OiLibya Rally of Morocco Stage1 + Stage2

KTM factory rider Marc Coma opened his account in the OilLibya Morocco Rally on Monday with a second place finish in the stage, trailing leader Joan Barreda of Portugal by just over three minutes.

Coma is looking to seal the 2013 FIM World Cross Countries Rally Championship title at this event in Morocco, which represents the final rally of the 2013 season. He is the championship leader by a narrow three-point margin from Paolo Goncalves of Portugal and the contest is expected to be tough between these and other riders. The rally is disputed over six stages, much of it in typical sand and dunes, the preferred terrain for KTM’s three-times Dakar Rally winner.

The Red Bull KTM Factory Team are also using the rally as its final preparations and testing before the Dakar Rally in January 2014 and have unleashed the brand new KTM 450 Rally bike for the occasion. Joining Coma in Morocco are factory riders Chaleco Lopez of Chile and Ruben Faria of Portugal who finished 5 and 12. Teammate Kurt Caselli (USA) was ranked at seventeenth after the opening day after incurring a 20-minute penalty for missing a waypoint. KTM Australia’s Ben Grabham was a creditable eleventh after stage one and the secodn KTM support rider, Riaan Van Niekerk of South Africa was sixteenth.

The track took riders over two liaisons of 77 km and 65 km and one selective timed sector of 203 km. They first crossed small dunes before having to navigate to Oued Draa over many parallel tracks. They then hit the first of the challenging dunes that brought them across the beautiful erg Cheggaga from southwest to northeast.

Coma said he had been satisfied with his first day on the new KTM 450 Rally bike in real competition saying: “In principle it seems like everything is going according to plan. Now we must focus on finding the bike’s limits and work to further develop this. We did a good job today in a stage that was quite complicated and in which navigation was very important. Tomorrow is a completely different. There will be a lot of stones and it will be very technical and physically demanding. We must be very focused.”

KTM Factory Team manager Alex Doringer said it had been a good first day of the rally with the new bike. “We are very satisfied with Marc’s ride in second place and we had no technical problems at all with the new bike,” he said adding that Ruben Faria is still having some problems with his hand, which he broke contesting the Dos Sertoes Rally in Brazil several months ago. “Chaleco (Lopez) took it easy today and we are happy with his position after the first stage but Kurt Caselli, our rookie team member made a navigational mistake and missed a waypoint. It is a learning process for him.” Caselli was the replacement rider for the injured Marc Coma in the 2013 edition of the Dakar Rally but is now part of the official factory team.
The rally is made up of six stages and tomorrow riders tackle a liaison of 49 km, a selective sector o 240 km and another short liaison of nine km as they travel in a circular route from Jbel to Jbel.

Results Stage One
1, Joan Barreda, Spain, Honda, two hours 25.40
2, Marc Coma, Spain, KTM, at 3 minutes 09
3, Paolo Goncalves, Portugal, Honda at 3.28
4, Helder Rodrigues, Portugal, Honda, 6.13
5, Chaleco Lopez, Chile, KTM, 9.17
6, Javier Pizzolito, Argentina, Honda, 10.32
7, Sam Sunderland, Britain, Honda, 11.09
8, Alain Duclos, France, Sherco, 11.53
9, Alessandro Botturi, Italy, Speedbrain, 12.11
11. Ben Grabham, Australia, KTM, 22.21
12, Ruben Faria, Portugal, KTM, 22.37
16, Riaan Van Niekerk, South Africa, 34.14
17. Kurt Caselli, USA, KTM, 38.52 (20 minutes penalty for missing waypoint)

stage 2

KAWASAKI W800 X WRENCHMONKEES

You can find a passion for motorcycles in the unlikeliest of locations—even on a small island in SE Asia still reeling from decades of civil war. That’s where the owner of this bike lives, a man who wanted a low-key custom capable of tackling rough roads.

It’s one of the more unusual commissions to land in the Wrenchmonkees’ Copenhagen headquarters, but they’ve built the perfect bike for the job—based on a 2012-model Kawasaki W800.

“Our client asked for a simple, practical, and easy to maintain scrambler,” says the Wrenchmonkees’ Per Nielsen. “The local roads can be quite a challenge—gravel mountain passes that are sometimes flooded, and broken bridges.” The bike also needed to be a two-seater, and have a USB port for portable power in the wild.

To eliminate potential reliability problems, the Wrenchmonkees decided to buy a new-ishKawasaki W800. “We´ve worked on the W650 before, and we really like that platform: It has a good frame and engine, and simple construction. The W800 has the same qualities, so we went for that instead of an older W650.”

For ease of servicing, the Wrenchmonkees left the engine and swing arm alone. The standard engine has a plain painted aluminum finish, which was switched to a subtle black. The shocks were swapped out for Hagon Nitro items, and the forks now contain TÜV-approved Wirth progressive springs. The tires have been upgraded to tough Heidenaus, with a 140/80-18 K60 at the back and a 4.00 x 19 K37 at the front. The front disc is now a Ferodo item hooked up to steel braided hose.

