Hey guys

Thought I would post some photos up of the F3 racer build me and my friend are currently working on. This will be my first race season.

This is the bike as we got it











The bike has already been raced, although the build of it was quite poor – the electrics were all over the place and we couldn’t even get it running until we messed about with positive wires which all had to be put on the terminal directly to work. The fairing has been through some tough times. Just little bits on the bike that aren’t very hard to make nice were just done with no care about how they looked etc I know it’s a race bike, but it does have to be reliable too knowing components won’t fall or electrics cut out half way through a race. So we completely stripped the bike:







The carbs were long overdue a strip and clean so they were taken apart and rebuilt. Found this with them:







The cylinder which had the white covered carb had a rusty looking plug? That particular carb had a pinch on the diaphragm from when the previous owner must have jetted them at some point so hopefully the plug being funky colour is something to do with that.

As we have a budget we decided to repair the fairings than get new set. They were a mess but some fibreglass and filler soon brought them back to acceptable condition:





The frame then got some work on it to get rid of all unnecessary brackets and tabs etc to reduce some weight (about 350g to be precise) not much weight but it does tidy up the look of it. The frame and swingarm then got powder coated and lacquered. The rear Ohlins shock has been serviced. This is how the bike looks now:









Next thing on the list is to decide whether we are going to have some work done on the front forks (budget dependant), currently making a custom race loom so to have it as simple as possible for reliability. The bike is running total loss ignition.

Any feedback or suggestions will be appreciate

Cheers
Anton

 

Lookin forward to this thread. Keep the updates coming.
Looks good so far.

 

Awesome. I still think they look good in race form even up against modern day bikes. Once I sell up and move closer to my work I'll turn my F3 into a pure track bike. Cant wait, yours has shown me just how good an F3 can look. Keep the pics coming, hopefully some action shots soon.

 

Looks like you're having a good time with this. Clearly this is not your first time doing a reconstruction. Looking at this image, it was clear that it was like this for a while.



I think you'll find that you have the same dirt and dust inside the intake manifold tract as well. The 2 small holes at the bottom of the slide would have carried this dirt and dust right on through. If you've got access to a borescope, I'd take a look at the inside of the #1 cylinder. Also do a compression test for comparison of the cylinders when you have a chance. It's hard to say how much damage has happened due to this.

Good luck with your build and let us know if we can help.

 

looking great - wanna see the end result. The Ohlins for the rear is a nice piece - race tech springs and gold valves for that fork would only be about $280 US + shipping if there's not already something comparable in there already.

 

Thanks guys, yea its looking well as it is now - not sure on the fairing and how their going to come out, we're still trying to decide on some designs we could use etc.

Been told that suspension is the most important part on this bike so trying to decide what to do with the front. I've emailed Race Tech regarding there cartridge kits but they haven't got back to me with a price. There's a local company around here called Kais who do a lot of work for British Superbikes (they are authorised Ohlins centre) that can do Ohlins springs and re-valve for $400. I'm not really familiar with Race Techs products to be fair as we don't really have any dealers for them here and I don't know anyone who has used them.

There not much update as I'm away from the UK for another week.

P.S. has anyone done any photoshop work with this bike? Seems a bit of a pain since the fairing has so many contours where is covers the frame etc

 

There's nothing wrong with the existing fork valves. They can be made to work well whether they're the Showa 3-port or the HMAS 4-port. Proper springs and the correct shim stack for your weight will be 95% as good as a well-setup cartridge kit. That assumes the cartridge kit is well setup.

Check out the "independent bike suspension forum" and you'll find some info on the F3 forks. Tuning them is a popular endeavor.

 

That bike looks great. What did you use for instruments? mounts?

Thanks