The FINAL MGP blogg fom the Boss. :o( (I'll add my breakdown of the week when I've stopped sobbing!)

Sadly its all over for us as we haven't qualified on time - just outside the time tolerance by seconds and our appeal was unsuccessful.

So its time for reflection and learning - that's what its all about.

Anyway - here are some highlights of the week:-

We did manage 5 laps and a couple of half laps

We didn't have any mechanical / engine problems

We improved our speed trap time immensely and achieved 97mph through Sulby!

We used all three engines and followed our strategy

We did have a component failure and a couple of cases of - the TT Course does that to bikes type issues

We did rebuild the bike in a day and get out to record our fastest lap that very evening

We have endured poor weather

We had a brilliant lump of pork last night at our MGP BBQ!! Best ever!!

Above all - its been fun trying to compete at a class level which is for GP bikes - not road bikes such as ours and we must have seriously worried some of the boys out there with our speeds!!!

Looking forward we have the Jurby title to clinch, a two day festival at Cadwell and an endurance at Jurby to round off the season - so let's see what we can achieve/

That's it for now.

The Jurby Festival of Speed calls and Robert has a magnificent collection of MVs, a Brough and a Gilera 4 to go and watch perform.

The sun always shines in the North - or so they say!!

John

Boss 'early riser' mini-Blogg;

Good morning all from a sunny Isle of Man

Last nights practice saw us complete our required 5 laps for qualifying however we still need one lap at the required time of just under 85mph.

That said - it was wet and windy and generally awful conditions last night and we had a 80 plus mph lap from a standing start on rain soaked roads - so not a bad omen!

Second lap ended at Creg ny Baa with the gear level falling off! Ho hum!

Engine No 3 performed superbly well with bags of mid range combined with a close ration box giving Fozzy an excellent tool for the job and one which he is confident should allow him to achieve the required qualifying time.

His speed through the start / finish speed trap was 92.9mph last night - up almost 5mph on our previous best so a massive improvement.

We will now leave Engine No 3 in for practice tonight and the race on Monday.

For those interested in the tuning spec - here it is:-

2mm higher exhaust port and 1mm wider

Boost port added (this is the cunning bit!!!)

2mm off the skirt of the piston to increase inlet duration

1mm off the inside of the inlet manifolds

So as you can see - not a staggering amount of change but what a difference to Engine No 1 which is limited to the exhaust port modifications only.

The use of a boost port as prescribed by Walter Kaadan is a cunning way of increasing mid range power and cooling the underside of the piston at the same time. This technology actually dates back to the 20's - so nothing is new - just reused! The ex works TT bike uses the same approach and hence we have now adapted same for our bike.

All good fun and lets see what we can do tonight.

John

Update;

Good morning all

Last nights practice was cancelled due to bad weather / rain so we all had a well earned evening off.

However - yesterday was most exciting as the boys took the race bike along with engine no 3 up to Slick Bass to have it run in on the dyno and then put through its paces.

The results are brilliant and I am very pleased with my engine tuning work - porting all done by my own fair hands and the rest of it by friends like Gary who shortened the piston skirt and cut a slot in the piston and the barrel to create a boost port.

The engine produces a healthy 29.8 (so lets call it 30 eh!) BHP at 8,000 revs. Compared to engine no 1 which is our benchmark - it is making about the same power and at 750 less revs (important) with a whopping 7BHP more in the mid range just where it counts! Comparing the Dyno graphs is fascinating and engine no 3 should be a massive improvement for places like the mountain mile where its all about torque. So - combine these characteristics with our ex works close ration gearbox and we should have a real step change in this little bikes ability.

So - this morning the sun shines and let's see if practice goes ahead and what we can do this evening.

John