Jordan Leslie is a UK trained mechanic. Worked with GP250 British champs, Jake Dixon in the Aprila Superteen cup, Tom Ward in the Triumph Triple Challenge, British MX Champ, ran dynos, and completed factory training with Yamaha, KTM, Kawasaki, Triumph and Ducati. Having emigrated to NZ, he’s worked with Team Rees getting Tony Rees, Mitch Rees and SJ Cavell on podiums. After a couple of years at Casbolts MC in chch, he’s now taking on the occasional project bike alongside rebuilds, maintenance and set up work. He also spannered and rode the Yellow Ducati 748 to several lap records and podiums. See prev blogs.
Part 2 from Jordan Leslie
We got asked to collect a FB Marketplace bike and “have a look over and get it running”. It’s a 1999 model CBR600. First of the alloy frames.
Interesting time for bikes. Honda 600s of this era were comfy road bikes and an all-rounder. Upright handlebars and a comfy seat. Heavy wheels. The ones for sale recently have all had over 80,000km on them. Same as the speedo reading on this one.
Turning them into race bikes in the day was generally just fibreglass bodywork, a race shock and an exhaust system. Maybe some stiffer fork springs and better brake pads. HH spec were the best we could get then - now they’re what you’d run in your fast road bike.
Some bikes would end up back as road bikes after a year or two. Shiny bodywork, gravel-rashed swingarms. Race bikes in this era were great - still brilliant road bikes on Monday and not too hard to track day them Sunday.
This bike also fits in the brand-spanking-new-just-announced CAMS (SOUTH ISLAND CLUB) track day class for pre-2000 model bikes. Add in Kawasaki ZXRs, CBR 900 Fireblades, the SRAD Suzukis, Yamaha R6 and the first R1 and you’ve got a great selection. Tonnes of that stuff around on Trade Me.
My usual approach with these projects is to pull airbox and have carbs off and into the Ultrasonic cleaner for a couple of days. It’s like a bubble bath for carbs. Loosens all the crusty dried fuel deposits. Saves hours of work. We use a mix of mummble mumble and shush. Its a trade secret.
1. Plugs out and compression test. This showed no compression on one cylinder. That’s Bad.
2. Drain the oil and “pan for glitter”. This had plenty of glittery silver metal in the oil. That’s Very Bad.
3. Check radiator. This one was gunked up having been run on water only for some time. Also Bad.
This bike won the Trifecta.
For horse racing a Trifecta is great. For starting a bike build, having the first 3 things checked be Bad, Bad and Very Bad makes it a challenge.
Rocker cover off to see what’s happening inside. Daylight around 2 valves on one cylinder and the cam/head has some bad wear. That’s where the alloy in the oil came from.
These motors are fussy about how cams and rocker covers are replaced after valve checks. Factory numbers all the bolts so you can’t get it wrong, but someone has.
Time to double check if the plan to “Build a Castrol Honda CBR600 race bike for $5k including the bike” is still on the cards.
Or if this is back on FB Marketplace as a parts bike.
While the bike has some good parts, fixing this would be expensive. If the bike’s not a family heirloom or sentimental, options are wreck it out for parts or find another motor.
So its Plan B. Another motor is supplied, and it’s out with the old and in with the new before smoko.
A good time to check swingarms bearings (been freshly greased by someone) and linkage bearings (no slop or movement). Someone’s loved this bike at some point.
Rocker cover off the replacement motor, valve tolerances checked – all were within spec. Cams were well-oiled and rocker cover refitted and torqued as per factory. New spark plugs in.
We love these old Hondas - The “Wing Of Quality” I call it.
Bikes evolved with modest jumps in terms of engine and frame development- this motor is really similar to the previous F3 motors, maybe 3-5 bhp up, and very close to the 2003-05 CBR 600RR motors too. With a few mods we will get it as good.
“Kaizen” is the Japanese art of incremental improvement, and you can really see it in this era of bikes. Each model is a little better, a little lighter, a little faster than the last.
What next? Carbs were dribbling, so were fitted with new float needle valves, float gaskets, float heights set , new o-rings on carb joiners and new bowl screws to finish it off. Bench test then refit. I see this has a Dynojet carb kit already fitted which will save us a job.
There are several signs this bike may have been a race bike in a previous life. The Dynojet carb kit, the HRC (Honda Racing Corp - they supply the race bits) water pump mod is another, along with the K&N air filter. Sump plug is newer, so perhaps that replaced a drilled one.
Fuel pump had a faulty earth (common on these) so an easy fix. There are rebuild kits available to freshen them up if required. Fuel pumps of this era are still external and big bulky things. At least they are under the seat and easy to get at. Unlike the ones inside the tank on other bikes.
