Engine
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Choosing an engine was another lengthy process. Initially I had decided that I just had to have a blackbird engine because anything else just wouldn't be fast enough and it was worth spending a few quid on an engine I was likely to want to keep for a while because of the associated cost of all the other associated bits like exhaust, mounts, props etc.
I briefly considered the twin engine route, but this would entail the use of a chassis other than the Striker because the inboard suspension was in the way of the front engine. I got some ballpark prices from Chris Allanson did some sums and then decided to forget all about it.
Based on the experience of other BEC listers it became apparent to me that the blackbird engine really needs a modified sump. At the time the Mistral unit was the only option and common sense would probably add an oil accumulator too. Without these, oil surge seems pretty much inevitable. I kept an eye on prices, which were remarkably stable considering the demand, and it looked likely that a good engine was going to be around £2K, which although bearable for such a great engine, was starting to get expensive when you considered the sump mods. So I cast the net out again to see what was about and think about the pros and cons of each. Here are my thoughts:
Suzuki GSXR1300 Hayabusa - 1300cc.175bhp.105lb.ft. 80Kg
The Busa is without a doubt the must have, money no object engine out there and is priced accordingly. I've seen them from £2100 to £3500 and common sense and experience would suggest that dry sumping is a necessary additional expense with something this valuable. Without doubt a great engine but with a relatively low redline of 9750rpm it is struggling a bit on top speed without the use of custom crown-wheel and pinion (hence the Freelander 3.21:1 diff that Westfield use), an overdrive reverse box such as the Z-Cars 1.17:1 unit or different ratios for 5th and 6th. All this is getting too expensive with insufficient return for me.
Kawasaki ZX-12 - 1200cc.179bhp.
A bit of a dark horse at the moment as there are few installations around. Supposed to give loads of power in a car install and have a much more useful rev range and gearing than the Busa. Probably the ultimate bike engine out there at the moment but sump modifications are the big unknown for full on track use and I've heard various urban legends about it being problematic to wire. I have seen a few of these for sale at £2K and know of one which was bought for less, which is very tempting, but its a bit too leading edge for me.
Honda CBR1100XX - 1100cc. 164bhp. 92lb.ft. 83Kg.
Good power and great torque throughout the rev range with a useful redline and good gearing make this a very desirable engine. Need to allow £200 to £350 for a modified sump or full dry sump if you don't want oil surge (who does). Also needs the clutch slave cylinder to be relocated to avoid the prop, which although not rocket science is a hassle, as is the external oil cooler and its plumbing. It is also quite significantly heavier than a blade and other 900s. I've seen these for sale for as little as £1250 to well over £2K for a late injected one. I was banking on needing about £2200 for one with a Mistral sump. Plenty of parts such as exhausts, mounts etc available from Westfield, Fisher et al.
Suzuki GSXR1000 - 1000cc. 160bhp.
Currently the most powerful stock 1 litre engine. I found a few people breaking crated bikes for the engines for racers and they wanted £2K for a new engine. Completely untried AFAIK and too much of a shot in the dark for me. Who knows, this might turn out to be the one to have in a few months.
Yamaha YZF-R1 - 998cc. 150bhp. 80lb.ft. 60Kg.
Good power and torque from an engine with the physical size and weight of a 900. The stacked gearbox puts the sprocket where you need it for good prop angles and the gear selector up high at the back of the engine for a very positive and direct gear linkage routing. All experience so far has indicated that sump modification is not necessary in a bec and that over filling is sufficient. Sidecar racers use a baffled sump. Has a cable clutch and dinky liquid-cooled oil-cooler built onto sump like the blade. Has good gearing and a useful 11,750rpm redline. Ditching the EXUP valve can cause problems unless the servo is retained in the loom or a black box is used to spoof the ECU. Seems to respond well to the usual BEC trick of junking the airbox and re-jetting with power IRO 160bhp. Certainly bikes with full exhaust systems, K&N filters and jets are producing this much. Early engines were subject to a recall for the clutch basket and the top hose which could come adrift. The one big downside of this engine is that they are all post 98 and thus fall under cat level emissions at SVA. Not used by any mainstream manufacturer and as such prices are not silly. I've seen them from under £1K with brand new engines available for £1750.
