New member with a trackday-skorpion-tour

[wrecckah]

hi fellas,

i'd like to introduce myself on this forum (i've been lurking for a couple of weeks now, great source of info!)

My name is Jan, 34yrs old, coming form Ghent, Belgium, and i've recently bought a 1995 skorpion tour to strip down and convert into a trackday bike. I've been away from the track for over 3yrs (big crash of a mate of mine, and i didn't feel like it anymore), but i'm completely back in the game now. I've done many trackdays before with TL1000's, Cagiva raptor 1000, etc...but i wanted to go back to the essence: less power, less scary, more corner speed, better lines, all in the name of having as much fun as possible. Forget CBR1000RRRRR's with 180hp, i wanted a light, friendly, flickable supermono.

So i bought this skorpion tour, gave it a big service, slapped on some clipons and a honda RS250 racefairing (provisionally), and went to track.

I dreamed what a trackday on a supermono would be like, and it has come true completely: it is simply brilliant fun to race a 'supermono'...the bike is stock, so making around 45hp i guess, 155km/h GPS top speed on the straight, and slow as anything but it is FUN FUN FUN. I lose 300 yards on the straight, but one braking zone and one corner into the lap and i'm already bumping up the asses of 'real' racebikes. The initial power coming out of a turn is great, and i'm overtaking big power bikes like Honda SP2 and such....untill they stand the bike up, and finally crack the throttle open and fly past
Ground clearance is still a bit of an issue, even with 125mm dogbones: the exhaust still touches in compressed righthanders...solution is to come.

I have gelled already fully with this little bike, after only a couple of sessions. It feels great, it is fun.









For now, it is mostly stock apart from a IRC components radial master cylinder and a true brembo caliper, but i will convert some things in wintertime. Focus lies on losing as much weight as possible. (wheels, exhaust, subframe) Hoping to get down to a true 150kg raceready, and topspeed more in the region of 180km/h, to make overtaking a bit less frustrating.
I'm not doing much power-wise...i will run without filter and with race-exhaust, so i will have to adjust the jetting, but that's about it. Who knows, maybe a 102mm bigbore in the future.

i will post up the modifications,
cheers,
Jan

[billr]

Hi, Jan.
Welcome aboard. Neat set-up and great pics. You described my impression of the Skorpions to a "T", love these bikes.
Looking forward to updates.
Bill R

[wrecckah]

Hi Bill,

thanks for the reply...

i've got a couple of updates already in the pipeline:

1. i'm gonna cnc new rearsets, to save weight on the lead stockers i've drawn them in autocad, a 3D computer drawing program, and a friend of mine will cnc them from a block of aluminium, fully automated on a self-built machine. Hopefully some results next month.
http://mojomoto.blogspot.com/2010/10/3d-cnc.html

2. I've swapped the stock Yuasa lead-acid battery for a lightweight Lipo battery, saving 3,75kg in the process. It's a 4-cel Lithium Polymer battery, 16,3V fully charged, 14,8V nominal...a little bit too high, but the engine starts and runs beautifully with this little battery; charging these batteries is fussy (and dangerous), so I've disconnected the regulator (and threw it off), and i'm gonna run the bike total loss. I think i can do a full trackday without recharging/balancing.

3. here's a picture of the IRC radial master cylinder, 16x18. i haven't run it on track yet, but it feels great testriding it in my street
http://mojomoto.blogspot.com/2010/09/ir ... aster.html

The bike was 189kg dry in stock form...throwing all street-bits off, and 'adjusting' some brackets and stuff gave me about 15kg gain. Wheels, exhaust and subframe conversion will give me another 10-15kg, so i think my 150kg raceready is possible

cheers,
Jan

PS the little bike is christened as 'MojoMono'

[rd400racer]

Hi Jan. Welcome! Looks like more of us MZ racers are showing up everyday. Any chance you could take a pic of how you attached the RS fairing to your bike. I am running a naked MZ and would like to put a fairing on it. Maybe the next time you have the fairing off just a couple of shots of the brackets you used or made. Thanks very much and it looks great!

[basser23]

Welcome Jan!
Looks good! I know a couple of people in Ghent,friends of the Mrs...
Your bike is looking great,and your weight loss plans are spot on...did you use an RS250 seat also?
When the rearsets are complete,you may have a request for a number of them from over here in the States.
Let us know how you get on....you may also find useful info at bloggen.be...has a beautiful Skorp for the road....
Shiney side up!
Chip

[wrecckah]

hi guys,

here's a piccie of the front bracket, and i guess it shows why i said that the fairing is mounted 'provisionally'
these are steel brackets used in volvo trucks, a friend of mine gave these to me a couple of years ago, and they are perfect for fiddling and fitting.

a proper aluminium front subframe will be made this winter too



as she sits now, she got the stock seat, with the RS250 tail chopped up and sitting on top of the seat.
The plan is to loose the stock seat, chop off the subframe as far as possible, and work with the RS250 tail and a small neoprene seat. stock seat = 3kg, so that needs to go

do any of you guys know which diameter slipon is necessary for this 660 single? I might get two damaged TL1000 yoshi slipons for free, might even turn it into a double system if i find a guy to weld up some piping for me.

[wrecckah]

Hi Chip,

yapp, i read bloggen.be already, great work of those guys, very nice bikes.

the rearsets will cost practically nothing more than the bare material...the fabshop i'm gonna work with is subsidised by our government, so no need to make money and i don't want anything for the drawings either
it's all a bit trial and error though, like i said, we're gonna try out his computer controlled machining device...first time test i'm hoping that it will be accurate enough.

will keep ya updated for sure,

cheers, jan

[billr]

Nice, nice...you guys are gonna have me tearing into the "drowned rat" and making a track bike out of it...
Bill R

[rd400racer]

Thanks for the pic Jan. Looks pretty straightforward. As far as exhaust and jet kits go, these people still sell Skorpion parts. I have both on my bike.

http://www.holeshot.com/

[rd400racer]

Not the best pic, but the best one I could find of the Holeshot exhaust. Plus it sounds real good. Everybody looks up a bit to see what is going by. I'm just guessing with the jet kit probably adds 3-4hp.

[rd400racer]

One more quick note. I just checked Holeshot and they have the Skorpion slip-ons on closeout. $279 for polished, $289 for black. And it says once these are gone there will be no more.

Makes me want to get one for a spare, just in case.

[rd400racer]

I want to think that most MZ Skorpion guys are Yamaha fans too, since it uses that beautiful 660 engine. As Bill knows, I bought the MZ
racebike for my son. I found this for myself this week, so the next time you see me in Nashville Bill, I'll be on this sweet little 400...

[basser23]

Nice Fzzzr there RD.....
Used to race an Rd350 myself...in the latter part of the last century....
the Holeshot on the Mz is a nice system,although I consider it too loud on mine...
When Jan gets his rearsets done we should get an order together .....what ya say?
Chip

[wrecckah]

that's a gorgeous bike, owww yeah!

bet you will get a lot of attention on track with that

[rd400racer]

Yes, I'm in on the rearsets.

I like to have my foot controls set fairly low. When I adjusted the brake lever on the MZ I found out that if I put it to the position that I am comfortable with it actually set the brake on the rear. So of course I had to dial it up a bit. Plus it was missing the set screw on the bottom, so I had to install a replacement. Well, halfway through my first practice I go to use the rear brake and I have nothing...I can feel the pedal dangling. I'm not much of a rear brake guy but there was one corner that I would give a bit of rear to so the bike would do a little slide.

Anyway I get back to my pit and find out that the screw had vibrated it's way off the bike. And I even red loctited the thing. So yes, I'm all in on a rear set deal!