This article was written by Sam Fleming and was published in Roadracing World and Motorcycle Technology in January of 1995. It appears here with different pictures and captions. You will probably be able to figure out to which races we brought a camera.

The Strange Enduring Saga Of The Army Of Darkness.

In the Dining Room:

Team engineers, Tim Gooding and myself, carefully weighed our five options for the platform that was to become the Army Of Darkness endurance racer.

"F2s look like station wagons."

"GSXRs are piggy."

"ZX-6s are Kawasakis."

"We can't find enough slicks for a Black Shadow"

"We have oodles of FZR 400 and 600 stuff lying around in the garage and it would be more efficient to bolt it all onto one bike, crash it and then throw it all away rather than keep it in milk crates and wait for the opossums to eat it."

After this highly analytic discussion, the course was clear and a consensus was quickly reached. Yamamaha it was. The task seemed easy enough. Slap together a 600 that is light, crash resistant and makes 95 bhp at the contact patch. Nothing could be easier you may say. The factories claim the F2 at 99 bhp and the FZR with 90. Funny (peculiar, not ha-ha) how the dynos all say otherwise, like 20 percent otherwise.

In the Garage:

An inventory revealed that not much from our ill fated 24-hour engine was worth salvaging. The ubiquitous cracks in the cases around the transmission bearings suggested we go elsewhere for a powerplant, in this case, a salvage yard in Massachusetts.

Otherwise, we did have, with a tweak or two, enough hard parts to bolt together a 400 rolling chassis (for those of you who have just learned to read or use a magnet, the FZR 400 frame is aluminum and the 600 frame is steel) with a 600 front end (bigger brakes, otherwise the same).

We put the clip-ons below the top triple tree for three reasons: it looks cooler, it helps keep the front wheel on the ground during transitions, and, it allows us to slide the fork tubes down in the trees if the 400's 24 degrees of rake proves to be a little too exciting over bumpy exits.

Basically, a one inch change in ride height (up in front or down in the back) correlates to a one degree increase in rake, and vice versa. One has to keep in mind that a one inch change in ride height in the back does not mean a one inch change in the ride height adjuster. The linkage will multiply any change in the ride height adjuster so always measure at the axle.

Chassis revisions were fairly standard hack-saw and cutting torch stuff. Previous experience has suggested to us that the very rear of the 400 subframe is prone to bending upon impact. (This was not determined through a study of blunt force trauma FZR 400s but through a computer simulation of stress raisers in chassis components. I could explain it but its very technical.) We took one of the bent subframes from our computer simulation and removed all non-essential (we hope) metal. A piece of the square section tubing was welded under the seat mount at the rear to support the two sides against foreseen impacts. The sidestand mount, ignition switch and mount, steel wheel spacers and everything else that looked superfluous was cut off. The wiring harness had everything related to a light or a horn snipped and pulled out.

A popular aftermarket shock was fitted to the back and Progressive Suspension fork springs installed up front. A note about Progressive fork springs for FZRs. They are very cheap secondhand because many people installed them only to find that the front end was very very stiff. This is because the Progressive springs are both a thicker material and more tightly wound than stock springs and thus, displace more fork oil. With the stock fork oil level, the forks have no airspace to compress and effectively are rigid. This is easily cured by putting in less oil, checking the fork travel, and adding more oil until the desired travel is reached.

Drybrake gas tank fittings cost just a shade less than lunch for the Schindler's List cast, but getting the gas cap open with a key or a screwdriver is awkward and time consuming. We drilled and tapped the stock gas cap lock cylinder and threaded in a bolt with a hole drilled through the head. A plumbing U-Bolt, a nail and two pieces of vacuum tubing finished it off.

The engine was not quite so simple. In preparation for 1994 we destruction tested an FZR 600 around Nelson's Ledges and found that the transmission will break downshifting for turn 11 after fifteen hours. WERA felt so bad about this that they have stopped running endurance races there. We figured that was the end of it and were ready to bolt another stock engine into the frame when it dawned on us that maybe the problem wasn't just with Nelson's Ledges. After a few thousand people told us "Yep, Yep FZR 600s all do that" we knew something more was in order. A call to Ulrich's World located an article on how to make your transmission not blow up in turn 11 and was duly ordered.

The next steps were locating Ampco 45 bronze, convincing Performance Development Inc. that they really wanted to rebush a transmission, spending 50 hours machining said bronze to replace all the stock gear bushings with ones that had a tenth of the original clearance (what was Yamaha thinking?), lovingly grinding thrust washers to exact specifications, pressing the whole mess together, and installing late model shift fork guide bars to minimize flex. The finishing touch was a Factory shift kit which, for your 30 bucks (retail, they are $15 wholesale), gets you a detent spring, a clutch cover gasket and three stickers. I wonder what the margin on that stuff is? F2's were beginning to look a little less like station wagons.

