Well a month on much has changed.
The bike was completed and had quite a bit of time being setup by Ian @ Viper racing who specializes in carts that use the CR250
It was evident all was not well on the first few dyno runs and the power was low 40's and with a horrible tail at the end of the rev range that went not only seriously lean, but the ignition curve advanced early on the original ECU in an effort to curb over revving.
clearly this has quite a negative effect on the engine by firing the ignition before TDC thus putting negative forces on the crank and engine.
This was not the only issue. the garage i bought it from had fitted a new original piston as part of the deal - sadly the muppets fitted a 02 - 04 piston that is flat domed and not the correct domed 05 - 07 item. as such i was down a bit on compression and CC so that needed sorting.
So now with a new piston, custom ECU and maps and PV set correctly the beast was making high 40's bhp and a nice healthy curve.
running the 14 / 38 gearing with 17" wheels it was topping out at an indicated 106 mph @ 10k rpm, so with some minor limiting and jetted to suit it was ready for it's first outing.
So on the 20th i rocked up to RAF Valley ready to enjoy this and give it it's first maiden run.
The first session was very nervous, brand new tyres, new bike, new brakes and running the new piston in.
Very quickly i managed to pop a fork seal on the brakes that then dumped all its oil over the front disk making stopping quite interesting. however i carried on and really enjoyed the bike and even managed to pass a few sportsbikes in the corners.
the grunt coming out of corners was impressive i have to say, faster than the CRM and way way lighter to ride with much firmer suspension.
Was i any quicker on this than the CRM ? possibly not no, tyres, brakes engine i suspect had i have been on the CRM i would have been quicker.
Come the second session, a quick top up of fuel (Christ it likes a drink of the old 32:1 mixture this thing) and out i go
a warm up lap then i was off like a greyhound out of a trap and the bike was flying. quickly started to catch up the back end of the group and the bike was effortless to scythe around big cumbersome heavy fast bikes in the slower corners but come to the long straight it was on the limited and topped out doing over a ton at less than third of the way which was frustrating.
in my mechanically sympathetic mind i thought it best to back off a bit on the long straight by running at part throttle - big mistake.
now when i say big mistake i mean - like really big, i would have been better simply shutting off the throttle or keeping it pinned and not going half way house lol
as such the inevitable happened - i seized it. I felt it start to slow so quickly whipped the clutch in where it stopped dead. i coast to a slower pace and try to free it with a bump, much to my surprise it starts and runs fine so i nurse it back to the pits where i sit and sulk for a bit.
As such it was loaded back in the van and i borrowed Paul Tye's (tye noodles) well sorted NC30 for a session before an early bath.