I make no apology for copying my posting from "the other channel"

I know we're all champing at the bit, waiting for the clocks to go forward on to race time, but ffs this is a total NON ISSUE

Blueprinting or balancing, what ever you want to call it, is NOT illegal under the rules.

If you take 100 new, identical (looking) OEM standard pistons or con rods and then weigh them there would probably be 80+ different weights for each part.

All Nogs' has done is find two pistons and 'rods that are very close, if not identical in weight....

IE. BALANCING.

Perhaps this topic has developed "legs" because so many DD'ers don't have a mechanical background and don't know or want to know what's going on under the tank. This is not a criticism



THIS IS

What a great advert for 'DD', this topic is, to any browsing newbie thinking of having a go!!!



........................They will run a mile and take up fishing

Charlie

Kev

You don't actually have to do any of it you know so the expense to you is whatever you want it to be.
:)

Fishing
Have you seen the price of those rods and poles ,nets reels floats hooks spinners bait boxes and licences for the river and cannals and then sea fishing then ill need a boat how much think ill go racing its cheaper even if i BLUE PRINT MY ENGINE :lol::lol::lol:

CAN WE RACE YET OR ARE WE ALL OF TO THE SCRUTERNERS BAY:lol::lol:

Skids, I understand what you're saying. I do. Hell, it could well be happening. Who knows? There may be a vast selection of 583 parts under someones bench being selectively pieced together into finely matched component sets..... (and no i don't have any room under my bench ;) )

I stand by previous posts though. I've turned work away because of what's been asked of me but I don't see an issue with building a good, reliable engine and if that included being asked to balance it then I would.

Just an aside though, if the RC do clarify the issue, and just suppose it was ruled against, how the hell would you check it?

I know I don't, so far I haven't even taken a head off any of my DD engines as the series is about cheap racing which s why I signed up for it as soon as it was announced having just thrown a F400 bike owing me £4k in the skip, a bike which was going to have given me cheaper racing than SoT or Powerbike

But it doesn't mean someone will not do it, if the rules permit the cheque books often come out in the hope of gaining some advantage

Me, I normally just buy a couple of engines set the valve clearances, fit new belts, dial in the cams, replace oil and filter and then get on and race.

Although this season may be different as I have just emailed the list of engine work (ok its Blueprinting) to the RC to see if I can get approval for any of them as it may prove a cheaper route to finding the 7bhp to take me up to the class limit without having to invest in a FIM ECU

You're new here aren't you?:lol:

This is "normal" for close season - wait until the racing starts, ACU-approved handbag is a pre-requisite for the 'board...

PS Doesn't mean I disagree with you tho'

Be hard in this day and age with Human nature as it is
Honesty in racing and sticking to the rule book is diminishing each year, be it BSB or DD

Kev, to a point I understand where you are coming from, but if you read all the threads on the other side you'd have had a clearer pic in the first place. The engine was bought and had been standing for a year plus in a wet shed and was in a right state, so it HAD to come apart. yes I COULD have just slung it in the frame, and made it work, but had I done so I would have run an 05 675cc big bore kit and have been none the wiser. Having discovered thats what the bike was fitted with I swapped the big bore kit for a set of std barrels, pistons etc and fitted them . Now who knows how the big bore kit affected the balance of the crank? I just cant see that making sure it was balanced by selecting from a number of components those giving the best balance is wrong in any way shape or form. You yourself said that you can buy engines cheaply enough, so being the owner of 4 of them I have ample parts to swap around...cost is therefore not an issue, and even if it were, its MY choice......NOTHING in the rules says there is a limit to how much I choose to spend on my bike.....and NOTHING in the rules says there is a limit to the number of spare parts I am permitted to own/use/swap between. As has already been said...what IS to be done if a crank regrind is needed ?

Are you suggesting I am being dishonest Kev? Cheating in other words? Only needs a yes/no answer...

It's always been there though Kev. There's more forums around today though ;)
Never saw Mike and Ago on one chatting did ya :lol:

Ive got a good idea when we get to the meeting we all chuck our race numbers in a hat then in turn pick one out and wot ever number you get is wot bike you race we do this every time then we see who is who is it the rider or is it the bike :confused: :eek: :devil: :lol::lol:

Is that like the key ring game at partys........... or is that a totally different story :puzzled:

I dunno but Senna seems quite familiar with that game ! Lol...

shhhh dont tell the wife she thinks im out training :lol::lol::lol:

One word.