Kawasaki ZZR1100 - 1100cc. 147bhp. 80lb.ft
Very good spread of power and torque, not vastly different from something like a blackbird. Used by Radical, where they have sump mods and head work and give around 160bhp. Seem to be very well sought after because of their popularity and thus not much cheaper than a blackbird without all the associated parts availability for a BEC.
Kawasaki ZX-9R - 900cc. 143bhp. 75lb.ft
Great power from a 900 and a compact unit. Supposed to be a little heavier than a blade. Used in the Tiger B6 and Z100, where they give nearly 150bhp for the later revisions. Gearing is the one downside of this engine as the primary reduction ratio of 1.714 which is 89% of that for a blade, with resulting lower in gear speeds, which is compensated for somewhat by a higher redline. Some have a hydraulic clutch, some cable. I've seen these up for sale for under £1K. A great engine for the money with pre-95 units still producing 138bhp. Possibly a better choice than the blade, unless you want to race in the 750MC - where the 138hp puts you in with the Busas, with good parts availability from Stuart-Taylor and Tiger.
Honda CBR1000F - 1000cc. 135bhp. 77lb.ft. 93Kg.
An inexpensive option that responds well to re-jetting and a new exhaust and can be picked up for as little as £300 with the most expensive 1994 units around £750. Plenty of pre-95 units around to avoid cat based SVA emission test with the engine being updated and remaining unchanged from 94 to 99. Good power and good torque with a strong gearbox and clutch with plenty of high mileages achieved in bikes. Sump mods do not appear to be necessary in BEC installs, even with semi-slicks. Sylva are the only manufacturer to support this engine with mounts and it makes great sense as a cheap and effective power unit. The downside of the CBR1000 is that it is a bit on the heavy side and has a relatively low redline at 10,500rpm which is compounded by the lowest gearing of any of the commonly used engines.
Honda CBR900F - 900cc. 128bhp. 67lb.ft. 60Kg.
The Fireblade is probably the most widely used engine and has proven to be absolutely bomb-proof with no sump mods other than baffling and overfilling and plenty of abuse by the 750MC boys. Re-jetting seems to yield around 135bhp and there are plenty of bits like exhausts, jet kits, mounts etc to choose from. A very lightweight and compact unit. You simply cannot go wrong with a blade engine. Good, late, low-mileage engines can be found for under £1K with the pre-95 units commanding a slight premium at just over £1K. The latest 2001 models have 150bhp and are lighter still, which could make them one of the best choices available if you can deal with transporting the fuel injection, variable length intake and exhaust valve into a BEC or spoof the technology into working well without it.
Conclusions
I dismissed the Busa, ZX-12 and Blackbird because they are too expensive for the few extra horsepower they offer over the next engines down the pecking order.
My shortlist came down to the R1, CBR1000 and Blade. I was extremely tempted by the CBR1000. I found plenty of good engines for silly money and with no SVA emissions worries it would be an easy option. The blade was only a bit more expensive and a better choice in terms of saving around 33Kg, being much better geared with more revs, lots of off the shelf parts and totally bomb-proof. Very tempting. Eventually I decided on the R1 engine as it is the same money as a blade with a significant power and torque advantage with no weight penalty. Jeremy Phillips had already successfully installed two R1 engines in his Striker chassis and Marc Bell had converted a third. The simplicity of the install in terms of vibration-free straight prop angles, direct gear linkage and cable clutch made the install look less problematic than it might be. Also, Jeremy Phillips was almost enthusiastic by his standards about the packaging of the R1.
Doing a few sums on the resultant power to weight ratios using the above engines illustrates the pros and cons of engine weight vs. engine power. Out of the above units the R1 stands out as being the best choice along with the 2001 blade engine and possibly the GSXR1000 too, if I had some figures to go on.
The big plus of the R1 is the weight and size. Comparing the R1 with the CBR1000 engined demo Striker, now owned by Simon Neill, there is a weight saving of 33Kg to be made. The CBR Striker was weighed at 440Kg recently so the R1 engine, plus some lighter wheels and brakes could see the weight down to under 400Kg, maybe as little as 380Kg.
The Achilles heel of my R1 plan is emissions. The fallback option I have is to purchase a cat system to pass the SVA test, but at £420 this is an expensive toy for the day. It now seems that it is possible to hire these systems out for around £120. So that's what I'll be doing.
