OK people time to step it up a notch or two. As a lot f you know I became an expert at buying "JUNK" Junkyard Kawasaki's last summer. The supply of motorcycle motors is down. The demand for good low mileage motors is way up. This week I bought for one more time a junkyard motor. The motor is supposed to be a 2000 mile 2010 zx10r. If that is true I might luck out with a good motor.
The first Kaw we bought in 2005 had 300 miles on it and we ran it hard for most of four years. Well we decided to update and got a second motor. It was a 2008 with 500 miles on it. We ran it for 3 years with no problems. Heck I even started bragging about it. A thermostat froze closed and we blew our new motor into a million pieces. we were in a hurry to get back racing so we put the old 2005 motor back in. The only problem is we used the bad thermostat in this motor also and did the same thing to it up at Montpelier right in front of the poor flagman on the last lap of the main.
This is where the story goes down hill fast. We were in a hurry to find another motor so went to a good dealer and he said he had one but it was hit hard on the flywheel cover. We said that would be Ok and the price was right so we put it in and started it up and after running for 10 minutes it locked up and quit. Ass uming the crank was bent We went to Ebay and bough one off of a dealer. He told us it came bear without the covers or flywheel . We offered him more for a complete motor. It took him 2 weeks to deliver the motor to us, guess he was having a hard time finding the parts that he said he had removed. We put it in and proceeded to blow it up with just a heat and a trophy dash of racing time.
We then go out and buy a crank to put in the motor that we thought had a bent crankshaft. We checked out everything put in new bolts and rod bearings and blew it up after about 30 practice laps. It turns out it was not a bent crank but bent cylinder block. Many times if a bike is hit hard on the flywheel side the force will warp the main bearing bores long ways and not affect the up and down measurements. So with plastic gauge the clearance will check out OK. Not knowing this we blew this motor up in about 30 practice laps.
Here is the reason for this rant::
Good cycle motors are getting harder and harder to find. They are importing just a fraction of the bikes that they imported just 7 or 8 years ago. More and more racers are adapting these motors to work in their type of race car. The quality of motor is going way down and the demand is increasing. I have not seen a 500 mile motor on Ebay in ages and when I do it caries a very large price tag on it. On top of all this other doom and gloom they are making them harder and harder to fit in a race car.
Wayne Davis and I have had some pretty good discussions here on IOW about just what the name for these things should be. I finally won the argument and convinced him that they were indeed midgets. But then Wayne has to go me one better. When I explained to him how hard it would be to change a late model cycle motor over to work with a drive shaft old Wayne goes out and buys an ecotec and now he calls them and his mini sprints Division II Midgets.
I have thought for a long time, in fact since watching them race out at Tulsa several years ago that the ecotec midget and the mini sprint would make great racing partners. If you look in the midget classified of IOW right now you can find turn key ecotecs and used midget rollers at a very reasonable prices. With an ecotec you are looking at a $400.00 dollar motor that are more than plentiful.
Why not include the ecotecs with the mini sprints and see how they match up with us. Their only hold back that I can see right now is probably their starting system (push Trucks). But I bet if you used 2 high torque starters they would start up and pull right away away without a clutch. Us Tree Hugers would call them Hybrid race cars.
Just a couple of extra lines in the rules could make this happen. I know some guys in Illinois and Florida are racing them now, but the real testing grounds would be in here in Indiana.
Honest Dad himself