....Perspective


.....F1 teams employ top engineering consultants who go through the latest FIA rule changes to see what they can get away with.....

....then they employ lawyers to confirm that the engineers are right...or wrong.

Any rule book will be "exploited" to the enth degree IF the financial rewards are worth it.

Crankshaft balancing in DesmoDue...Class A or Class B is, as I said before, a NON ISSUE.:lol: :lol: :lol:

A, was the crank asembley was balanced by matching components

B, Was the crank machined in anyway to acheive balance in which case it will have been modified from how it was supplied from the Ducati Factory

If its answer A then no rules have been broken
If its answer B then under the rules that have been in place for 5 years a rule has been broken, and breaking rules for a race series as far as I know is cheating, even if no advantage is gained.

Some rules are there to reduce costs, some for safety and some to keep things simple.

I don't think you are being dishonest or trying to gain an advantage as you certainly weren't trying to hide the fact that you have had some balancing work done.
But just because you interpret the rule your way doesn't mean others do and could leave you open to protest.

To argue maching is not modifying is a poor defence but if allowed opens the flood gates along the lines I mentioned earlier this evening.

When you sign up to the series you agree to abide by the rules, if your not happy with the rules you can submit a proposal for change to the RC, I have lost count of the amount I have submitted over the years.

If nothing had been mentioned then nobody would be any the wiser and the chance of getting protested on a modified crank very slim, especially as it looks like there may be a few more out there.

As with Senna3 he had his engine rebuilt at Baines Racing last year as it never seemed to go as well after his crash at Mallory in 2007 and dispite having new pistons and rings he did not have the crankshaft balanced as that would have required modifying it to how it left the factory which would have broken the rules. Now if Balancing is going to be allowed then I feel he and others in the same boat as him are going to loose out for their honesty.

A couple of years back Minitwins rules required the running of a standard airbox and even though a DD bike with a open airbox was never going to get near the 72bhp limit, my request to the Minitwin organisers (Tim Jones and Mike Edwards) to be able to run a open airbox was turned down, even though it gave me no advantage over a 72bhp SV650. So I abided by the rules and rode with a standard airbox, at least nobody could protest me for cheating, which is what they told meit would be viewed as.

Not the one word answer you were asking for, maybe an RC member will answer that one for you

And even to this day I hear rumours about the Taymar bikes back in the LC days.

what was so good about the R6 cup was all bikes were equal it was down to the rider to get the results not the team with the biggest budget or best engine tuner.

I think you gave a 6 word answer - if A NO, if B YES

does seem simple to me :puzzled:

weights
 

i recon miss riot weighs about 7 stone so she should have to wear a five stone lead belt to equal my weight as for dom he will have to cut one of his legs off:lol::lol::lol::lol:

There's no denying that bike goes like f*** since the work was done though. So presumably there's a lot of performance to be gained from having the engine apart and blue-printing, its not just about reliability.

Who said it has been Blue printed, thats new to me

so in that case i must be cheating as well because my bikes farster than yours :eek: still not as much as cleggy and andy challis and dallas and miss riot and tp because i couldent beat them and as for matt he must of had a 800 engine for sure

definitely!! ;)

dam ive been found out best i remove the 900engine:devil: second thouthts it standard as it came from the factory so it must be ok:lol::lol::lol:

tongue in cheek
 

glad to see the lighter element returning to his thread. was beginning to think i needed body armour in my race kit !:)

I am not sure it needs checking. If there is to be a random dyno testing session at one of the rounds we will see if anyone has too much go in their motor. At that point it can be decided what to do with that bike.

Also, if Nog starts winning every round by half a lap we might look into it.......

In all seriousness though, I doubt we should be too bothered by anyone else's bike. I have checked mine to see it is as close to the 53bhp limit as possible for the following reason: I do not have the skill to take apart the engine, so this was the easiest way of me checking to see there was no outragous power. If the bike had been obviously over the 53bhp I would have had someone look at it to check there was nothing illegal (Not easy to know on a bike raced by 2 different owners). I suggest scrutineering works the same.... all bikes, or any suspected of too much power, are tested on a dyno at one of the rounds.

As for the money aspect, I do not see the argument. If you have a bike as close to the power and weight limits as possible, realistically no other rider can have a faster bike than you regardless of the money spent. As I have said before (and others on here have said), the top finishers could finish top on 70% of the bikes on the grid.

