Bit of an update with my bike - since the Blyton ride and PS article i took mine out for a sunday spin (as you do) And around 6 miles from home noticed a water leak after puncturing the radiator. A slow gentle nursing home i made it back with next to no water in the radiator, but bike was running ok. A strip of the bike shows the rads goosed from a combination of being sat for 16 years with water in it, and / or a stone. Interestingly the rad had signs of repair even when the bike was new / 0 miles A bit of back and forth with West Mercia Radiators and after a couple of repairs and recores i have a radiator back, and the bike runs again and is fine mechanically. The issue is with the rad being a few mm out at the bottom, i needed to modify the inner cowl and V panel to make it fit again, also this has a knock on effect with the rest of the fairing, 2mm off at the radiator means 10mm off at the nose cone and V panel joins. So i need to invest some more time refitting the radiator card and fan card and attach to the subframe that holds all this together. Its actually an astounding bit of engineering for the era. While apart i take the liberty to clean up some of the wiring. One item always of concern is the "jumper leads" which attach to the underside of the nosecone and go direct to the battery. these are big thick brittle leads all running close to metal parts and not really needed if you keep the battery in good order. Leads removed means its instantly 50% safer electrically. Another annoyance was the charging system. i was seeing at best 12.6v without the lights on. Indicating a downed coil i sent it to west country windings, who confirmed it was actually fine. Hmmmm I actually found the issue. the main loom earth attaches to the starter motor - the nut was finger tight !! no wonder it got worse as it was hotter. Now with the lights on i get a nice 13.6 - 8v at 3000 rpm. I recently send my LCD clocks away to a pal on the PB forum. The screen bleed was becoming an issue also after being sat in my garage it was starting to show more lines than an old Mk1 Audi TT dashboard. so it needed looking at.
And another update. . . . So long story short, i was put in touch with someone (who shall remain nameless) who was an ex Ricardo / MSX employee who was part of this project from the start and one of the test riders and calibration engineers. Hours chatting on the phone, some amazing stories and lots of gaps filled in with the history and story on these, anyway he had acquired lots of parts over the years and managed to build a rolling chassis and loads of spares. There was also some significant documentation and tooling all essential to maintain these bikes - this was always a concern for me, not so for these guys who buy nice ornaments like these to sit and polish and lick showing them off to their wealthy mates like some willy waving competition, so someone like me, skint and trying to run and maintain it on GSXR1000 money !!! Anyway with price agreed i bought the lot !!! I went down to collect it all, and filled the van. Bike was built on one of the D frames (one of 5 test mule frames which was actually raced by Corser) and was essentially a complete bike except no engine or loom or injection. To look at you wouldn't know it wasn't a complete bike. The spares - OMG i am still going through them now, but even one of Haydens frames (still warm) and new bodywork - just astounding. Marelli MT940/B1 dash, exhausts, tanks, clip ons, rearsets, 3 x front wheels, 2 rear wheels, stands, screens, seat pads, spindles, tail units - just so much stuff. The tooling, some special factory only bits, but i now finally have the Suter clutch tool they refused to sell me (and told me it never existed) even after selling me the new clutch with no way to replace it. wankers ! However its the documentation that is incredible. I cant and wont go into publicly what i now have (the owner had no idea what was on these CD's and DVD's as he couldn't read them and wasn't tech savvy) but needless to say i have more data than the Malaysians have and i doubt there is anyone in the Uk with more tech data, drawings, manuals, marketing material than i have ! reading some of the documentation, its interesting reference to stage 2 cams. lots of smoke and mirrors comes to mind lol. Utterly fascinating story, the more i learn and read the more immersed into i become. i utterly love this thing. Few bikes captivate me in this way, it brought some very clever engineering people together, some fabulous british engineering. its like the English DeLorean and i am sure there is a book / documentary in this.
Loving this, very good luck to you. I really wish you were closer so I could badger you for the chance to pop over and have a look at the bike.
It will likely appear at most of the Whitham trackdays at Anglesey and even the Cadwell Classic bike trackday weekend too. Otherwise will be doing the commute run in Chester with the odd trip into north wales at weekends. Best thing about owing these, no one has a scooby doo what they are. park it anywhere and no other biker bats an eyelid at it, its simply a "green bike" The one time someone did, he nearly fell off his bike when he saw it and was all over it like a rash checking it out. I went to have a chat with him, he knew exactly what it was and was like an excitable child (which is how i was and still am each and every time i see it) So i knew exactly how he was feeling and what that day meant for him and that gives me a nice warm feeling (might have just pissed myself being old) Even with some of my bikes, i try and keep away from "people" if i park up at some bike stop thing. I really have no problem with the majority of people, sadly owning something a bit rare and odd ball can bring out some wierdo's too along with bull shitters. The worst was the RG500 gamma, park that anywhere and wow a sea of bullshit used to waft over, "my mates uncles brothers dogs sisters fella had one of these and it ripped his arms off and he did 190 in the wet with his knee down" oh really yeah - must dash. . . . . . But the FP1 was a flop in racing, never ever sold one of the remaining 115 road bikes officially, and the few that escaped are on some plinth in some air tight owners dungeon being licked and coated with ACF50 in equal measure. They simply don't exist - so not the sort of thing you expect to see with some overweight old guy on with a ruck sack on his back stuck in the Chester commute traffic i guess.
