing between the frame the tank so I had to re route this through the frame and it seems to be ok now.

I put the front mudgaurd on ,looks very nice with the black/gold ali bolts:

Now the throttle cable was routed and the tank on I thought what the hell lets get on and get it ready to start!

I put some fresh Silkolene Light Gear oil in it and lock wired it all up and some distilled water and bled the rad so we were ready to go.

Well it went 3rd kick! It ticked over really nicely and I ran it for 1 heat cycle for 15mins, the only annoying thing is the temp gauge is not working so another little job to do!

I felt a great sense of achievement as it sat there filling the work shop with blue 2 stroke smoke, my clothes stank but I was very happy with  myself!

Before I went home I put the seat unit on, still got to put the seat foam on and sticker it all up.

I have got to collect the fairing and fit this up next week and start the running in procedure and then roll on Oulton Park on the 16th/17th April!

Got some new pads through from brakes4u.co.uk, I went for some EBC Double H pads as recommended by Marcus on the forum, I am hoping to get a new EBC prolite disc when funds allow.

When I look the old ones out I noticed one of the R clips wasnt there! That could have been a bit of fun if the pads had fallen out whilst I was racing! Imagine peeling into paddock hill at 100mph and nothing!

So I stuck the new pads in and got some Flo Yellow RC Car body clips so they are nice and eeasy to see should one snap or fall out in the future

I also went to bleed up the back brake, I wasnt getting anywhere fast with it so called my technical guru ‘Small Paul’ who told me about using a syringe so bleed it through, I found a syringe in the tool box, dont know why it was in there, im no junkie!! I used a bit of RC car silicone fuel line and I must say it worked a treat! Here is a pic showing it in use:

I used some DOT 4 Castrol race fluid in the rear and just need to bleed through the front brake with fresh fluid and we are good to go!

Well its been quite a busy week with work, basket ball and fitting in doing some work on the bike!

I am now getting to  my favourite part of the build doing the finishing off and tarting up!

I made some carbon bits as mentioned in my last installment, so drum roll please here is the carbon dash!

mmmmm carbon!

I have used ali bolts where I can as they look pretty and are nice and light.

Whilst I was playing with the carbon I thought I would knock up a chain gaurd, the old one was a bit of ali so I made this up.

Im quite happy with it and as you can see I have been a tart and whacked on a set of blue ali valve caps (greased the threads).