Yeh - kind of ;) - efficiencies in engines and balancing / weight reduction etc, can mean that although these engines do not make any more power (that could be measured on a dyno), they can make this power more easily and quicker. So as a result the bikes they are fitted with these engines can be faster (they get up to speed quicker) than those bikes that are not so well "balanced" or don't use lighter-weight engine components.

But as many have said, the differences that fitting a lighter/balanced crank and/or a lightened/balanced flywheel (both of which are illegal) won't necessarily make any difference in the real DD world (as the differences are relatively slight) and these won't show up on a dyno.

If a 583 could be made (within the rules) to produce more than 53bhp (and still be legal), then the challenge would be how to optimise that bike to make more power lower in its rev range (effectively better torque) and still fall below the 53bhp thresh-hold at the top end. you're then in the land of exhaust mods (2-1,2-2 etc) and other areas.

But - Its the Indian, not the arrow. ;)
Tim

Cruel!!!!

Sorry to be boring and serious but:
I would just like to say congratulations to Skidlids for opening this subject for debate. If Kev wasn't asking the questions in an open forum what would be left but gossip and rumour. It's good that it's being done before the season starts too.

That is all...

Very well put mate!

In part here we are looking at an area that at present no modification is allowed to the crankshaft, its flywheels and the seperate flywheel.

We do already know that fitting a light weight flywheel, makes the bikes spin up faster out of the corners and confers an advantage, hence the reason that they are not allowed.

If any form of machining to the crankshaft was to be allowed, so as to allow the entrant to "balance" the reciprocating mass, then that opens the way for people to remove "excess" weight from the crankshaft "during" the balancing process. I would be interested in hearing suggestions as to how the rules could be written to ensure that this option was controlled effectively.

Now about 20 years ago when I last had my Jaguar engine apart, I had the whole crankshaft assembly (from front damper through to the clutch pressure plate) dynamically balanced. The engine was subsequently significantly smoother and appeared to spin up easier. This is on a 6 cylinder 3.5 litre long stroke engine! Every component came back with little drill marks all over them where metal has been removed, not just in the original places that the factory had machined them.

Was it money well spent? Well I cant remember how much it cost me, but I beleive that it was worth it. Would have it been legal in Desmo Due - no way under the current rules.

Big-end regrinds

I have just tried a pair of std big-end shells out of my 500 paralyzed twin and the 0.25 regrind ones on the scales. Now the scales aren't that accurate, but it would appear that the 0.25 ones are slightly heavier. This is pobably because the backing steel needs to be 0.25 thicker.

Funny thing is that these are the same shells as used in a 620, even though the engine was made in 1977!!!

It would appear that the thicker shells compensate for the metal that we have had to remove from the crankshaft during the grinding process.

I have checked that bikes and my other factory manuals, including the car ones and not one mentions the need to rebalance the crank after grinding it.

Blue printing

I think I worked out that I am now on something like my 42nd Ducati single rebuild, so could assume that in this area I am reasonably knowledgeable. Taking Nelly's earlier point about the above, I am very carefull to assemble the engines to excatly how the factory specified the clearances, shimming and everything else. Doing that has resulted in a line of very strong and reliable engines, without the need to resort to trying to do things "better".

Acording to my notes, we have had two cranks sent off for balancing, after fitting of a new big-end and rod assembly and neither were found to require balancing.



This answer is a personal view and not being expressed with a Race Committee hat on - please bear that in mind!

A number of suggestions have been put forward fior ammendments to the ules in these areas, which we will do our best to work through as quickly as possible.

How do you think I feel? I weighed in at about 22 stone in my leathers! :o

Chris, can you recommend anywhere to supply/remake an XK crank damper? Got a 3.8 engine here that I'm building (very slowly) and 3 dampers (all in poor condition) off various engines.

I should think you feel Very Heavy :)
I'm certainly not going to try and lift you off the ground
And thankfully when you were on the Multi you never toppled over onto me I would have been squashed :lol:

only 22st..... :rolleyes:

Yup I've been dieting :lol:

so have I - unfortunely the classic see-food one!!

I think we should petition for a Class C in DD - for the fully grown gentleman.

How about a combined rider and bike minimum weight limit of 250kgs?

How about ditching qualifying and replace it with a practice instead. Then chose the grid randomly.....that could be....fun... I think the MZ's do this in Bemsee

At Darley Moor you used to pick a number out of a bag whilst in the assembly area, a right pot luck.


Chris:burn: