Norvin Single race bike first run

[greg brillus]

Well this is the fourth Norvin I've built or rebuilt now.........2 race bikes and 2 road bikes........All 4 quite different in their own ways.........in fact now I think of it, all 4 have larger than stock engines too........A 600, 665, and 2 1200's........The twin Road bike I've been building alongside my racer rebuild is an amazing bike........It should be a real cracker when done shortly......... Cheers.

 

[vibrac]

Whats the kick start? Honda?
It looks a lot better on a Norton box than a twin

 

[Cyborg]

I bought off EBay from Australia, but think this one is the same. It doesn’t have a detent to keep the arm in and just relies on friction. It seems to work ok.

https://nycnorton.com/product/folding-kickstart-lever/https://nycnorton.com/product/folding-kickstart-lever/

 

[bmetcalf]

Greg, the last pic seems to show the gear riveted/bolted to the backside of the large idler, but the one above doesn't have that. How are the two gears held together?

 

[greg brillus]

Hi Bruce, yes we made some nice mild steel rivets and those hold the two gears and an alloy spacer together...... Cheers

 

[Little Honda]

The Manx engines look heavy, even if their castings are magnesium.......the ESO engine I removed weighted in at 30 kg's, this with magneto but no carby......... I assumed the Vincent single engine would be at least this much and I can't remember an exact figure, but it was more like 33 or 35 kg's.........Because I am using a crank fired ignition there is no magneto, or any extra gearing to drive it in the timing chest........This alone would be quite a weight saving.........So the extras on the engine are, the aux oil pump and its small drive gears, and the extra size of the bore and head fins of the larger top end kit.........The front brake is a replica Ceriani with magnesium brake plates and the rear hub/brake is off a mid 60's Yamaha single leading 7" drum with a billet sprocket carrier and cush drive on the left side and the brake on the right.........This hub is quite light verses the Triumph conical hub it had before, as it is no where near as wide.......... I should mention that most all bolts and studs are Titanium.........That alone is a 50% saving over steel items.........

You forgot to add the battery weight to your calculation against magneto ignition

 

[greg brillus]

Lithium Iron battery under the seat........600 grams.......the Ignition unit and pickup weigh very little.........A lot of the replacement items made now are much lighter than ones made years ago........The rear coilover shock absorbers are about 1 kg each........and the billet fork yolks are very light.

 

[Martyn Goodwin]

Very interesting site, thanks Greg. https://www.ignitech.cz/en/

 

[bmetcalf]

Very interesting site, thanks Greg. https://www.ignitech.cz/en/

Some of their coils and connectors could be useful for the non KVF lot.

 

[greg brillus]

Just got home from a proper test run with the bike on a quiet back road in a sugar cane area........probably 1 and a half km's long and we used a bit over half of it.........So first thing was the throttle no longer sticking........Yipee........Then after a couple of runs it was clear that the oil leak was cured as well.......All good......So we had a proper lambda sensor hooked up to a bung hole in the header pipe.......we were looking for figures around the 0.55 to 0.65 lambda for methanol fuels.......this was difficult to achieve.......Best was around 0.68 to 0.73 at part throttle and it would lean out to a max of 1.25 on full throttle which is way too lean and obviously dangerous.......Various attempts to raise the needle and also the float bowl gave us a full throttle best at 0.90 which is still too lean........So raising the needle and the float was improving the top end but overly rich lower down, as the bike was a bit rough on low down acceleration. We will fine tune the bottom end so I can run it in a race next weekend........this is a small track so no harm should come of it.......But we need to improve the top end quite a lot........Anyway the bike itself performed very well with no noticeable issues........It feels like a single cylinder V twin....... I actually had to adjust the clutch as it was slipping on full throttle.......It certainly gets up some descent speed rather quickly.......So all in all, it was a good run, but importantly it told us that we need to do more before even attempting to run it on a dyno and/or a longer track.