In the meantime the crank and rods were sent out for the traditional lighten, balance, straighten, polish and peen. The cylinders were bored out a millimeter taking us up to 620cc (apparently they take 'em out to 705cc in Britain). The deck of the cylinders was skimmed .1mm and new bearings were fitted everywhere. New con rod bolts and nuts, natch. The tops of the OE pistons were polished to reduce surface area, and thus, heat absorption. They also look neat that way sitting on the bench.

We Flex-honed the cylinders after boring to achieve a 66% plateaued surface and then wiped the pistons and cylinder with Militec-1 (a weird friction reducer) wiped them dry, then assembled the top end. We have found that engines break in real quick with dry cylinders and rings while the Militec-1 protects the pistons from scuffing. This sort of endeavor is only possible with a close relationship with a talented parts man. In our case it was Steve Ward at Rockville Harley-Davidson (they do Yamaha as well) in Gaithersburg, MD. (301) 948-4581.

Falicon crank, polished and peened rods, polished pistons, ported head. It all just looked so neat we had to photograph it.

The intake manifolds were matched to the intake ports. The intake seats were blended into the ports using epoxy, an air driven polishing tool and lots of different bits, our favorite being the abrasive, imbedded rubber ones. All that stuff is available from C.C. Specialty. The theory was to make the head the way Yamaha would have made it if they spent more that 38 seconds pounding in the valve seats with an impact hammer. According to our 1956 Ford manual the best bet is to have satin intake ports and polished exhaust ports. On the theory that any source is a good source work proceeded accordingly. This took Tim about 60 hours including disassembly, cleaning, porting, cleaning, polishing, cleaning, lapping the valves, cleaning and assembly. Keep in mind this was done in our uninsulated garage, in January, where the tape deck is broken and the only good radio station in the D.C. area was off the air due to the wind and ice. That gives you an idea of Tim's sacrifice to the cause. Vive Le Resistance!

We had heard all sorts of stories about the horrors of putting a 600 engine into a 400 frame. It took all of about 3 minutes. We shimmed free play between the frame and engine with washers (1mm or so) before torquing the frame bolts to alleviate any superfluous vibration.

We tossed on a V & H exhaust, we would have preferred a D & D but we would have had to buy that, and I had been bumping my head against that V & H pipe hanging from the rafters for months and I wanted to get rid of it. Coincidentally V & H are paying contingency money in our class as well and we don't even have to run their stickers. Ground clearance dictated putting the exhaust up and in. It was pretty close to the oil pan of the bike so we insulated the oil pan with aluminized dirt bike body work insulation to discourage heat transfer from the exhaust to our 15W-50. A Dynojet stage three kit with those cute individual filters was found in a opossum nest in the rafters and, after a short skirmish with the marsupial, fitted to the stock carbs.

We scheduled for four hours of Dyno time at Shenk's Honda ($25 per hour, Harrisonburg, Va,) and set to testing for seven. A few things we learned: Stock advance is best, by far. The carbs on the 600 (32mm) are small enough so that velocity stacks are not an asset, no matter how short you go. (Long velocity stacks typically move the power peak down in the rev range). We got 95 bhp without the faux gas tank on and 93 bhp with the shroud in place, we jetted it for power (130 mains) without the shroud and figured the FAI system (bigger hoses than stock, put into the shroud with a 2" hole saw) we fitted would supply enough air at 130 mph to make up the difference. Power dropped every time we put any sort of vent hose on the carb bowls. I attribute the slight flat spot at 7200 rpm to the cheese eating Vance and Hines 4 into 1 design and has nothing to do with the J-B Weld in the intake tracts.

After 30 Dyno runs we figured the engine was either broke in or broken. We replaced the oil filter and dropped the oil pan to clean out the accumulated swarf and aluminum and refilled the sump with semi-synthetic oil.

We had a plethora of FZR 400 rear wheels so we stepped the chain size down from 530 to 520. We use "O" ring chains because they are an order of magnitude stronger than ordinary chains and we think that the power loss theory can be traced to some old gits who are just jealous that they couldn't get them when they raced and have ugly scars on the backs of their left legs and boxes of shattered engine cases. "I never put one on my GPZ 550, why, in my day..." yeah yeah, excuse me gramps.

Next came prying on some Metzeler slicks. They are the only company that still makes slicks for 18" rear rims, plus, Jim Vick doesn't work there anymore, so it seemed like a logical choice. The fact that they wear like Ampco 45 bronze and stick like a stock transmission in second gear clinched it. We figured the skinny rear rim was a tactical advantage as it would provide deterrence to others from going around the outside, kinda like the nuclear war strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction. When called, the guy at Dunlop suggested I buy an F2 so that I could run his tires. I bet he drives a station wagon, probably a Taurus.

