NBT- I'm going racing 😳

[weeksy]

Hold on.... why are you not racing an 890R next year ????

[Tricky]

You know that you're going to have to post detailed write ups of the entire process!

Yup will do, with plenty of pics as I know we all love those (well, I do, anyway )

Hold on.... why are you not racing an 890R next year ????

Potential reliability worries aside ( which TBH are not insignificant) , an 890R would be a very decent bet in Naked Streetbike I reckon, but I dunno, a big old Tuono has no electronics, and aside from being considerably cheaper to acquire, and quite likely run, than an 890R, it is just that bit more basic and more me ( ) I reckon .
It is a moot point though, for next season at least, as I've decided I'll just stick with the Bandit only, purely for the reasons we both highlighted a few posts back ( basically van size, amount of kit to take etc)

[Tricky]

Prince of Pembrey meeting Oct25th - 27th

As I mentioned a post or two ago, although the Bandit Challenge Championship is all done and dusted and the season from that perspective has ended, North Gloucester had one final race weekend scheduled for the weekend just gone, and I’d entered it
As I think I also mentioned, although there weren’t Bandit-specific races in the schedule, there were two Naked Streetbike classes- the regular one that allows up to 1000cc twins, 800cc triples, and some older 1000cc 4 cyls, and to try and encourage as many of us Bandit boys to enter, they had also created a max 600cc Naked Streetbike (600NSB) class, which is as it sounds, any unfaired streetbike with a maximum capacity of 600cc is eligible for, and it doesn't have the strict technical and tyre regs that the Bandit series has, albeit almost all of us ran our Bandits just as they were,and used the Bandit series regulation Dunlop SportSmart TT tyres that we'd be running all season.
I’d entered that and the “Newcomers” classes, which would give me five races over the weekend, plus of course qualifying and warm-ups, and I'd also booked onto the Friday test day.
An absolute bargain relatively speaking, at ~£300 all in, which is £200+ less than pretty much every other usual NG meeting
The long trek down the M4 very rarely has been without hold-ups and traffic jams for me over the years, so I loaded the van Thursday morning and we were on our way at 1 pm.
And very pleasingly, we arrived at the circuit just after 5pm, with no hold-ups (apart from those caused by the quite ridiculous Welsh speed limits ), even after stopping for coffee etc on the way, and queued up outside the circuit gates along with a number of others, waiting for the car team who’d hired it for the day, to vacate.

Pit garages were available to all at this meeting on a “ first come, first served” basis ( basically an email with a booking request link comes out a week or two before, and the first however many to respond get a space)- for some unknown reason I’d completely omitted to respond, so although when I realized my omission I’d been pleading with NG admin for a space in the days before the meeting, they were, as usual, over-subscribed.
I hence had the gazebo and gennie etc in the van, with the view of setting that up on Thursday evening, and hopefully being able to wangle my way into a garage at some point on Friday, as the forecast was that at least part of the weekend was going to be wet, and it was already pretty windy.

So, in we went, I filled up all my 25l water canisters ( I use them to weigh the gazebo down), and Isabella and I set about getting the gazebo up.
It proved to be a very taxing time, as by now, the wind really was very strong, and even before we got any of the sides on , the wind was trying to take the gazebo down the paddock, and after a very frustrating 15mins or so of trying and failing to get the sides zipped on, and just getting lashed in the face by them, , I gave up, and we chucked it all back in the van.
I went down to the garages in the hope that someone would take pity on us, and although 3 of the Bandit boys in one garage said, yeah, squash in with s, their garage already had more bikes in it than recommended, and not everyone had arrived yet, so organisers vetoed it, saying see how things are in the morning when everyone had arrived and go from there

We, therefore, trundled back to Llanelli, where we were staying for the next three nights, with me pretty down and stressed and absolutely everything still in the van, although when I say everything, that’s not completely true, as when we got into the room, I discovered that I’d left all my base layers and socks at home, arse!
So, I went straight back out to the local Asda superstore and bought some thermal long-johns and tops—not ideal, but they would do.

I didn’t sleep at all well that night and set off for the circuit at 7ish- this was the view from the van driving to the circuit



Less than ideal, as you can see, and the circuit was very flooded in places, well, nearly everywhere actually!



But on the positive side, the rain had stopped by approx 8:30ish, and the forecast was looking excellent for Saturday, and cloudy but dry for Sunday, so although it was still very overcast, things were looking up

After using every ounce of charm and salesmanship that I have, and thanks to the generosity of a good number of my fellow racers, I managed to get permission to squeeze into a garage with 4 other Bandits, a 764RS, 3 x CBR/R6 600s and an R1, so no faffing with gazebos or generators required, yay- result!