A Wasted Journey
When I found a low mileage 2001 engine for £750 the search was over. Or so I thought. I had found a string of 98 R1 engines with unknown history for £1K. I kept searching and £1300 seemed to be the going rate for a low-mileage 98/99 model with the 2000/2001 model around £1500. I found a very useful source of parts in the form of the parts for sale board of a sidecar racing site on which there were a few well priced R1 engines. One of these was a 2001 model with 6000 miles on it for £750, no electrics, but I sourced these separately. Anyway arrangements were made and cash was drawn and I went to see this engine. When I got there you can imagine how pleased I was to find the bloke not there and not going to show up. Anyway the bullshit excuse was that his sponsor had sold it the night before and that he hadn't be able to contact me, despite me being to most contactable person there is on the planet. At the time I was of course disappointed, but during a conversation with the bloke on the phone the history of the engine got even more uncertain and it became apparent that it was probably a blessing in disguise as he was a complete moron.
Second Time Lucky
After what turned out to be a fairly typical experience in bike part buying according to other's experiences I decided that I would forget about getting a good deal and only buy something guaranteed from a reputable source. There was another good R1 engine on the Sidenet parts for sale board that I had enquired about, but was sold. Then I got a mail to say that the sale had fallen through and was I interested. This was a 2000 model engine with 280miles on it complete with all electrics, carbs, airbox and exhaust for £1K. Oh yes I was. Only problem was that it was in the South of France. To cut a long story short, the Frenchman was a true gentleman. The history and pedigree of the engine was proven and the sale was completed via an Escrow service. I paid £950 for the engine and £150 for the crating and insured shipping to my door. The engine was exactly as described without a mark on it and still looking like new with a complete set of matching electrics, carbs and airbox. Not bad for £1100.
The 2000 model R1 engine that I bought has a number of revisions from the 98/99 model including getting some lighter internals for less reciprocating mass and frictional lossed, better oil distribution and a better gear selector feel with an additional bearing and a hollow selector shaft. It also has a bit more magnesium to break on it and a smaller magnesium cased starter motor with rare earth magnets. Bike engine technology is just completely bonkers. One possibly useful addition is the Air Injection System that allows air into the exhaust ports under fast idle/partial throttle to take care of unburned hydrocarbons and get the bike through EU1 emissions. I have no idea what EU1 emissions are, but it seems plausible that the bike may pass the HCO and CO2 cat based emissions test at SVA with this in place, but still unlikely that it will pass the lambda test, i.e. running stoichemetrically. The safety net for emissions is still the use of a cat emission control system but we'll see what it looks like without beforehand before the probably inevitable removal of this happens.
Sump Baffles
One good turn deservers another. I had a 'wanted' ad on the Sidenet parts for sale board for a while and got a few responses from standard engines to tuned ones. As I had already got an engine I passed these on to the BEC list. I got a thank-you from a bloke called Trev Stafford, who had got a good response and picked up on some of the questions I had asked about baffling the sump on the R1. He reckoned that overfilling should not be by more than 200-300ml, which corresponded to another sidecar team's recommendation of 200ml and that provided by Yamaha Racing France. Also Trev it turns out is quite a handy racer with more P1s and fastest laps this year than most in 1000cc sidecars and has done a few mods to the sump to get the R1 to work reliably in a sidecar outfit. His engine man (Pete) described the complex set of baffles they have designed and tested this year and the modifications they make to the oil bypass valve by fitting an upside-down 'tulip' on it to divert the oil back into the sump under the baffle. According to Pete there is a lot of oil coming out of the bypass valve at high revs and the last place you want it is squirted up into the gearbox. They have sold these parts on to other teams running the R1 and they seem to be doing the job, even with the enornous slicks and downforce they run. The baffle is designed to get the oil back to the pickup, particularly from the gearbox, and then keep it there. Although the engine in the sidecar is in the same E-W orientation as in the bike, it seemed better to me to have some kind of baffle in a BEC than not so I ordered a set of these. £60 for the baffle plate, £10 for the oil-bypass valve 'tulip'. Pretty good considering what other sidecar derived sump modifications can cost. If you want a set, give Trev Stafford at All Bikes a ring on 01303 248444. There will be some pictures and words of fitting this later.