Everything was spray painted black so the body work and frame wouldn't clash with the tires. The Beasley body work was mounted using our own version of quick release fittings. These consist of 6mm bolts with the tips drilled to accept "R" clips. They are slightly sprung with small pieces of rubber fuel line and siliconed in place to prevent the mounting pieces from falling into the gravel when the lowers are removed. They are cheap, easy and versatile.

Tech note: a full 75% of the race bikes we look at have buggered head bearings. It would seem that this vital bit of handling is ignored because rear wheel stands do not allow the inspection of head bearings. Lowers are usually time consuming to remove and very few people have frame stands because you only need them to check head bearings. Front wheel stands are useless for this purpose.

All said and done the bike weighed a little under 390lbs with a full tank of gas, all fluids and both the charging system and the starter motor. That translates to something like 340 lbs dry. The weight distribution was 50/50 front to back just the way it was so we didn't need to screw around with relocating the swing arm pivot or casting new cases. The Dynojet computer says it will pull 159 mph if the Rubenesque aerodynamics don't completely botch it up. We did everything we could ourselves and the whole deal cost $5,200.00 including the price of the stuff we already had and the Dynotime, our labor would easily add another $4,000.

After his first ride on it at our secret AOD test facility Tim smiled and said "Better you than me."

On The Track:

We took a page out of the Jim Still's Book of Race Preparation and completely botched the first race. The handling was spot on, allowing us to actually ride around other bikes in turns, but the bike was a dog prompting curious WERA staff to inquire what was causing our bike to have such a flat exhaust note and Scotty Beach implored one of our riders, "For god's sake, fix that thing."

Sam wishing for a tinted visor.

Mysterious plug readings were consistent with the unresponsive engine. Three plugs were reassuringly light tan after we increased the main jets to 140s (apparently the FAI was working more than adequately) but spark plug #1 kept fuel fouling. We went through the carbs repeatedly looking for the cause of the rich mixture but to no avail and ended up being a shade late for the grid to boot. We ran the bike on what amounted to three cylinders for the race and were turning 1:03 and 1:04 around Talladega's tight turns. That was good enough for a 4th in class but only due to another team's misfortune. We also cooked our voltage regulator and battery but that didn't give us any trouble.

Sam and Tim (hidden) in pits at Talladega not solving problems

Favorite quote "Can I get a shirt from you guys? My Harley friend would love it." -Mike Martin.

Uh, back to the Garage:

Back in the garage with our misfire detector we found that the carb synch was fine, the leak down was fine (3% on each cylinder), the coils were fine, and the plug itself was fine. Under bright lights and careful viewing a tiny piece of rubber from one of the airfilter mounts was found wedged deep into the main jet air orifice on the back of the carb by some station wagon loving opossum. It was very small and the same color of the hole (black) and thus, extremely difficult to see. The bike was running fine on the needles but once the slides were fully open cylinder #1 was suffocating on unaerated fuel. For want of a main jet air vent a cylinder was lost, for want of a cylinder, dignity was lost.

To The Track:

At Road Atlanta our riding staff was bolstered by the addition of John Donnelly. Most of our potential practice laps were taken by street riders in a track school leaving our team with 30 total laps on Friday, or $1.66 a lap. This time the engine was running great but it was a little scary cresting the rise on the back straight and, of course, going into the dip and exiting the bridge turn. "Nervous" is the hip 1994 motojournal handling term for this sort of thing.

One of the biggest problems in running an endurance team is finding qualified pit crew. Here our new tire tech checks for wear.

Adding a half a degree of rake and a bit more trail by raising the front of the bike seemed to get rid of most of the weave and wobble. The high speeds of the back straight necessitated going to 150 main jets in the carbs to match the increased effectiveness of the FAI.
Sam at Road A.

So, after minimal practice and a few set-up changes the race on Saturday began. WERA officials decided I started the race a little before they started the race and pulled me and a few other riders in for a stop and go. 40 minutes into the race they decided the body work was "loose" and instructed the AOD pit crew to pull in the bike for repairs. After pulling me off the track and seeing that there wasn't actually anything wrong with the body work they let us resume the chase. Since we were stopped anyway we refueled and switched riders to John Donnelly. Two laps later the first red flag was thrown allowing everyone else to take their first pit stop for free whereas we had to pay for ours. (whine whine whine).

John is an expert sprint racer and, as such, is not used to being in the second wave of two wave starts. When the flag was thrown, away he went, this was to the great amusement of all parties involved. Despite our second blue flag and superfluous pit stop, we moved into third place.

John wondering why they keep waving that blue flag at him.

40 minutes into John's stint he crested the hill after turn five to find a ZX-7 had hemorrhaged and dumped its precious bodily fluids all over the track. Since his wife and new son were watching in turn six, he made certain to keep the bike upright across 100 yards of oiled track so he could give them the best view of his inevitable 100 mph get off. As the red flags came out, his fate manifested itself in a grass induced highside which left him bruised but not broken and the bike upended on the tire wall with its fuel pouring out.

