Having owned and raced a T595 (and being British) I have long held a love affair with the 3 cylinder engine. It is the best of all worlds as an engine configuration with lots of torque and an engine that stills revs out, not to mention the glorious sound with a full race system. With all the press hype starting with Bike Magazine in the UK, and not being able to see the 675 at any of the International Motorcycle shows, I was very keen to see the bike for the first time. A great deal of patience was required as the projected delivery date for the bike was mid March.
While there were plenty of pictures available of the bike and a huge amount of information on the internet to read through, not actually seeing the bike made me wonder about all the hype. When I was told that the bike had arrived, I was on a road trip and deferred the bike to a private party as I would not be back for a week. I had to wait two weeks for the next bike to arrive at the dealership.
There were many initial impressions upon first seeing the bike. The frontal area was no wider than my 1999 TZ 250 – that was very visually amazing. The details in the design of the frame, the standard braided lines, radial brakes, lightened upper triple clamp, trellis sub frame and slim swing arm provided a tremendous amount of eye candy. The bike was effortless to pick up off the side stand and move around the workshop. Sitting on the bike reinforced the TZ 250 theme with the narrowness of the tank, engine and frame, but the noticeable difference was the seat to foot peg difference as there was plenty of room and my legs were not folded under.
I did the pre-delivery set up myself to be ale to understand how the bike was put together, and was reminded to tighten the ground bolt on the upper engine case. Fortunately the tank removal was very simple and the task was completed in a few minutes. The chain seemed a little too tight, but that was not adjusted and left alone as I wanted to see how much it would stretch initially after 50 miles.
In assessing the stock settings, the initial feeling was of track ready suspension and geometry, with a very tall seat height. The ergonomics were very comfortable for my 32 inch inseam, but the seat did create a very forward feeling while holding onto the bars. In preparation for the street ride, no changes were made to the stock settings in any way. I did set the tire pressure on the stock Pirelli’s to 34 front and rear and headed out for a brief ride on the street and freeway to see just how stiff the chassis was.
Stock gearing of 16 x 47 indicated that the bike was geared for 160mph, and the torque of the engine pulled with increasing enthusiasm and was IMMEDIATELY noticeable between 4 – 6,000 rpm. However, the engine was so quiet it was hard to discern the unique audible signature of the triple. The steering was incredibly light and neutral although it seemed like it may be too quick in the dealership. On side streets the suspension was definitely firm and on the first freeway stint the bike was the same – it did not want to absorb freeway concrete joints. I pulled over and changed the compression settings on the forks and shock 2 clicks softer. This made no discernable difference, so I pulled over again and went 2 clicks softer again. This made a slight difference, so I went out 4 more clicks, to a total of 14 clicks out from full hard. At these settings, the forks felt much better, but the shock was a little too soft so that was changed to 12 clicks out. That gave the chassis an overall good feel.
The transmission was far more precise than the old Daytona 600 and 650 and the shifting was very positive. It was evident that there would be a lot of work in getting the transmission broken in so I could plan on many hours of back road riding getting as many shifts in as possible prior to 900 miles.
In returning to the dealership, we checked SAG with the bike suspension completely warm. My weight was 203lbs in t-shirt, jeans and shoes. The front forks at full extension measured 135mm and resting statically, the forks measured 108mm. With me on board, the number changed to 98mm giving a SAG number of 37mm. Normally for the street I would set a SAG number of 45mm, so the initial impression of stiffness was correct. Note that the gold preload adjuster had 4 lines showing and in order to correct that number I would have moved the preload adjuster to 5 lines showing. The shock measured 640mm extended with free SAG of 10mm and with me on board the number changed to 600mm giving 40mm of SAG. That would be a good SAG number for the street.
We have a local ride here in the Santa Cruz mountains called the century loop for obvious reasons. It is a mix of back roads, two and four lane roads and goat trails so there is ample opportunity to be able to shift gears several hundreds of times on each 100 mile loop. Total ride time for the loop is 2.5 hours, so you can put in a massive number of shifts and clock up several hundred miles in 3 days easily. Doing this really transformed the transmission into something that worked effortlessly with no miss shifts at all.
Next up was a visit to Willow Springs International Raceway to further assess the bike’s handling and chassis. Given the fact that the overall stiffness on the street was discernable, it should be ideal for the track at break in speeds.
In preparation for the track day, many groups have differing requirements as to how the motorcycle must be prior to going to the tech line, so make sure you know their requirements and comply with them before you leave. In this instance, the following requirements were met:
- no mirrors and the body work zip tied onto the front fairing bracket.
- headlight and tail light not operational * and all lenses covered.
- coolant removed and replaced with water based coolant.
- wheel weights covered with adhesive tape.
- tire pressure set correctly for track riding (28psi rear, 30 psi front).
* NOTE: do not cover the clear headlight lens cover with duct tape and leave the headlight connected, as you will very quickly melt the entire headlight assembly!!!
* NOTE: do not remove any fuses from the fuse box to disable lights as you will not be able to start the bike and the check engine light will illuminate (it will reset itself fortunately!).
HOW TO:
- to remove the mirrors, you need a 10mm wrench to undo the 4 nuts, and place them back on the 4 studs once they have been removed.
- to remove the headlight connections, you will need to remove the covers and the four tiny screws that secure them in place. You MUST use a magnetic screwdriver to remove these otherwise they will disappear somewhere in the front fairing or ground never to be seen again! The left side is a traditional plug that is pulled off, and the right side is a snap connector. In order to get to all 4 screws, you must remove the inner black plastic cover on the side of the fairing. That requires the upper fairing bolt and the black bolt on the cover to be removed and the cover is easily removed. Once this task is completed, leave the headlight covers and headlight connection covers off, but replace the silver fairing bolt!
