Dakar Dazed II - the return! Part 1: Project LC4-50

[NordieBoy]

Originally Posted by Brodovitch

Careful of checking, double checking and checking again on the scrutineering part for the Dakar, I seem to recall a whole bunch of modified quads (Macachek included) being disqualified at the last minute for Dakar '12... that would suck big time, not trying to be a nay-sayer, just pointing out the sometimes fickle ways of the organizers.

They were protested against so the ASO had to act.
It came down to them not bringing proof they were road legal with them. One of their customer quads had his paperwork and was allowed to race.

[beasty]

I'm probably showing my ignorance here but if you retain the bore of the 690 won't that make the 450 a very short stroke engine?

[Hillbilly501]

I hope this isn't a silly question, but when you front up to the scrutineers with 690 written on your bike to a 450 race, I'm assuming batting your eyelashes won't cut it and the French don't do 'scouts honour' so how do they go about checking what the displacement of your motor is without actually pulling the whole thing apart and measuring things?

[cross-country]

Originally Posted by beasty

I'm probably showing my ignorance here but if you retain the bore of the 690 won't that make the 450 a very short stroke engine?

In comparison the KTM 350 is 57.5, only 2.5mm longer.

[cross-country]

Originally Posted by Hillbilly501

I hope this isn't a silly question, but when you front up to the scrutineers with 690 written on your bike to a 450 race, I'm assuming batting your eyelashes won't cut it and the French don't do 'scouts honour' so how do they go about checking what the displacement of your motor is without actually pulling the whole thing apart and measuring things?

Originally Posted by KASUYAHO

Scrutineers should have a capacity checker.

I'm guessing by measuring the amount of air displaced by running the motor through.

[beasty]

A bore of 102mm (690) would require a stroke of 54.9mm to make 449cc

[motorollie]

Originally Posted by JMo (& piglet)

Is that you Ollie? I thought I recognised the photo in your avatar!

It would make a great Heroes' bike huh?

Jx

Yep.. my first rally after Heroes Legend 2009 actually :) Was about time...

It would make a good bike for HL, although you could run the full 690 there. I think it's a good project ... good to see people try something different. The only downside could be the weight. And as mentioned... the French scrutineering ;)

[RoninMoto]

Jenny,
Thanks for posting this on FB.. I might not have found it otherwise. Good luck and I'll be watching from where-ever I am

John,
This is all you could talk about when I was there in September. To many sleepless nights thinking about it and you finally had to dig in? So awesome. Keep up the good work. Let me know if you need an ADV test bike

[charapa]

Jenny,

Great project! I don't know how you do it, but these kind of projects really mess me up! I can sleep anywhere and at anytime I choose to, EXCEPT when I have a project like this on my mind! I guess it is the Mechanical Engineer nerd in me coming out! When I get something like this project in my head, I just can't sleep... I end up doing CAD in my head all night. Now... If I could only do CAD in my dreams... then we could get some sleep AND get some things figured out!

I grew up in the Amazon jungle on a large mission base. Everything was motorcycles for us. We had the run of machine shops, aircraft "clean" rooms and aircraft parts, TIG welders and more. I grew up thinking every 14 year old knew how to run all this stuff! What we DIDN'T have was "off the shelf" parts available. So we made and adapted our own. We would take our Honda XL100s and put Honda 305 dream pistons in them and use carbs off other bikes. Compression was so high we had to run 100/130 aviation fuel! We split our own cranks, repositioned the pins, shortened rods and then balanced them ourselves... Was this NORMAL for a JR High kid???

They sometimes blew up, but it was great fun!

So... I follow with bated breathe this thread. As I now live in Peru (again) and operate a Moto Adventure company, I follow each SA Dakar personally and will be there cheering you on (and lending any technical or logistics support you may need while in Peru!).

Cheers! Toby

[Jurassic]

Originally Posted by charapa

Jenny,

Great project! I don't know how you do it, but these kind of projects really mess me up! I can sleep anywhere and at anytime I choose to, EXCEPT when I have a project like this on my mind! I guess it is the Mechanical Engineer nerd in me coming out! When I get something like this project in my head, I just can't sleep... I end up doing CAD in my head all night. Now... If I could only do CAD in my dreams... then we could get some sleep AND get some things figured out!

I grew up in the Amazon jungle on a large mission base. Everything was motorcycles for us. We had the run of machine shops, aircraft "clean" rooms and aircraft parts, TIG welders and more. I grew up thinking every 14 year old knew how to run all this stuff! What we DIDN'T have was "off the shelf" parts available. So we made and adapted our own. We would take our Honda XL100s and put Honda 305 dream pistons in them and use carbs off other bikes. Compression was so high we had to run 100/130 aviation fuel! We split our own cranks, repositioned the pins, shortened rods and then balanced them ourselves... Was this NORMAL for a JR High kid???