Honda's of this age used to run hot. A sunny Canterbury day will see them over 100 degrees under full race conditions. That’s too hot. Performance drops noticeably above 80 degrees. I’ve added Maxima Cool Aide to try and keep running temps down.
And if I can fit a bigger radiator that’s the best answer. There is a Ducati one that looks close to fitting.
So now it starts, runs and idles like a Swiss watch. Sounds great with the full Yoshimura race exhaust and race muffler on!
Wing Of Quality!
Dumped the old speedo assembly and fitted a CBR400RR NC29 tacho. Looks HRC already.
As this is a Budget Build, I’ll keep the current 525 chain. Usually, we would fit a race light 520 chain and light sprockets, but this chain is still in good condition, there is an alloy race 525 sprocket already fitted, and the budget will be spent elsewhere.
The throttle assemblies on these Honda's are road spec, and need a great big handful and a double jointed wrist to go from closed to open. A slow process. OK for new riders. Not OK if you want to go fast.
So here's the fix:
It’s an all alloy throttle tube, with a modified turn rate. So it all fits in the standard housing (saves a few bucks) but gives a quick action, less turn needed to go from closed to full open. Getting to full open quicker equals better laps times. If you can’t add horsepower add one of these. Your lap times will improve. $200 well spent.
And Fun Fact, this Honda one also fits Triumph, Suzuki, BMW.
Same thing available for late model Ducati’s too. Fixes that sloppy wobbly throttle tube they have from the 999, MTS 1000 right up to the Diavel. How that got past Quality Control at Ducati I’ll never know. Must have been Friday afternoon.
Now onto pulling the front end out.
Check and grease steering head bearings (the cause of many mystery handling issues). Check fork legs are straight. Check fork oil grade and level so we are starting from a known place. Low drag fork seals to reduce stiction. Pull caliper pistons out, clean and install new caliper seal kits (now easily available from Eurobike and Ducatispares at around $39/ caliper). 3M scotch pad on discs to remove old pad material.
Fire in some Newfren race brake pads. I’d like to add some Newfren discs too as I recently replaced a chinesium set of discs off a CBR400/600 with Newfren made in Italy discs, and stopped 10m earlier on Levels’ back straight. Brilliant upgrade. We’ll see how the budget goes.
Rubber brake lines will be binned. They’re spongy, 25 years old and rubber lines degrade from the inside. Safety first.
These lovely new B&H Global System brake lines supplied as a kit from Eurobike are great. Choose the length lines you need (silver is classic, black is slimming say all the chicks who like burgers), grab the angled banjo bolts you need and screw together. WOF approved too.
Wheel bearings will be swapped out with low drag ones. 4x the price but they spin easier for longer. That's like free horsepower.
Less brake pad/seal drag and bearing drag makes for a freer moving front wheel - what difference does this “less drag” approach make? If it’s the equivalent of 5 bike lengths at the end of a race it’s worth doing. And then it’s done right.
On this build I’m trying Maxima Race fluid, a recommendation from racer and dyno man Andrew Rudd at Dynoworx. He’s had good success with this fluid street racing his Motard bikes (very hard on brakes).
I have some Italian made Newfren race brake pads and a new Brembo 16mm remote reservoir master cylinder to go on and that will have the front end complete.
We make a point to dump the chinesium made budget brake levers off every track bike and the spongy grips go to the same place. On go some fancy DOMINO grips in colour-coordinated red and black. Not only do they look good but they give a more direct feel between bars and front wheel.
Better feedback = Better confidence = More fun.
Batteries
Usually we'd fire in a lithium battery for less weight, if the charging system is 100% working well. Saves a few kilos, especially as the CBR uses a Yuasa YT12BBS battery as standard for less weight, if the charging system is 100%. 3.9kg for the lead version (if it was a trout you’d get it stuffed for the pool room...
verses a sniff over 1kg for a grunty lithium one...
All that weight-saving means you can have chips with your burger at lunchtime. However, a tight budget means we’ll run the lead boat-anchor battery. It’ll be handy on Page 1 of the Excuse Book too.
Metzeler Tires
As a bang-for-your-buck track day tire these are great. Available in the 180 rear size and with a choice of sticky or budget-friendly. We’ve gone for the Metzeler K1 Racetec front tire (sticky) as it’ll be summer soon. For newer track day riders, run the K2 rear tire for longer life.
We see people setting records on the Isle of Man using the K3 tires (harder again), so they must be good too. The Racetecs have a tiny amount of tread cut into them, so an easier warm up and a little better on sketchy cooler spring days than the dedicated slicks.
Meanwhile the bodywork’s off at the painters for a “Race spec/cheap as possible” paint job in Toyota Hiace White. It’ll be hard to miss!