CBR400RR NC29

"And if, you don't love me now You will never love me again I can still hear you saying You would never break the chain (Never break the chain)" If you have read the story with the same title on my VFR750 RC24 blog   then you are walking into a familiar yet fairly useful tail. The CBR400RR NC29 normally runs a 525 chain, but race bike. A 520 chain was needed as there is no way I am running a heavier chain than the VFR750. Now fairly well versed in this game I loaded up ebay and  JT sprockets who have a great website  which will show you every machine that a sprocket will fit. It was simple then to find the sprocket for my CBR then compare all the other bikes said sprocket would fit. 520 chain 112 links long  JTF565 front in either 15 tooth (standard) or 14 (faster acceleration) JTA1303 is an aluminium 5520 pitch rear with the same stud size and spacing, designed to fit an R6. I went for 42 tooth. There is the option to go smaller for tracks like Donny where I wou

  As I work on the race CBR400RR-L NC29; I have accumulated a decent pile of parts that I no longer need. Whilst listing these on eBay to shift them I noticed that some are in better nick than those on my own road going CBR400RR-L NC29. This did take a a little while to notice in fact but once I did, I rolled the road going bike over to the maintenance garage to swap some bits over. First to go on was the left and right switch gear which was horribly sun bleached. I checked the better condition replacements worked correctly and gave them a thorough clean up and service before fitting them to the left and right clipons.  The space for wiring on the NC29 is a bit limited to say the least so I took extra care to take note of where each loom went when I removed the original components. All of the plugs got a good soaking in electrical cleaner and protector before fitting. The side stand was another item that looked a bit better on the race bike. The one on the road bike is still subtly ben

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. This story follows on from another branch of the rebuild where I fantasised about sticking an NC23 engine in the NC29 which you can't do. As a result of this, and with a lack of spares on the market, I was looking at repairing the engine I had. The main issue I had was that the crank appeared to be bent thanks to the previous owners crash damage.  I had the option t

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. Nothing remarkable there

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 mounts are differen

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 shed re