Pre-Season Notes

5/03
So we ended the 2002 season with Mary and CD-1a in second place. Once again losing to Fast Phil Turkington and his Suzuki. Over the winter me made a few minor changes, did some dyno tuning, added a new exhaust system. We still have some parts to install, including a new lightweight alloy cylinder and a 270% oil pump. While we might not get much speed from these items I'm hoping to keep the engine a little cooler and provide it with a better oil supply. The new pipe produced a small gain as shown on the dyno charts but  track testing showed that it seemed to provide very stable and usable power in the mid range rpm.  While I can't say the bike is any faster Mary says the bike pulls somewhat better out of the turns and up the hills. At the very least the new system did not hurt our power at all, and it was about 1 lb (.5 kg) lighter than our old pipe.  Mary had a training exercise routine all winter to ensure that her weight and strength will be where they should be for the race season.

As for the CD2 175, well, much research and work was performed on the bike this winter, too much to discuss here. Our dyno testing went well but the engine is still deep in the development stage with numerous changes to be made before I will feel confident that it will be competitive in it's class.

JohnnyB