The rain pretty much stayed away all morning so although it did take a while, things dried out enough to mean that I never bothered putting the wets in, and by the afternoon it was completely dry and I had 2 or 3 really good sessions-I wasn’t timing myself, but the bike felt good and seemed spot on, so it really was just a matter of checking tyre pressures and sticking fuel in it, and we retired back to the Premier Inn , very happy and all set for qualifying on Saturday morning.

As may be seen, there was a cracking quantity discount offer on greetings cards on sale in the Premier Inn reception too, although we passed on it


This meeting had a very different sort of vibe already to all the championship rounds this year- it was undoubtedly quieter with fewer entries, but more than that, there seemed to be more children there, and everyone just seemed so relaxed.



There were also one or two classes that we don’t normally see too- as well as sidecars, one of the British MiniBikes sub-classes- basically 7-10 year-olds on 50-70cc strokers. It's a shame that there were only 4 of them entered ( one of them being Josh Day’s boy who is the one in the vid and absolutely walked all races) , and Pembrey is a massive circuit for these little things, so wasn’t really close racing for them, but was great to see them there





It's the first time I've seen riders playing with their lego between practice sessions too



Another factor that I think influenced the nice vibe was how they were running this meeting, as a sort of mini-self-contained championship.
By that I mean that there were not trophies for every race, only for the top three points scorers in each class at the end of the weekend when all races had run, ie you could get a maximum of one trophy for each class .

This added a bit of spice made it really interesting I thought, especially for Sunday’s races.
And, being the trophy whore that I am ( ) , when I signed on again Saturday morning and saw all the entry lists in the respective classes, and the relatively low cost of entering a third class, it also persuaded me to enter the big-boys Naked Streetbike (NSB) class too, as it looked like there were only two others entered, which by my reckoning meant that as long as I finished at least one of those 3 extra races in the points I would potentially be up for a trophy in that class, even if I didn’t manage it in the NSB600 or Newcomers classes

Grid-wise, those races were still a decent size, as although there were now only 3 NSBs they had been combined with the Supertwins and PI600s
So that added another qualifying session and 3 more races to my programme, giving me a total of 8 races over the two days

My first qualifying session was for the NSBs, and although I felt I was riding OK, my times told a different story- 2 seconds off what I’d done in the Bandit round there back in May this year, but it still put me 13th on the grid with 7 or 8 still behind me, so not completely embarrassing, and well, it didn’t really matter in this class I was definitely going to get third in class or better, wherever I finished on the road

I made no changes to the bike but had a little bit of a chat with myself and NSB600 qualifying went a fair bit better, 2 seconds better in fact, which was 3rd fastest NSB600 ( there were 10 or so Bandits entered) , 1.2 secs off pole and put me 6th on the grid, behind two Bandits one TZ and a couple of 400s – NSB600 were sharing the grid with the “Open 500” and DesmoDue classes, and I was happy with that.

I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account of every single race, but in short, in the NSB600 class, I finished 3rd in race 1, 5th in race2 and 2nd in race 3- that last race was particularly satisfying, as not only was it 2nd in class, it was 2nd over the line, giving me 3rd highest points scorer and a trophy!

In the Newcomers, I finished 2nd (by a gnats) in the first race after a race-long and contact-heavy battle with Grant Davies, and I finished 3rd in the second race, again by an absolute gnats to Grant - it meant we finished the weekend equal on points and race positions, so it was decided on fastest lap over the two races, mine was 0.2 quicker than his so I took it - 2nd place Trophy in that one
And in the big-boy NSBs, I got beaten up a fair bit in one, but had some good races, and loved it . I didn’t trouble the leaders but finished 3rd NSB in each of the 3 races, so another trophy in that one,so a trophy in every class I'd entered, with no " Senior" sub-class to prop me up, result eh!



So what started out pretty badly turned into one of, if not the most enjoyable weekends I’ve ever had- the second Newcomer race and final NSB600 races were two of the closest and most exciting ever for me, and the others weren’t without incident either- I got a 10sec penalty for jump-start/grid infringement in one of the NSB600 races, got sideswiped off the track in another and there was plenty of really close racing, but despite all that I finished every race in respectable positions and had just so much fun- the camaraderie and laughs off track were absolutely top-notch, and the Saturday night curry at the Sheesh Mahal was pretty decent too.
All in all, a cracking weekend, and I can’t wait to do it again

Oh and these are my tyres today- they have done all of the last (Donington) meeting and everything this weekend and were still allowing me to set my fastest laps in the last race- the way these TTs (don't) wear means that they will probably also stay on for my first couple of meetings next year too- that's proper good value eh!