They sometimes blew up, but it was great fun!

So... I follow with bated breathe this thread. As I now live in Peru (again) and operate a Moto Adventure company, I follow each SA Dakar personally and will be there cheering you on (and lending any technical or logistics support you may need while in Peru!).

Cheers! Toby

What a great post! Nice one Charapa.

[Baja Dad]

I have two 690s's a 2011 and a 2008, I would love to do this to my 2008 .
sounds great-- best of both worlds
a 690 motor and a 450 motor for one bike !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JMo (& piglet)]

Originally Posted by Hillbilly501

I hope this isn't a silly question, but when you front up to the scrutineers with 690 written on your bike to a 450 race, I'm assuming batting your eyelashes won't cut it and the French don't do 'scouts honour' so how do they go about checking what the displacement of your motor is without actually pulling the whole thing apart and measuring things?

Hey Hillbilly! Yes, as cross-country says above, the scrutineers have ways of checking the swept capacity of engines, should they be in any doubt - I imagine this is particularly important with bikes that share similar engines in a different capacity (such as the KTM EXC in 450 & 530 capacities for example). Of course usually the block (which is one of the components marked by the scrutineers) has the cc size cast into it, but that is not to say it might not have been over bored for example...

We would certainly be up-front about it, and indeed want them to check it, just so there is no doubt in anyone's mind!

The idea is also to race the event on one engine, without ever having to take it out of the frame, so the original seals are all intact... just to show there is no funny business going on...

Jx

[JMo (& piglet)]

Originally Posted by charapa

...So... I follow with bated breathe this thread. As I now live in Peru (again) and operate a Moto Adventure company, I follow each SA Dakar personally and will be there cheering you on (and lending any technical or logistics support you may need while in Peru!).

Cheers! Toby

Hi Toby! - thank you for such enthusiasm and support! - we may well be calling on you, if only to find out where to buy beer!

I do hope we've captured the imagination with the project - and not just because it is 'different' but that the benefits are also clear...

Not only do we consider this a good way to minimise mechanical issues during an event like the Dakar, but financially it makes a lot of sense [for a privateer] to use a bike/engine combination that isn't going to be scrap, or at the very least need a total engine rebuild after a season of racing (or one Dakar)...

The 690 chassis is also very stable, and the bike itself generally far more forgiving and comfortable to ride over extended distances - pretty much half the Dakar distance is liaison remember (and technically, more than half, as there were a number of stages this year that had long neutralised sections in the middle).

Certainly over this summer I will undertaking some long 'endurance' test rides on the bike, not least to see how the fuel-economy is affected by the reduction in engine capacity. The Rally Raid Evo2 Tank kit will mean we have about 22 litres on board, and a lot of the 450s are running as little as 25 litre tanks with, it seems, no real risk of running out?

Of course this bike will be slightly heavier than a converted WR/CRF/EXC style enduro bike, so where we gain in EFi fuel economy and mapping, we might lose again, especially is soft and sandy terrain...

But we also have the option of fitting Rally Raid's 5L auxiliary tank to the rear of the bike too, which ought to be more then enough for even the longest Dakar stage, but hopefully we won't actually have to fill that all that often.

Jx

[tehdutchie]

Why not make life easier, get some 450rr engines and sx-f frames. Standard 24 liter tank and you are sorted..

At the moment I am wondering if the project is about entering to finish the race, a marketing exercise, an engineering expedition or just a way to drum up funding ( probably a mix of all?) :-)

All of the above is NOT meant in a negative way :-) so please dont read it as such.

[640 Armageddon]

Originally Posted by tehdutchie

Why not make life easier, get some 450rr engines and sx-f frames. Standard 24 liter tank and you are sorted..

At the moment I am wondering if the project is about entering to finish the race, a marketing exercise, an engineering expedition or just a way to drum up funding ( probably a mix of all?) :-)

All of the above is NOT meant in a negative way :-) so please dont read it as such.

I guess the cost of the 450rr engines is quite high no? Have no idea how much and then you have to add spares etc. The sum quickly goes sky high... And as you suggested ''engines'' (plural ) so the cost for a privateer is quite high.
Then, for the 690 engine, because all the internals are kept the same, the head and the gearbox are stock. Already used parts are available so you can have everything cheaper.

Other than that I feel exactly the same as I think Jenny does for this event. This should be an endurance race for both rider and machine. If they want 'development' they better change the rules and not allow engine changes. Don't get me wrong, but for me, this race was, and still is the ultimate test for rider and machines. I think the downgrade idea is very nice as you get a 450 which is overdesigned (because all its parts were for a bigger engine). Neat

I think that's it but then again Jenny will come up with a better answer