THE BREAK WE DIDN’T NEED

Those who’ve been following our story from the early days will know how we’ve spent long nights trying to balance day time jobs – sometimes with long hours of overtime – with building a performance engine for more power.

We thought we were all done, but fate had other ideas.

With the engine run-in properly all was set for a decent scrap with the more powerful bikes at Snetterton.

After only two short practice sessions Ritchie heard what sounded like a Ducati, with a dry clutch, close by. He looked around, but couldn’t see one. Then he suddenly realised that that hellish noise was coming from his very own ZX7R.

Back in the paddock we had no choice but to put back the standard engine we took along with us, just in case.

You can read Ritchie’s full account of Snetterton here:

http://www.ritchie71.com/index.php?controller=post&action=view&id_post=13

Back home we decided to investigate bit-by-bit. We dreaded the thought of a complete strip down, fearing the worse might be a big end or small end failure.

First we looked at the top end, checking the shims to see if one had broken or come loose. Then the cams, cam chain, tensioners and bearings; they were all good.

Down to the clutch and off with that.The drive chain and tensioners were all good behind the clutch basket, so no problems there.

We decided to take out the oil pump to see if there was anything inside it that could’ve cause the rattling/knocking noise.

We were getting warmer.

We noticed a few score marks on the outside faces of the oil pump drive. We hadn’t noticed these previously so we investigated further and took out the oil pump and water pump drive that’s connected to it on the other side of the engine…and that’s where we found it.

A small piece of metal that connects the oil pump drive with the water pump had broken off. We found it in the sump when we cleaned out the sump filter. There were quite a few fine particles of metal left there from the running in procedure. So we were able to thoroughly clean out every little bit that may have caused scoring in the future.

We were both happy that we no longer have to worry about splitting the engine again; but there’s always something in the back of our minds about how much damage this small failure may have done elsewhere.

We’ll only know when we run it again.

For Cadwell Park we’ll stick with the standard engine again while we wait for new parts and gaskets to turn up.

The show goes on, but it makes it hard for our Ritchie on an underpowered bike.

Thanks to Kais Suspension and his instinctive racing ability he’s still in with a shout, holding on to a well-deserved third place in the Golden Era Superbikes Championship.