Having said that, I still didn’t quite get into the 1:06s at Pembrey on the old girl, but I am not sure I would have even on brand new TTs, but I'm only a whisker away, and I will ( or all being well, 1:05s ) roll next year!

[ChrisW]

Awesome write-up, glad you had a good meeting.

[Dodgy69]

Nice one @Tricky . A good year indeed.

[Supermofo]

Sounds like a great weekend all round.

[Buckaroo]

That bike of yours has been amazing, as has the pilot.

Onwards and upwards @Tricky

[Tricky]

Well, bit of an update on my next season, hot off the press as it were.

Formula Prostocks ( the club that has run the Bandit Challenge series since its inception in 2015, along with other 80s/90s superbike classes), has as of yesterday folded and announced it is no more, and is refunding 2025 club subs for anyone who has already paid.

TBH it isn't a big surprise, as the writing has been on the wall for the last couple of months since Keith, the bloke who has run it , casually told one of the Bandit boys at the final round at Anglsey that he had cancelled the planned end-of-season awards ceremony, and there wouldn't be any championship trophies or anything else as he's run out of money.
He didn't , however, put out any form of formal announcement on on the awards night being canceled, or what would happen for championship winners, though, and still hasn't, even in yesterday's folding announcement.
There has been a whole load of other stuff too that has been going on relating to him and how the club is run, and without getting all the dirty-washing out, suffice to say he's come in for a lot of flack both throughout the season and quite a lot on social media recently ( deservedly so in my, and it seems 99% of other club members opinions), so TBH I'm not that surprised, but it does potentially change my next season plans.

Even though the Bandit and other FPR classes have apparently been down on numbers the last season or two compared to pre-covid years, there's still a fair number of us with those sorts of bikes that want to race next season, so NG have today announced that they are stepping in and will be running classes to accommodate the Bandits, and the FP2/3s (80s/90s superbikes)

This announcement was only this morning, so they haven't published tech regs yet, but if I had to guess now, I would say rather than being the Bandit Challenge, it will be a "Naked Streetbike 600" class , as NG ran at the recent Prince of Pembrey (PoP) end of season meeting.

If my guess is correct, then that potentially opens up further options, depending on the regs, as if it's run with the same rules as the PoP meeting, that means that things like 600 Hornets, Fazers etc and whatever tyres and engine mods you like would be eligible, and although I suspect a fair few Bandits would still be raced in the class as they are now, they are not the most powerful or light things and to have a hope of being near the front would mean a change of bike, or significant Bandit engine/chassis mods at least .

So we shall see- I might even buy another Tuono or 765RS and change class to the full-fat Naked Streetbike, or possibly even go DesmoDue- those boys do seem to have a fairly good social side and their grids are usually fairly well attended .

Anyway, interesting times for me, more to follow after NG have published full class lists and regs, and I'll decide what I do then, but one thing I am certain of is that I will be racing something

[KungFooBob]

I did DD for three years, they're by far the most social group of racers you'd ever meet.

BHR events are quite chilled too if you can find something ancient to race, then again they do host Early Stocks too, so you could race an old VFR750.

I also like the look of the class that races the FZ600s with the CRMC. The bikes are as cheap as Bandits, but a lot older.

[Tricky]

I did DD for three years, they're by far the most social group of racers you'd ever meet.

BHR events are quite chilled too if you can find something ancient to race, then again they do host Early Stocks too, so you could race an old VFR750.

I also like the look of the class that races the FZ600s with the CRMC. The bikes are as cheap as Bandits, but a lot older.

Agree- I didn't have too much contact with the DD boys this season , but they are definitely a nice friendly lot, and there's some decent racing there.
I'm most likely going to stick with an NG class for this season at least, but yep, some of the CRMC classes appeal too.

[Couchy]

I did DD for three years, they're by far the most social group of racers you'd ever meet.

BHR events are quite chilled too if you can find something ancient to race, then again they do host Early Stocks too, so you could race an old VFR750.

I also like the look of the class that races the FZ600s with the CRMC. The bikes are as cheap as Bandits, but a lot older.

Some FZ600's in our yard....I say 600's as to be competitive you need a 680, cams, porting and prob £2k in the engine alone. The steelie class is a better option at CRMC

[weeksy]

That's a shame as that class seemed perfect. Any other class that's got a mix of bikes, power, tyres etc can end up a minefield of performance gains which kinda spoils things a lot.

