CBR400RR NC29

This is a work in progress but as the blog is being written at the same time as I am working (for a change), I thought I might as well publish it to make it a live update of sorts. So do pop back in the future to see when I finally give up and set the lot on fire. The " From Road rashed to race " Blog entry very quickly got a bit out of hand so I have removed some detail and made it more of a story. The real bones of any particular job, such as this one, are now in separate blogs which I will link between whenever relevant. This should make it easier to find useful info whilst still getting it all down. During the time I spent fart assing with engines, for the bikes strip down, I had spent a lot of time head scratching on the computer. Some of that time was on ebay and in doing so I had found the odd useful part. One in particular was a set of forks. They were listed as tidy but missing a damper rod and listed at a fairly low price as a result. N...

The " From Road rashed to race " Blog entry very quickly got a bit out of hand so I have removed some detail and made it more of a story. The real bones of any particular job, such as this one, are now in separate blogs which I will link between whenever relevant. This should make it easier to find useful info whilst still getting it all down. Seeing as I had the engine out of the bike during my initial strip down, it seemed like a good idea to drag out one of the spare engines I had bought to see what the differences were and if they would fit in the NC29 chassis as the forums seemed to suggest. I had a choice of an NC23 motor which would need different carbs due to different inlet port spacing or another NC23 motor with NC29 heads which seemed okay for a straight swap should I decide to go down that root. I picked the NC29 head/NC23 case' hybrid as this should be most similar to play spot the difference. Turns out quite a lot.  Engine moun...

This is a work in progress but as the blog is being written at the same time as I am working (for a change), I thought I might as well publish it to make it a live update of sorts. So do pop back in the future to see when I finally give up and set the lot on fire. This Blog entry very quickly got a bit out of hand so I have removed some detail and made it more of a story. The real bones of any particular job (Like the sodding engines) are now in separate blogs which I will link to whenever relevant. This should make it easier to find useful info whilst still getting it all down. I didn't waste any time getting stuck into the new CBR400RR-L NC29.  It had crash damaged fairings. It had crash damaged engine cases. It had crash damaged front fairing stay.   It had chain lube and engine oil pretty much everywhere. I needed to get this thing apart to find out how much work I had to do. I had already been shopping for bits and had a pile of spares sat in the sh...

Early NC23 on left with NC29 head NC36 engine right. Intro This blog entry is to list and share what will fit the CBR400RR-L NC29. I have mostly collated it for cross compatibility of NC23 parts as such I will also have a list on parts that do not fit from this machine. I will also list items such as fuel pumps that will fit from other models but clearly aim not going to tell you that an AUDI A4 door does or does not fit, because that would be silly. It doesn't by the way, you can have that one. I will update this periodically as I find things that do or do not fit and update the version number as I go. All of the latest updates will be in red. Engine Stuff: Engine code: NC23E102xxx CBR400RR NC23 1988 Too far forward & low Different upper mount The engine is not a straight bolt in. The spacing is substantially different at the rear with the rear barrel mount missing. The case rear upper mount is too high and aft so it fowls the water tank before far...

Intro The short version is (spoiler duh): There are now two CBR400RR's in the shed. One race and one road. Most stuff would be relevant to either but for the specific bike you should see the Road/Race prefix on the title.   I had always had the CBR400RR as a road bike but on the back burners was the option to turn it to the track should I decide to enter a SS400 class. There was no such class in my club (CRMC) so I was in no hurry to do this so had focused on tidying the old girl up. This was the case up until recently when the CRMC changed the Constitution to allow machines up to 1994 in. There still wasn't a class but the likelihood of one coming up had suddenly grown. I was also well aware that I could race this bike at the Bob Mac' and at the Belgian TT Geddine (and many more) as well adding value to another track bike. In this time though the bike had gotten too nice to race so I searched for an alternative. I resisted Andy Greens suggestions to race the NSR...

 Sorting the scruffy Bumblebee I kind of liked the yellow CBR400RR but the bodywork was scruffy so I started looking for a replacement. I had a number of options open to me from repairing what I had, OEM replacements and aftermarket replacements of various qualities. As this bike was never intended to be a painting I didn't want to spend loads so out the window went any plans for Tyga performance bodywork or anything else expensive.  I'm not convinced yellow was ever a factory option so it looked like a colour change might be in order without faffing with paint. As it turned out the bike made the decision for me when its left mid fairing flew off into a field on the way to work. Funnily enough this is exactly what happened on the last CBR400 I ran but this time I didn't find the misbehaving panel. So my hand had been forced and now I'm fairing shopping a little harder. I had decided on some pattern Chinese bodywork like on the NSR250 MC28 . they are c...