Having practiced gymnastics and tumbling 20 years before, John was unfazed by this recent turn of events and, after checking himself for internal bleeding, pulled the bike off the tire wall and assessed the damage. It was predictably knackered. Drawing on his superhuman powers, John bent the clip-on to allow full steering and tried to restart the engine. After repeated attempts and some very helpful corner workers, John set off to complete his lap.

The exhaust pipe was bent into the rear brake pedal which was in turn applying the rear brake. By the time he started down pit road, much to the delight of the scrambled pit crew, the rear brake pads were literally ablaze and the rear disc was looking rather warm itself.
Since the rider was apparently uninjured our attention immediately turned to the bike. John was very excited after his recent central nervous system stimulation and, rather than utilizing this country's over funded health care services, started pulling off parts with the rest of us. At one point we had eight people involved in the operation. Three removing organs and digits from the donor FZR 400 and five stitching them onto the bike. This included straightening the fairing mount, replacing the windshield, replacing both foot pegs, replacing the left handlebar, adding water to the overheated radiator, replacing the rear disc and brake pads and removing, straightening and replacing the exhaust mount plus safety wiring. Two WERA officials looked on in amusement at what they believed to be a sisyphean task. As the five minute board came out and the first of the other four bikes involved in the crash came into the pits, we were ready. John had saved our third place with his crippled ride to the pits.

We tapped the AOD rider with the most experience at turning fast laps on bikes which have been recently wadded. This is exactly what he did. He ran our team's fastest lap of the entire race after the crash and bereft of lowers. Kinda makes you think that John Britten may know what he's doing. After determining that we were three laps down from second place and three laps up from fourth we gave him the "go easy and finish this ill-fated race" sign. He notched it back to 1:34's and 1:35's to run out the clock thereby taking us, and our five year old motorcycle, to the podium in our second race.

Favorite quote "Look at them. They're working their little hearts out on that bike." - WERA official waiting to re-tech the bike after crash damage repairs.

The rest of the season:

It would be such a Disney ending to say that we continued to improve for the rest of the season and through hard work and determination clawed our way to victory, but we didn't. So:

Grattan - Rained, our rain tires were old. Fell down. Eleventh. Favorite quote "Okay we're going to vote on whether to continue the race or not." - WERA official after three hour red flag during which a fire truck was called in to hose oil off the track.

Before the rain started at Grattan.

Summit Point - Ran out of gas one lap early, shortened course back to pits, penalized, fourth. Favorite quote "This must be their home track because they're really slow every where else; and you can tell them I said so." -Nancy Delgado

Amy Pickering and Sam at Summit Point

Pit stop at Summit Point. From Left, Trent Toler (bent over with board) Tim Gooding, Sam Fleming (on bike), Amy Pickering, Steve Ward (with fire extinguisher), John "Motozoe" Donnelly (crossing wall), Pat Fleming.

Putnam Park - Overheated carburetors, bike refuses to restart after pit stops lose at least 7 minutes in pits. Fifth place Favorite quote "I don't think WERA should let Satanists race." -Spectator (Really! She was serious!)

Indianapolis - Blow three voltage regulators, attempts at fixing carb problem unsuccessful, generally yell a lot while losing 12 minutes in pits. Sixth. Favorite quote "Can I buy a T-shirt?" -Tripp Nobles.

Memphis - Carb problem fixed with aluminized ceramic cloth shielding carb bodies from engine heat. Voltage regulator problem fixed through soldering terminals and unplugging one phase of stator. Bike runs great, greater, overheats, overheats badly, blows head gasket, DNF. Favorite quote "That was yer all's bike lying in the dirt by registration wasn't it." Observant bystander commenting on practice bike falling off trailer.

Shannonville - Nice big radiator this time. Lose coil in fourth hour. Crawl around track for next 120 minutes. Sixth. Favorite quote "Here comes the Army of Darkness with their fetching skull and cross pistons leathers completing yet another lap." - Announcer.

Pit stops at Shannonville. Lying down on the left picture is Steven Dobson; he is checking the oil level. Right picture is Tim, Sam, Amy and John.

John passing into turn one at Shannonville. It doesn't really show in this picture but when we walked the track in the morning we could see that part of the blue billboard on the outside of the turn had been replaced recently. Later we found out that Steve D. had wadded a ZX-6 through it at a race school.

Our Great White North auxiliary pit crew.

Road Atlanta - No real excuses except we could not get traction anywhere, blame it on a light bike and go home. Sixth. Favorite Quote " " - Kurt Hall. Its not what he said its just the nice way he smiled.

Season finish - fifth.

Transmission problems - Zero