[Tricky]

That's a shame as that class seemed perfect. Any other class that's got a mix of bikes, power, tyres etc can end up a minefield of performance gains which kinda spoils things a lot.

Yup, completely agree, the Bandit ( and DD / Minitwin to a lesser extent) classes do, generally speaking keep costs down and racing close due to the technical rules and control tyres.

Have to say, now that Bemsee are acknowledging the beefier ones among us for 2025, this also potentially appeals too...

[

[mangocrazy]

So make sure you weigh either 76kg or 96kg post race...

[Tricky]

Time for a bit of an update I think.

As I mentioned above, with the demise of FPR, NG are in the process of formulating tech regs for a “new” class for which the 600 Bandits will be eligable- some aspects have been finalised- basically the name of the class which is to be “Lightweight (this is quite funny if it’s mainly going to consit of Bandits, as one thing they aren’t is light ) Naked Streetbike Cup”, and that it will be sponsored/supported by Dunlop, as the Bandit series was and DesmoDue is , so that’s good news in my book.

Having said that we’re still waiting for the tech regs doc, hence I’m still not currently completely sure that a Bandit will be the bike to have, but whatever, I thought that I’d give the old girl a bit of an end of season engine service at the minimum, but until the new regs are released, stop short of a full refresh until I’ve decided whether its the bike I’ll be on next season.

As I think I also mentioned a few posts ago, although the bike has been running seemingly faultlessly, at the last couple of meetings I have had the feeling that we might be down on power a little.
It was last measured on the club dyno May/June at 76hp, which made it one of the fittest ones, and it did seem to pull as well as any of them out there, but recently, I've had to work harder- guys that I’ve been able to stay with or even pass on straights or out of corners have been inching away from me so a proper check-over is definitely due.

And although it’s not been visibly smoking on track, it has been using a fair bit of oil recently too.
In common with many bikes of this age, they suffer from the rubber valve stem seals going hard over time, which is the usual cause of the oil consumption, and speaking to some of the more experienced Bandit boys, they are also apparently notorious for having valve clearances close up and cam chains stretch when raced- any or all of these could be relevant to my bike.

A recent test has shown that compression readings are still good at 150-160PSI and pretty consistent across cylinders, the reality is that I’ve only ever measured when cold, and well, there is no doubt that it is definitely overdue for a valve clearance check, not having had one this year, so I thought that’s where I’ll start, and then when I get in there, dependant on what I find, and if I’m sticking with it for next season, I’ll then decide whether it’s a full top-end strip down and refresh.
So off came the tank and rocker box and out came the feeler gauges.

My bike is not running its original engine (that's in a corner of the shed with a rod poking through the cases ), it has a slightly older but allegedly low mileage GSX600F (Teapot) engine sourced and put in by the previous owner, which although the same as a Bandit motor in almost all respects, differs slightly in that it has a conventional roller-type cam chain rather than HyVo, and uses shims instead of screw and locknut for valve clearance adjustment.
It's completely legal for the Bandit class, same everything else and produces the same power as a GSF600 motor, it just makes valve clearance adjustment a bit more involved as rather than just adjusting the gap with a spanner as you would on a Bandit, or nearly every other GSXR, when clearance is out of spec, on mine it’s a case of pushing the (spring loaded) rocker arms to the side with a suitable tool to enable the removal and measurement of the shim and then a little bit of maths to determine what size shims need to go back in to make the clearance correct.

When I removed the rocker-box cover, it became obvious that this engine has had replacement cams at some point in its life, from a breakers by the look of the white marker pen, and whoever had installed them hadn’t even bothered cleaning the pen off the cam lobe surfaces. Hmmm….



ON initial inspection the cam lobe surfaces all looked good with no perceptible wear or scoring so I opened my spreadsheet to record clearances, rotated the crank and set about measuring, but before I’d got very far I spotted something a little concerning, as some of you also might in this pic



For anyone who hasn’t spotted it, each cam sprocket is secured by two bolts, except in my case, the inlet cam just had the one- Feck!

Well, this means the cams are now definitely coming out, but before I did, I measured each clearance. Surprisingly, to me, anyway, was that although just about every valve clearance was out of spec, they were the healthy way out of spec- ie gaps were larger rather than too tight, typically by .10 to .15mm, a significant, but not really worrying amount
Once I’d done that , I removed the tensioner and cam caps and lifted the cams out, took out each shim, measured its size and recorded it before putting them in my specially designed 16v box



The missing bolt didn’t seem to be lurking anywhere in the head below the cams, and this was of course now concerning me so fuckit, off came the head so that I could tip it upside down and inspect it, the valves, and at least the whole top end properly.