this could well be a good financial decision for you as parts start to become scarce(er) … well played
Great find, I watched the wheeler dealer car program and they had an early Audi with a dash with the same problem its good that there is company's who can do these kind of repairs. There is another Magazine article i have from Fast bikes, October 2021 which has Chris walker riding one, Keep us all updated,
Was a good write up with plenty of pictures , i missed out on a rear tail section which had crash damage on ebay by about 10 minutes the annoying thing was it was only 15 mins from where i live, would have made great wall piece
sod that, you want a scuffed up and modified ex haydon frame you do. far cooler - or warmer which ever way you look at it
Funny part is on page 1 of this thread post 7, when the builders i know took the photos of them all side by side to get the photos one had to go to the toilet to get the security guard to follow him as they weren't allowed to go anywhere with out him.
Now i know something more about this too. Apparently a chinese firm were invited to do some due dil and make an offer to buy all these bikes and tooling and spares, they came took a couple of pics, numbers were discussed and they left. The chinese declined - and no sooner than they did, the bikes were then shipped over to Malaysia as they have been sold to Momoto only to get impounded - the rest is history. . . However by the time these "spy shots" were published in MCN in their "scoop" the bikes had already long gone and left the UK by around 9 months. but we know where those pics were taken and by whom.
Just to revist this I had a great weekend at Anglesey for the Classic Bike Trackday and enjoy the FP1 yet again at my Fav circuit. I had a session playing with 2 guys on Ducati's and i went over to have a chat with them later on. One was riding a 916 SPS bike #2 i believe It was like WSB 2003 but 50% slower lol
‘’I had a session playing with 2 guys on Ducati's‘’ I’d be careful sharing such information on a public forum.
ha ha ha, the first bike he wheeled out was my latest bike. note the extra large number boards and exposed carbon edges on the fairings ? All part of my plan to do a Craig Jones rep.
I'm not so sure what to say, other than has a garage full of priceless FP1's and allows someone to film all the detail of the garage/security house frontage.. asking for it..
I’m in touch with Craig’s dad as it goes. Lovely family. lots of pics of the bike please dude, I love these. Are these the supply of bikes that Lanzante has been ‘supporting’?
Yeah, I'm another person that absolutely LOVES these bikes, something about them, I think the frame for example was beautiful, reminds me of the Yamaha R7-OW frames, quite simple but clearly a racebike frame. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if they were allowed to bore them to 1000cc to match the other bikes, it would have put them in the hunt in racing form and maybe they would have been more reliable.
100% agreed. so look i know where these are and where it actually is, and it really is quite secure both location and with access, but you are right lots of breadcrumbs need to be laid in opposite directions, but at the same time, nicking one of these good luck disposing of it or using it, they are so niche i am aware of 2 others that are used like mine (and after 1400 miles its safe to say i own the highest mileage FP1 on the planet) I did ask Steve if he was ok with me doing a rep of Craigs bike before i went down that route out of courtesy. Losing a child is emotive and i wanted to make sure they were ok with the idea first. He supplied me Craigs race numbers and fonts to use. I really am looking forward to taking it over to show him the finished result Absolutely not lol. These are not "supported" by Lanzante and nor are these the bikes supplied through them. Without going into details on "those" bikes, these are brought in directly from Malaysia and supported through them. I know for a cold hard fact that i have more documentation and data on these bikes than Anyone else in the UK and even Malaysia quite likely. I used to own a R7, and honestly hand on heart - to look at i prefer the FP1, it is also 100% way more usable as a road bike than the R7 ever was. The early fuel injection of the Yamaha was quite horrific, and at slow speeds the bike was excruciating to ride. regarding the Lanzante videos and the critical fueling of the FP1, believe me they are utterly smooth compared to the OW02 and more on par with a early CBR6 injection or a blackbird. There were 2 versions of mapping and the revision 2 was still quite rich, but really nice compared to the very early version 1 bikes - which mostly ended up in switzerland with Livio (with a few exceptions) and found there way back to the UK and were "restored" and sold with their original tool kits (rubbish, they never had any tool kits) and a funky flight case and apparently sold with full support and spares backup (hmmm full spares support, yeah what ever) I have prepared my own bike(s) and know these pretty well inside out. The level of work to get them ready to use is minimal, there are certain things that need attn and are likely to cause issues pretty quickly on the FP1, but on the Malaysian supplied bikes (or later UK built bikes shipped over to Malaysia before coming back on demand) are really easy to prepare. Cosmetics are the main issue, storage has been poor on quite a few of the bikes. good clean ones are mostly gone now. But you buy a prepared bike directly form the main importer and the bike is good. Once you change your tyres to modern rubber they are usable but eventually you may need fork seals and a clutch slave seal and rectifier - all easy jobs. I have done loads of trackdays on mine, commuted on it, cooked it, ridden in snow and salted roads when caught out and its great. I do know once the mileage gets quite high there may come a point when i need to consider preserving the bike or retiring it to an ornament - but its fine, i will grab another from the collection and do it all over again. Life is too short to sit and wonder "what if" these are made to be used and enjoyed and while a little different and quite rare are still just motorcycles at the end of the day. I will got o my grave knowing i have spanked some pretty nice bikes in my life to the red line end enjoyed them as intended.
