Sandbar HP2 M-Sport

[sandbar]

As I said in the other thread, here are a couple of decent pictures, courtesy of MCN.

First a shot behind the pits at Silverstone.



and Tim Thompson (Senior MCN Features Editor) at Club Corner, Silverstone



It was probably more fun watching Tim ride the bike fast and well, than it was having a go myself!

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[Phil K]

That is one sweet looking bike

I would have been bricking it with the thought of a jurno dropping it

[sandbar]

I would have been bricking it with the thought of a jurno dropping it

They had it insured for £25000 IIRC

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[Motostratos]

Lovely images Nigel.

Interested to know what they (MCN) thought of the mods. Not read the article, due to a current assignment abroad.

Congrats for getting your efforts into print.

[Nookiebear]

My wife is not happy as I have now left stains all over the iPad.

[el-nicko]

I'd love to turn up on the 'front' at Aber on that.

[sandbar]

Interested to know what they (MCN) thought of the mods. Not read the article, due to a current assignment abroad.

Generally I would agree with their conclusions except that I was not aware of the ground clearance issue. Probably because I am nowhere near as fast as Tim Thompson.

Remember that he has his own HP2 Sport (not a BMW loan bike - he owns it) to compare it with. He did a week course at Nurburgring the following week so the article was written after both of them close together. I think that that make his comments more relevant than usual.



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[Motostratos]

Well done Nigel, very good article and many thanks for posting it here.

Hope it produces some further customers for you. I will certainly be dipping into the piggy bank when i get back from the desert. Particularly happy that the slipper clutch appears to be working well.

Also interested to hear about the RapidBike setup and how that is developing.

Thanks again for posting, a most enjoyable read.

[Droptarotter]

Nigel;
About the ground clearance.

Do you have the rear shock height raised all the way?
An RT A-arm will also quicken the steering and raise the height of the front to match the raised rear.
You can also drop the forks about 2cm in the triple trees to raise the to get more ground clearance.

Mine is set up with the rear shock raised all the way and an RT A-arm. I had no ground clearance problems when I did a track day.

Your bike sure looks great!!

Cheers

[sandbar]

Do you have the rear shock height raised all the way?

Well - yes and no! I had always thought that it was a God given law that you only extended an Ohlins shock until the groove in the thread on the adjuster was visible. Anything more meant that there was not enough thread left for safety. That is where the shock length was set.

At this point I need to emphasize that I had had no problems with ground clearance. Tim Thompson is a lot faster than me. He can easily hold his own in the Fast group on my bike, and I struggle to hold my own in the Intermediate. The problem I did have was that I felt the bike was a bit low - I am not used to being able to easily get both feet flat on the ground at the same time.

Some time after the track test I took an HP2 Sport shock to the local Ohlins agent and asked if he could get a longer adjustment end from Ohlins for the shock to give me an increased shock length. He reported that no he couldn't get one, but I didn't need it because there is a second groove in the thread and that enabled the shock to be extended by another 6mm. That should give an approximate increase in ride height of about 15mm.

I have not yet done that to the shock that is fitted to my bike which, of course has the Remote Pre-Load Adjuster. I will raise the shock length before the Spring.

I should also point out that although he has mountains of praise for the Remote Pre-Load Adjuster I don't think that he actually made use of it. The shock was set for my weight and I am a lot heavier than he is. I think that he found that there was such an improvement in the rear end compared to his own standard bike that he was loathe to change things. He only did one 20 minute session.

As I said before it was fascinating to watch my bike being ridden really well and also having discussions with somebody who not only rides well and very fast, but also owns the same bike - albeit in standard spec. at the moment. He and I are happy with the rear suspension that is on the bike for the moment, but we will see how an increase in rear ride height changes things.

An RT A-arm will also quicken the steering and raise the height of the front to match the raised rear.

That is the next step! Before I say anything further, for anybody thinking of doing this - not all RT A-arms are suitable (as I have found to my cost) so be careful!

I am very concerned to try to only make one important change at a time. Tim commented that, exactly like his bike, mine is difficult (slow?) to get into a turn. Again, not something that I had particularly noticed, but again he is at a very different pace to me. For me - it is a bike and that is how it behaves!!