Stainless mufflers are mounted to the original headers, with some heatwrap added to the mid section near the rider’s feet. Aluminum fenders save weight over the heavy standard steel components. Aluminum is also used for the seat pan and ABM handlebar, which now carries a Motogadget speedo and Biltwell Kung-Fu grips. A 6½-inch headlight is attached with custom brackets, and there’s a custom aluminum battery box under the swing arm and an aluminum skidplate to help protect the engine.

Despite the practical nature of the modifications, this W800 is much faster than a stock bike. “The small engine changes—the K&N pod filters and the mufflers—have improved engine performance,” says Per. “A ‘gentle’ dyno run showed almost 90 Nm of torque at 3500 rpm on the rear wheel, compared to the standard 60 Nm at 2500!”

Right now, the Kawasaki is on a boat to its new home, 12,000 kilometers away from the Wrenchmonkees’ workshop. It’s one custom you could never accuse of being a trailer queen.

Head over to our Google+ page for a full image gallery.

via BIKEEXIF

Homemade Hero – A British Built Quattro

When was the last time you saw something so inspiring that you instantly knew things would never be the same again? Everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you loved, changed in the briefest of moments. We have a word for this sudden change on Speedhunters: it’s called Gatebil.

We’re acutely aware that we may have overdone things slightly this year with our Scandinavian theme, but being honest, I still don’t think we have conveyed just how influential the region is. It’s not just us that have become infatuated, as the methods and reasons why Scandinavians build their cars are infectious.

James Dorey was one of those to be bitten by the bug. James made the pilgrimage to Gatebil at Mantorp Park some years ago and returned to the UK a converted man. The sight and sound of big horsepower, five cylinder Audis proved irresistible. He knew he must have one.

As a man who works with his hands for a living – James is a chef – he wasn’t content with the idea of handing off his freshly purchased Audi S2 to a garage to do the dirty work for him.

Far from it. James set out to build the car himself, from the ground up in whatever spare time he could muster. And that’s exactly what he did.

PRESENTATION MODE

DOWNLOAD WALLPAPER

SHARE

Under no illusions of what lay before him, James knew that this car wouldn’t come together overnight. Today and countless lessons learned later, he’s still finding things he wants to improve before he runs the car in anger early next year.

The build progressed methodically over four years. Built on a strictly limited budget from James’s own wage packet, things were done when they could afford to be done.

Although the largest investment in this project wasn’t money, it was something far more valuable – time. One benefit from this is that the immaculate white paintwork remains free of sponsorship stickers, although I’m sure James wouldn’t begrudge financial support for the upcoming season.

As you can already guess, the original car was stripped back to a bare shell before James started preparing the chassis for the substantial makeover. With plans to run the car in the UK based Time Attack Series, a regulation-conforming multipoint roll cage was welded into the car.

A healthy dose of gusseting helps the to brace the cage against the original A, B and C pillars.

His next step was a touring car inspired change, moving the driver’s seat as far back as possible in the car. Not only does this provide balance to the forward mounted engine, an Audi tradition, but also allows a wider field of view.

A custom shifter tower was crafted to bring the gear selector back within driver’s reach…

… along with an adjustable floor-mounted pedal box.

There are so many things that need to be accounted for with what is seemingly a simple enough idea of moving the seat back. The switch panel however is one of those token motorsport installs that would seemingly need to happen either way. I wonder, is the ejector seat FIA approved?

The standard clocks would not suffice in a build this comprehensive, so in their place is the proven Race Technologies Dash2 along with an accompanying data logger.

On the theme of weight re-distribution, the radiator has been relocated to the rear of the car. I’m sure if Mr. Klingelhoefer is reading, he’s just ticked another box on his Gatebil Bingo card.

The radiator is fed cool air from the ducting on the side windows…

… which is drawn into a custom-built box to ensure the air is sent where it is required.

Just in front of the radiator box is an ATL 60 litre fuel cell where the fuel is brought to the injectors by three Bosch 044 pumps.

PRESENTATION MODE

DOWNLOAD WALLPAPER

SHARE

The bodywork is a mix of carbon and glass fibre composites, with the rear wing being mounted directly to the chassis to provide more effective downforce. James was primarily responsible for the vast majority of the work that went into the car, save for the odd occasion where a friend could help out (paint, aluminium welding, loom and geometry).

With no budget for wind tunnel or aerodynamic simulation testing, all the extra aero additions will be tested against the clock to see what improvements they make.

Some of the bits you can’t immediately see are the three-way adjustable AST dampers which utilise Eibach springs and feature remote reservoirs. Stopping comes in the shape of Brembo manufactured and Audi RS-badged eight piston front and four piston rear brake calipers.

