News

13th December

Now we know why 'The Fang' is so slow, Dom keeps dozing off, or is he in ecstasy!

10th December

YOU already now about the new look of the site, this goes some way to explaining the lack of updates. Work on the bike has continued, our fabulous new clutch cover is back from the welder and awaits machining for the off-board starter.

The MDF supercharger mounting will be replaced with something a bit more durable over the next couple of weeks. Plans are afoot for a one off electronic ignition and much more.

23rd September

AMAZINGLY the weather held out for Round 5 and we were fully confident in a 13 second pass. Sadly our Shakespeare County gremlin returned, and due to lots of niggling little faults our best was 14.9 @ 85mph. Mystery cutting out at low revs was traced (with the aid of fellow racer Alec Widden) to oil on the contact breaker insulation. The next problem was very weak carburation. Obviously the race engines' demand for fuel is far in excess of Sharon's engine. The last qualifying run showed we were still weak so I fitted the largest jets and hoped for the best.

In elimination's Dominic performed a nice burnout but I noticed that there was a misfire at about 6-7000rpm. Sure enough Dom had to change up early to make best time of the weekend, but way off par.

A plug check indicated fuel starvation on the left cylinder, so my guess is the fuel tap is restricting flow. Dominic confirmed that he had to change up at just over 6000 and had managed to coax it to around 7000 in top gear.

However we did pick up supercharger number 2 which requires only a little refurbishing before fitting, and the new right hand engine case for the fuel bike is coming along nicely. Photos of the new engine in November. Meanwhile we are hoping to make a sprint in two weeks time, in pursuit of that illusive 13.

28th. June

A boiling hot but very successful day at Wroughton on Sunday. With 8 runs plus a bit of testing on some spare runway we were able to get the jetting a little closer. With a bit of practise Dom has now mastered the burnout and all this culminated in an ET of 14.437 at 90.09mph. As I suspected we are still undergeared, crossing the finish at about 9500rpm in top gear ( redline is 8500rpm ).
We are well pleased with this performance bearing in mind that we are still using Sharon's road bike engine, completely standard and about 10 kilos over the race engine - besides being a bit long in the tooth.

Right; Dom gets away first, and it stays that way despite giving away at least 250cc.

Sadly we probably won't make Round 4 due to other commitments, so it's all out for the Finals in September.

23rd June

SUPER Series round 3 was a proverbial washout on Saturday, after Friday night was spent watching rain leaking through the tent. In the absence of track time most racers and crew turned to alcohol earlier than usual, the result being unmentionable excesses in the bar - so I believe. Even Team Fang succumbed, downing more home-brew than usual, mostly in the comfort of our support Skoda's!

With no qualifying, racing was bound to be a sudden death scenario for us against Dave Bartz's 1.7 ltr nitrous Harley, especially as we were using the engine out of my wife's road bike! So Dom decided to give it his all. As he is not confident about doing a burnout yet we were relying on a sticky track. A glance at the photo right, about a foot into the launch, will show where things started to go wrong (note wildly spinning back wheel). This turned into a full blown feet up power (!) slide towards the tree. Dom kept it wound on for as long as possible, but had to back off slightly to avoid major embarrassment and unpopularity. 60ft time was over 3 seconds, good fun though!

22nd May

OH woe is me. Round 3 was not a resounding success for Team Fang. I had made a whole load of new jets and for safeties sake gone up 2 sizes on our last settings, result; a very slow run. Returning to previous settings, plus setting static advance at 3° BTDC and raising the gearing to 17:40 from 15:40 brought about our best times yet to the 990 foot mark:

60 foot..................1.971
330 foot................5.686
Mid MPH..............76.53
660 foot.................8.942
990 foot................11.838
Trap speed...........65.12
ET.......................15.110

Sadly before changing into top the engine faded badly and Dom coasted to the line. Both cylinders were smoking, the right pretty badly and on Sunday it was on the trailer.
Being the eternal optimists we are, we have managed to turn this debaclé into something positive. After all it is getting quicker. Tearing the engine down provided the answer as both pistons had picked up on the bore very badly, sufficient to burr over the oil control ring rendering it ineffective. Photos soon. Fortunately the bores don't look too bad and hopefully can be rescued with a little honing. At the moment I'm hoping to resurrect the pistons too, perhaps with PTFE buttons in the skirts as there is no hope of making new ones before the next round.
Stay tuned it may get better in 4 weeks time

WHAT a great weekend out at Round 1 of the SuperSeries. Dominic was a little anxious at the thought of his first race but he did very well and gave good feedback on the bike.
Every run was quicker than the last and began with a steady 18.558. This run showed that the bike was still running very lean under load so in went some bigger main jets and the time dropped to 18.103. However the bike was still fading in top gear so I fitted the largest jets we had. This brought about some improvement as the 60 foot was down to 2.124 and ET 15.920.
Before we departed for Shakey I said to Dom that I would be happy with a 16 so Team Fang retired happy though very cold on Saturday.
Sunday gave us just the 1 round of qualifying so I retarded the ignition a few degrees and Dom ran against Dave Bartz on the RMD Harley (1.7 litres with nitrous!). Thinking he was going backwards Dom eased off and seemed a little dispirited, until I explained that he had run 15.052!
To Monday and elimination's. With no possibility of further tuning Dom was running 1/8ths and then on and off the throttle to the line, born out by higher mid track than final trap speeds. Dave Bartz was getting ever closer to the 9's! and so it was a rematch. After offering words of encouragement Dave naturally disappeared into the distance with Dom chasing hard to clock:
60 foot..................1.988
330 foot................5.710
Mid MPH..............73.05
660 foot................9.024
990 foot................11.850
Trap speed...........70.09
ET.......................14.853
Dominic is now firmly hooked and I would like to thank all the staff at Shakespeare County for being so helpful and to the many racers who offered encouragement to Dominic. Watch out folks because Dom's sister Bryony is raring to go too, though at 14 she will have to wait a while. See you at Round 2.