I will fit an RT A-arm soon with a bit of modification to the arm as well. I want to try and counter the raising of the front that is caused by using the RT A-arm. In addition I have got some Gubellini adjustable steering dampers on their way to me. "Gus" thinks that the rather crude damper that is fitted OE is part of the reason that the bike appears to steer slowly and I would tend to agree with him.

You can also drop the forks about 2cm in the triple trees to raise the to get more ground clearance.

My bike is at the bottom of the available adjustment. I understand that the small amount of raised section that can still be seen under the bottom yoke is actually a lip that is there to make sure that you can't go too far in your adjustment.

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[PKBOXERCUP]

Droptarotter - If you raise the rear Ohlins fully is it locked at it's maximum or will it unscrew all the way out. I raised mine a bit but didn't want to go 2 far as it was still fitted on the bike.
Also does raising the front as well maintain handling. Especially feel. When I raised front and rear on my RC30 it went all 'floaty'. A weird sort of feeling of tyres not being connected to the road!
Nigel - did you dyno that bike prior to the exhaust going on. Have you dynoed it with the front part only to get comparisons. Also what db does it produce as track day limits seem to get ever lower.

[tanneman]

On pelican there was a thread about the telelever mod and if I can recall correctly it was done to a HP2 but not as drastic as 10mm. Results were positive but there is some clearance issues between front wheel and fairing.

[Droptarotter]

Droptarotter - If you raise the rear Ohlins fully is it locked at it's maximum or will it unscrew all the way out. I raised mine a bit but didn't want to go 2 far as it was still fitted on the bike.
Also does raising the front as well maintain handling. Especially feel. When I raised front and rear on my RC30 it went all 'floaty'. A weird sort of feeling of tyres not being connected to the road!

You know, I honestly can't remember if the lower section would unscrew. It has been over 2 years since I did mine, sorry.

As to the feel of the bike when the front is raised.........there is no stability problems......I have had mine up over 140mph and it tracked straight as ever.

Cheers

[sandbar]

Droptarotter - If you raise the rear Ohlins fully is it locked at it's maximum or will it unscrew all the way out. I raised mine a bit but didn't want to go 2 far as it was still fitted on the bike.
Also does raising the front as well maintain handling. Especially feel. When I raised front and rear on my RC30 it went all 'floaty'. A weird sort of feeling of tyres not being connected to the road!
Nigel - did you dyno that bike prior to the exhaust going on. Have you dynoed it with the front part only to get comparisons. Also what db does it produce as track day limits seem to get ever lower.

Despite the impression given by the handbook, I don't see how the the shock length can be changed without taking the shock off the bike. AFAIR the only thing that will turn without the shock off is the locknut.

I would not want to raise the front end - period!

No - I didn't! I received a salutary lesson in dyno work when we mapped the RapidBike Evo for the exhaust system. 100% throttle only is of limited use in the real world. To properly map the bike took 6 hours and involved 101 runs on the dyno. Very few runs were at full throttle. Most were at varying throttle openings and at varying load. I do not believe that we could have saved much time and so, put simply, I could not afford to do dyno set ups for all kinds of different configurations. It would have been nice but we had to stop somewhere. If somebody wants to pay for it, then I can organise it.

The aim was to produce an exhaust that looked good and sounded the part. At the time, any extra power would have been a bonus. As it happens we reckon that the exhaust and the RapidBike Evo set up, as we have, has found approximately 8 - 10hp. In the MCN, there is no distinction between power at the wheel and power at the flywheel so the figures in the article are a bit misleading.

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[Droptarotter]

On pelican there was a thread about the telelever mod and if I can recall correctly it was done to a HP2 but not as drastic as 10mm. Results were positive but there is some clearance issues between front wheel and fairing.

It does change the wheelbase by almost 1".
I could measure the wheel base if someone can post the stock base.

There are no clearance issues with the front wheel/fender into the bellypan or exhaust.
It is very close, but it does not touch.

Nigel, I do not recall any difference in RT A-arms? I did have to drill both of the installs I did for the stabilizer though.

Cheers