The front bar on my street commodore was completely stuffed so I decided that it was time to replace it. The car had the complete VR GTS bodykit on it but there were so many identical cars getting around I decided to do something a bit different and go for the V8 Supercar front bar that I've always had a soft spot for. I found one on ebay and purchased it without thinking it through very much at all. What I wasn't able to notice on the ad and you may not notice from my photo either is that it's actually fully blown race front bar, not the toned down V8 Supercar style ones that you see on the street.

What's the difference you ask? First of all it hangs down an extra inch or 2 lower than the rest of the bodykit, so combined with my superlows, the front bar now sits lower than a coke can. The next thing is that the front lip of the spoiler sticks out heaps furthur and the sides cut in about 8-10 inches where as the street bars are very shallow (maybe 2 inches).

It looks heaps cool from the front, but it doesn't really suit the rest of the bodykit. The car now sits stupidly low to the point where I have to ride my bike to work every day because I can't get in the driveway! I've also noticed that the highway patrol take a very keen interest in the car now and I've had 2 instances where they've actually turned around to follow me but both times I pulled into private property before they caught up but its only a matter of time before I get canaried.

I finally got the Skid Wagon out to another burnout comp. I offered my mate Dazza a co-drive since he'd been helping me out with the car alot. Daz is no stranger to the burnout pad so I knew the car would be in good hands.

The car was pretty much ready to go apart from the diff. I destroyed the last one and haddn't got around to building a decent one. A while ago I put in a bog stock VN wagon diff (factory 28 spline) which i was planning to have a full spool and 4.11 gearset installed into it. I haddn't got around to it and the comp was in a few days so Daz brought around his stick welder and we locked it up. Not a good thing to do if your planning to modify the diff in the future, infact not a good thing to do ever but it got us to the comp.

I took the car out in the first session and it was going pretty well considering the tall 3.08 ratio. I managed to get it up to 3rd gear and I was pulling some nice 360 whips which the crowd seemed to like. Next thing a hose lets go and theres steam pissing everywhere so i shut it off. I got pushed off the pad in style by the fire crew.

I found it pretty strange that it overheated since I was only going for about a minute and a half... Once we got it back to the pits we had a look and found that it spat the bloody belts off again! Last time it only threw off the power steering belt but this time it chucked them both off which obviously stopped the water pump spinning. So once again I leave the pad with tyres still inflated... :(

Luckily I brought a couple of spare belts along since the old onces were now lying on the burnout pad somewhere. Me and Daz fitted up the new belts and tightened the crap out of them this time. The hose that blew for me had only popped off so we were able to just slip it back on and refill the water. Daz took it out on the pad with some fresh tyres and went up to 3rd almost straight off the line. The car was under a fair bit of load but it was smoking like a demon. He managed to blow both tyres and get the whole exhaust red hot. When he stopped and got out of the car a small power steering fire started but then the hose blew off and extinguished the fire!! I'm so jelous!! He had to get towed out of there aswell but atleast the car went the distance this time.

I was glad to give Daz a go in the car since he's a good mate and it kind of makes hauling the car out there a bit more worthwhile since the car gets to go out twice. The CIG locker went the distance although after the second burnout it had 1/4 of a turn of play in the wheels. Despite cutting half the exhaust off since last time, the car's still not loud enough! We've got to do something about that before next time.

Dazza smoking it

The radiator lets go on me

Me doing doughies

Daz's victory wave just before it caught fire. Note the red hot exhaust pipe

My embarrasing departure from the pad

Daz letting it rip

Popped

Awesome guard damage!!

Please Note: Photos in this post are copyright of Badger Photography and Fully Sick Photos where watermarked. More images from this event can be found on their websites.

About 2 weeks ago I was riding to work, I had just left home and was still in the back streets. I get to the intersection and theres a HWP car in the left lane waiting to turn left and I joined the end of the cue to turn right. The cop puts his car in reverse and comes all the way back up the street and pulls in behind me. I take it really easy and he sits on my back wheel for 60 seconds then pulls me over.

Cop: This your bike?
Me: Yep..

Cop: You got a riders license?
Me: Yep...