It’s way out front however where the true magic is in this Audi build.

Aside from that oh-so-distinctive five cylinder wail, these units have been proven time and time again to be capable of handling whatever is required of them.

The triple ball bearing Comp Turbo should allow the car to run up to 800hp, although James would be happy to run a reliable 650hp whilst he concentrates on getting a feel for the car and dialling in a set-up.

Taking no chances, James had the block and head blueprinted and balanced before rebuilding the engine himself. I won’t repeat the spec list from below but the highlights are custom JE Pistons, a Weaver Brothers dry sump system, Shrick cams and a Nuke fuel rail with Bosch 1800cc injectors.

Although James is still putting the finishing touches to the car, it’s clear that he has put together a balanced and considered build on a tight budget. I’m as big a fan of the no limits builds as the next guy, but I’ll always have more time for the guy working from scratch and learning from his mistakes until the small hours of the morning. You just can’t beat homemade…

Paddy McGrath
Twitter: @PaddyMcGrathSH
Instagram: speedhunters_paddy
paddy@speedhunters.com

James Dorey’s Audi quattro S2

EngineBlue printed and fully balanced by Swindon Racing, custom JE pistons, Pauter rods, ARP bolts, knifed and nitrided crankshaft, bored and honed block, ARP main studs, ARP head studs, custom flywheel, Weaver Brothers four stage dry sump pump, custom dry sump system, rear mounted dry sump tank with pre-heaters, titanium spring retainers, high rate valve springs, Super-Tech valves, Shrick custom camshafts, lightweight lifters, adjustable cam wheels, equal length exhaust manifold, triple ball bearing Comp turbo, Tial waste gate, Earl’s oil cooler, DBR adjustable 30mm front cam pulley, head ported, cleaned and tested, aluminium inlet manifold, high output coils, Magnacore custom ignition leads, Wagner Tuning intercooler, large K&N air filter, aluminium boost pipes, Wiggins fittings, 4″ down pipe, separate waste gate pipe, twin 3″ from downpipe to side exits, ATL 60 litre fuel cell, 3x Bosch 044 fuel pumps, swirl pot, Turbo Smart FPR, Nuke fuel rail, 1800cc Bosch Motorsport injectors, Tatech Pro 32 ECU, Race Technologies Dash 2, Race Technologies data logger, Raychem chassis harness, rear mounted C&R radiator, electric water pump, twin fans, aluminium header tank, AN connection.

DrivelineAudi Sport driveshafts, Lobro Racing CV joints, plated front differential, plated centre differential, plated rear differential, differential and gearbox coolers with MoCal pumps, cable shifter tower, carbon fibre centre prop shaft, Sachs Racing triple plate clutch.

Suspension/BrakesThree-way adjustable AST dampers with Eibach springs and remote reservoirs, home made tubular wishbones with rose joints, tubular subframes, adjustable top mounts, knife anti-roll bars front and rear, AP master cylinder, AP balance adjuster, Brembo eight piston calipers with 380mm discs (front), four piston calipers with 323mm discs (rear).

Wheels/TyresDare Motorsport Wheels, variety of Michelin slick and wet weather tyres.

ExteriorWide body with composite panels, carbon rear wing from M3 GTR race car, rear diffuser, carbon front splitter and dive planes.

InteriorFull multi-point roll cage, driver’s position moved rearwards, gearbox tunnel extended rearwards, Lexan rear windows, heated front windscreen, Corbeau seats.

100% Presents: The Barstow / Starring Custom Bike Builder Kim Boyle

Freedom was a key word in the early ages of American Motocross and, when the motorcycling scene really took off in the 1970’s, so did an era of moto style that’s just as popular now as it was back in the day.
But as much as we want to re-capture the essence of what off-road racing was in its early years, we care about our safety. Let’s face it: vintage riding gear was basic, uncomfortable and, overall… not very safe. Goggles? Same. Their fit was mostly a joke. They sucked air, they sucked dust. They sucked… period.
Because our heart is close to the vintage movement and because, as a goggle company, we care about your vision and style – at 100%, we felt something had to be done about both: enter The Barstow.
When the pioneers raced the desert from Barstow to Vegas, they had no idea what it would be like to enjoy a triple-layer-foamed, solidly-strapped, anti-scratch, anti-fog-lens set of goggles, made of modern materials and featuring such a wide field of view.
But those are today’s most advanced standards of comfort and safety, so that’s what you’ll find in the Barstow along with, of course, the vintage style.
The Barstow is available in two versions: the Classic, MX specific version and, for those also (or more) café racer-oriented, we offer the Legend version. Now that your eyes and style are taken care of, …”Gas it!!!” as we like to say!

Explore more at ridebarstow.com

100% Presents: The Barstow / Starring Custom Bike Builder Kim Boyle from 100% on Vimeo.