- removing the coolant requires the bottom hose to be removed and a catch pan in place for the coolant (please dispose of the coolant correctly). Drain the coolant and remove the radiator cap to ensure all the coolant has been removed. Flush the radiator with a hose, and empty the coolant overflow reservoir. Replace the hose and tighten the clamp and then fill the cooling system with distilled water only and the coolant of choice (eg: Water Wetter). Once the system is full, start the bike without the radiator cap in place and let the bike come to 5 bars on the temp gauge then shut off the bike and replace the radiator cap. Fill the overflow reservoir to the correct level. Once the bike has cooled completely, start the bike again and let it come back up to five bars on the temp gauge and then shut it off. Check the overflow reservoir to make sure it is not too full.
- wheel weights can be covered with duct tape to secure them in place due to the high speed and acceleration so they don’t fly off.
- tire pressure should be set correctly and you must consult a race tire vendor for the brand you use to get the correct pressure.
Four laps were allotted to warm up the stock tires and suspension prior to bringing up the pace on the bike. I left the stock settings alone from the street ride and applied a zip tie to one of the fork legs to see how much travel the forks would use. By the end of the first session there was about an inch left. In the second session I picked up the corner speed considerably and ran a no brakes drill to ensure this. Travel in the forks was down to 3/4 of an inch and the shock felt really good. Overall the chassis was certainly very stiff but stable and very easy to turn in. The third session I picked up the pace a little and started to recognize the inadequacy of the stock settings so I pulled off. I changed the rebound to 2 out from full hard and changed the compression to 14 clicks out. I left the shock alone and went back out. The pogo effect on the front end was gone and there was a lot more feel from the forks, but never having ridden these Pirelli stock tires, I could not get used to the vagueness. Dunlop's transfer all the track through the chassis and the Pirelli tires while offering good grip, never gave me confidence to drive the bike hard into the corner (far too many years on Dunlop slicks, but I won't ride anything else).
We were robbed of any further track time that day from a crash in turn one and a broken alternator cover that leaked oil, quickly followed by another oil spill in turn two, but this time with synthetic oil - Simple Green is the only thing that will clean that up. During the clean up it started raining, so the oil spread throughout the turn and the the track never did dry out so I put the bike back in the trailer and went off to the next track day.
The forecast was the same for Thunderhill, 80 miles north of Sacramento. Rain and more rain, but the rain held off long enough for the track to stay dry and we were blessed with the usual Keigwin magic!! This track day event had very few requirements for test bikes like the 675 as they were not being operated at full pace and were there primarily for photo shoot purposes. The funny part was that this was a school for riders that wanted to get a racing license so everyone was eager to see how the 675 performed on the straights in a heads up roll on challenge. I worked most of the day on bikes for set up and geometry work but by 2pm was able to ride. I had not taken the bike to red line as yet, and set the 7 LED's to come on at 13,000 rpm when power falls off. Much to the amazement of everyone except myself the 675 really took the 600's to the cleaners with the drive out of the corner onto the straight and held it's own by a long way down the straight. At speeds over 130mph, the R6 began to catch up, but by then it was time for turn one. The motor still felt tight too and that was very tangible, so I am looking forward to the 1,500 mile mark when we can let the motor sing at full power in all gears :)
Once back at California Triumph, the bike was torn down completely. The forks, shock and steering damper were sent to GP Suspension (www.gpsuspension.com) to be torn apart and all aspects of the suspension analyzed. My thoughts are that the forks springs are .95kg and the shock spring is following the trend of a progressive spring like the R6 (approximately 500lbs at one inch and 600 pounds at 2 inches). I will detail all the specs including the valve shim stacks and stock spring rates, and what we go to with the new GP Suspension fork and shock pistons, and the spring rates for the fork and shock. The steering damper will be emptied and replaced with 30W oil, and it will work very adequately for race track duty!
The stock air box has gone to K&N for them to R&D a new filter, complete with velocity stacks. We are looking to send the rear sets to Vortex so that they can look at current inventory and see if anything matches the bolt pattern, only because I race with a reverse GP shift pattern so my foot is not hooked under the shifter at lean angles. As the shift rod goes through the frame, it is impossible to reverse it. Personally, I see no need for rear sets for those that run the regular shift pattern on the track, as it seems as though they will not ground out very easily at all! Catalyst Composites has expressed interest in developing 675 race bodywork, but they are currently buried producing 2006 R6 and ZX10 sets, so I am looking for bodywork to be able to get the bike on track in late April.
The stock exhaust was completely removed so that the catalytic converter could be cut out of the mid pipe to enable us to run race gas now that the engine and transmission/gearbox was broken in. There is no sport slip on available anywhere, so we took the stock muffler apart to take a look at the internals and see what we could do to improve flow. What was done remains a secret as I was out for several days at track day events and the exhaust was welded back up when I got back.
The engine was removed from the frame so that the cylinder head could be taken off. There are some small casting flaws in the intake manifolds so those were to be cleaned out. The squish clearance for the piston/cylinder head is to be measured too so that we can see if the 2 part stock head gasket can be split to allow a small compression bump to add a little extra power (possible with the Daytona 600 and 650). We do not have any ignition advance timing information, nor do we have any slotted cam gears or degreeing information to further increase the performance of the engine. Racing the bike will require as much torque as we can get to ensure the best possible drive off the corners, and now that BSB is in full swing, perhaps that information will become available!??! |
