Showing posts with label MARTEK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MARTEK. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 January 2014

MARTEK GSXR1100 TURBO

 
In '96/'97 Martek built two frames based on a 750W to take the oil cooled 1100 motor. Guy Martin has one, this is the other. If you have ever tried to do this conversion you will appreciate the difficulty involved. The headstock has been relocated and top rails braced, the front frame rails moved to clear the headers, the back end altered completely to take the (2" extended) Ducati 916 swinging arm with built in air tank and adjustable ride height, all new engine mounts made and then all the little cut outs and brackets for the turbo. The seat subframe is such a work of art its a shame to put a seat on it... you can sit and look at the thing all day.
 The original bike was apparently seen by Prodigy fun boy Keith Flint who decided he wanted one building with all the best stuff, no expense spared, and it wasn't !
The front and rear suspension are White Power (back then you could still call it that), with Marteks' own billet yokes, brakes are Spondon discs with Brembo calipers, front wheel is GSXR1100 deseamed and rear is Ducati. Ignition is Dyna with 2000 adjustable module which sits at the front under a neat little cut out in the tank so its easy to get at. The tank is also plated underneath and has the Pingel tap relocated right at the rear.The motor was a real low mileage 1127 with JE 80mm pistons (EFE) and flowed head carefully put together by Roger Upperton. The Rayjay turbo set up is the original Mr Turbo job and left Grimsby with an S&S carb, it supposedly made around 220 rwhp.
 When KF parted with his dosh (iv'e heard £26k) the bike was red, black and white with a neat little KLE headlight fairing and one off very small seat unit. He hooned about on it a bit then (allegedly) took the bike to Jack Frost at Holeshot for more work, I have no details of this as I have been unable to get in touch (he ignores my emails), however it does now have a huge Keihin Flatslide in place of the S&S. He then sold it to a friend who sat it in his living room and polished it for 6 years. The friend then sold it to Leigh who I bought it from, he got tired of looking at it, took it to get MOT'd then crashed it on the way home. With a load of metal in his arm as a result the bike had to move on which is where I came in.
 Nothing major was damaged, mainly tank/seat/fairing/lights/bars/levers/foot pegs/oil cooler, the usual stuff that gets trashed in a bike crash. The main saviour was a 2lb Nitrous bottle which was fastened to the right side front of the frame, the bike had gone down on that side and the bottle acted as a big crash bung, without it the motor would have taken a big hit.
 The seat i fitted is off a TZ125 race bike, anything bigger looks immense as the bike is so short (3" shorter than a stock GSXR11). It looked OK but was made of tissue paper so needed a fair bit of work to make it suitable. I'm still not sure about it but until something better comes along it will do the job. Ive added a few little trinkets along the way too like the engine cases, carbon guards and KC headlight.
 There is no point giving a full detailed spec of everything, you can see it all in the photos, the thing is loud, thirsty and proper barmy, not for touring.
 If you fancy it bring me near to £6,000 (part exchange welcome) and you can be the next to dodge death or polish it in the living room, if not it can stay here and look hard.

Friday, 20 December 2013

TWO STEPS FORWARD ONE STEP BACK

 
Bathtub Thunderbird is now finished and on the road or was.... headbolts were too long and hadn't quite nipped the gasket, who knew ? er, who checked ?...
 
...meanwhile the Martek GSXR is plodding along, lots of things nearly but not quite done. Had a tightness of budget and sprayed it satin black, not too happy with the result but may leave it that way now until it's finished. I have a want to write down each side in huge letters but I may get over that too, remember the Extreme Engineering Harris Magnum of about 15 years ago ? Had an interesting talk with Toddy (formerly of Martek) to find some more history on the bike and have been trying to get in touch with Keith Flint but so far with no success. It would be good to have some firm engine specs, the word is that he (KF) had a fair bit of engine work done after taking delivery but exact details are unknown.

Thursday, 24 October 2013

PROGRESS REPORT

 
Managed a couple of miles on the Thunderbird yesterday, first time its turned a wheel under its own steam for over 20 years. After a life of hardtails and cafe racers its like riding on a cloud. There are a few little jobs to do before a proper test ride but nothing major. Standard is the new custom, for now anyway...

The wiring is now sorted on the GSXR as is the oil cooler (since these pics), not that much left to do before it lives. You will probably hear it when it happens, wherever you are.

Saturday, 12 October 2013

SITTING COMFORTABLY ?

 


 
Did a bit of fiddling with seats yesterday, seat one, seat two or neither ?

Saturday, 21 September 2013

SUCK, PUSH, BANG, HOSPITAL.( A BIKE FOR THE JILTED GENERATION).





 
I've been thinking about building another oil cooled 1100 GSXR based bike for a while, the main part of my business is breaking and selling parts for them but gaining the momentum to actually start one was taking a while. With Cafe racers being "on trend" a few people are supplying frames and i looked at a Featherbed replica set up as an option to the more usual Streetfighter approach but it all looked like it could get a bit out of hand.
 This bike was built by Martek in the late '90s and sold to Keith Fint off've the Prodigy. It is basically a WN750 frame hugely modified, moved headstock, braced top rails, repositioned front rails, cut outs for the turbo, full new fabb'ed rear end with a 916 arm extended by 3" incorporating an air tank for the shifter, White Power suspension front and rear, Brembos, Holeshot built turbo 1200 (ish) motor.... special and fast. Ive heard figures of just below and considerably more than £20,000.
 The Firestarter used it for a while then sold it when he got more into racing. Somewhere along the line it had Nitrous fitted, like it really needed it and some LED lights to light up the engine at night, smashing, but it has mainly sat just looking pretty. Leigh bought it after a 7 year spell in a friends front room and advertised it on eBay about 4 months ago, the winning bidder decided he had "bid in error" and it stayed put so he decided to take it for an MOT and have some fun. It passed the MOT but did not survive the journey home, Leigh now has some clever metal fabrication of his own and is unable to work for now so again put it up for sale, which is where i came in.
 The frame and forks are good but it goes downhill after that, the old girl came down pretty hard. It looks good in the photos but closer inspection there is work to do !
The Prodigy back catalogue includes Smack My Bitch Up, Take Me To The Hospital and Omen....
 Progress as it happens, or a post saying "Breaking Martek Turbo".