With the head off, it’s obvious from the carbon deposits on it and the piston crowns that it has been burning oil- although of course I know that from how much I've been pouring in it
There's a fair amount of carbon on the exhaust valve stems too, so at the very minimum now it’s going all going to get de-coked, new stem seals and the valves re-lapped in, but before I launch into any of that I thought that I’d just do a quick valve leakage test by filling the combustion chambers with brake cleaner and seeing which, if any ports it leaked down.
The positive news is none of them, in this quick and pretty basic test, which is great.

However, where that bolt had got to was eating away at me ,I was hoping that it had dropped down the camchain tunnel, not got caught up on anything on the way down and just settled in the lower crankcase or sump so although time was getting on, I drained the oil (no metal to speak of on the magnetic sump plug, which was good) , and whizzed the sump off.

What I found made things even more confusing, unfortunately- this was sitting in the sump





It has a 14mm hexagon and looks like it was a flanged nut originally, but strangely it doesn’t appear to have any thread internally.
It’s obviously had a real beating so maybe that could possibly account for it, but I am not convinced- whatever, despite searching just about every parts diagram for the engine I am still not sure what exactly it was/is, but one thing I am certain of is that it is not my missing bolt, which has a 10mm hex and should look like this.


Alas, the cam sprocket bolt was nowhere to be found, and wracking my brains, the closest thing I could think of that the nut-thing I had found could be is a nut off one of the big end caps- they look like this - quite a scary thought and a lucky escape if it is one of these, I thought...



The barrels were stuck solid on the studs, due to what is likely 30 years or so of corrosion and really didn’t want to budge, so I squirted some PlusGas down the studs and retired to the house for the night to give it a chance to do it’s stuff.

The next morning I went straight into the garage, two taps with a hide mallet and up the barrels came, exposing the pistons and rods.
Despite my still considerable concerns as to what I might find, I was very pleased to see that all four pistons and bores are in excellent nick, with no measurable wear or blow-by past the rings-



That made me very happy, and confirmed the reason for the oil consumption to be the ancient valve stem seals

With some trepidation, I then got my little USB endoscope down into the crankcases to check for big-end cap nuts, and am even more pleased to report that my suspicion was unfounded and all eight are present and correct- here's a couple


I also poked the camera up from underneath to try and see if my missing bolt was lodged anywhere, but no, and there was no visible damage anywhere either that I could see so despite not finding the bolt yet, that's another in my book

Time was getting on, and I had an appointment to meet up and drink beer with my two brothers, so off I went, with the bashed up nut-thing in my pocket and of course photos on my phone to see if either of them had any bright ideas as to what the nut-thing originally was and/or where it came from , and where my missing cam sprocket bolt was.

No joy on the nut-thing, but on the missing cam sprocket bolt, Mart made a very valid point by saying that bearing in mind the tippex on the cams,, was I sure that all the bolts were ever there in the first place?
The answer was no, but we both agreed that I should be able to verify this- if my missing bolt had been there and had come out with the engine running, there would definitely have to be some sign of that in the camchain tunnel in the head or barrels.
That gave me more hope that I might be searching for something that was never there in the first place, so as soon as I got home, , I was back in the garage and looked at the head

My hope was short-lived



And with the cam plonked in to double-check the theory of where that mark came from...



Arse! Yup, it is clear from scoring on the head that the missing bolt has made its way out with the engine running, which basically now means engine out and full strip as it has to be in there somewhere-bollock wank fuckity-fuck!

Anyway, that’s where we are now, more to follow over the next week or two as the stripdown continues, I find the missing bolt, and also hopefully also where this mystery nut thing came from, which to be honest, is concerning me even more!

Until that time-

[Buckaroo]

My guess is: Captain Peacock, lead pipe, conservatory.

Very interesting write up as usual. I reckon you should think about getting a job with a bike magazine. You're a natural.

[Tricky]

My guess is: Captain Peacock, lead pipe, conservatory.

Very interesting write up as usual. I reckon you should think about getting a job with a bike magazine. You're a natural.

Cheers, but feck that- I'm far too busy being retired these days to have to work for a living again

[weeksy]

Ace write up and very informative. Not something i'd be up for doing that's for sure...

I like forward to the next installment on this one as i'm sure you'll find it.

[Dodgy69]

Could any bolt remnants already be removed through previous oil charges/owners. ?? Great write-up again.

[Count Steer]

Could any bolt remnants already be removed through previous oil charges/owners. ?? Great write-up again.

My thoughts too. Might be involved with/one of the reasons that cam has got white marks on? Ditto the mystery item in the sump.

Cracking write up, could be a YouTube channel.