Cop: You were going a bit slow back there is something wrong?
Me: Yeh I don't want to risk getting booked.

Cop: Had anything to drink?
Me: *Laughs* No  (it's 7:00am)

Cop: The computer says the bike is suposed to be red?
Me: Oh ok, well the bike has been resprayed at some point.

Cop: Why has it been in a smash?
Me: Not that I know of, the original paint scheme was really daggy

Cop: ok see you later.

 

I thought that it was hardly random, I didn't do anything to provoke the guy to go out of his way to pull me over and drill me. Anyway, yesterday on the same road as last time, this time coming home in the afternoon, theres a highway sitting in the school zone. I cruise past him and he quickly barges in between me and the car thats behind me. Again he tailgates me and I'm watching my speed like a hawk. 20 secs later, full lights and sirens on so I pull over.  What do you know, it's the same copper as last time. He starts asking me the same questions as last time and I said "mate you stopped me the other day?" and he smugly says "oh did I?". Next thing I know a paddy wagon pulls up with 4 cops in it and they look like they are ready to jump out and kick my head in. The first cop says something to them and then they all just snear at me and drive off.  Then the cop tries to tell me that my back tyre is "almost bald" I told him its no where near it and he takes a closer look then got in his car and drove off. 

I'm starting to think that my repeated bad behaviour on the road is finally starting to catch up with me because this guy is really out to get me! I have a feeling that maybe some locals have been complaining about me (or a different yellow bike :P). I have a smart ass numberplate and my driving record is as long as my arm, but the first time he saw me he couldn't have looked me up - all he would have seen is the front of a yellow bike. To be honest I don't go crazy in my own area anyway, but all I know is that I need to be really careful because this guy is looking for an excuss to get me.

 

Yesterday the latest muscle car cruise was on starting at Homebush. The weather was bad, but the turnout was still pretty high considering. I rode shotgun in my mate's torana which he litterally got registered on Friday. I'll put some pics up of it soon. The highlight of the day was seeing Joe Paganos blown commodore ute cruise down the M4 on wet roads. The methanol burning my eyes the whole way. He was running his usual sidepipes too, it was rattling the windows of my mate's torana from 2 cars back.

My sister was playing a gig at a small blues festival up in Cessnock called Railway Blues. Me and Andrea went up to support her. The festival was at an old railway yard where there were steam trains that were taking people for rides. My dad was having a chat to the train driver and somehow managed to line up a ride in the locomotive which I got to come along on. It was boiling hot and filthy but very cool all the same. There are so many different controls inside the thing it's amazing. Here's a dodgy photo I took on my phone.

I wanted to see if I could beat last weeks time, so I took the bike down to WSID again. I managed to reel off my PB on the first run! I got 11.89@120MPH which is a bit of an improvement over last week (11.94@121MPH). After that I started getting worse with every pass. I think I was trying to hard to get a big launch... I kept getting wheelspin off the line and looking back at it maybe I was actually overheating my tyre in the burnout. I'd pull out of the water and give it a practise launch and it would bag up hard and I even hit the limiter a few times. I tried slipping the clutch more on the last run and it was worse than the wheelspin runs so I think I'll try smaller burnouts next time. It's hard because I love my burnouts but I'm sure my $300 rear tyre will apreciate it if I lay off it a bit.

In the last burnout comp I had trouble knowing what gear I was in due to the crappy VR commodore shifter that was rivited in with no gear indicator. I decided to spend the money and put a proper shifter in. I went with the B&M Pro Rachet which seems to be the way to go if your not running a center console. Installation was pretty straight forward. Because the commodores have a flat section in the tunnel for the shifter it made it very easy. I had to make up a new plate to cover the massive hole from the original shifter, other than that it was all pretty much bolt in.

The burnout car is almost ready to hit the pad again. I've trail fitted the VN diff and there are no problems there. I've purchased a good second hand 4.11 gearset so I've now got to get them fitted up to the center with a spool.

I've been helping my mate put his bike together in my garage for the last few weeks. He bought it for cheap, unregistered and damaged. He decided to turn it into a street fighter style bike since all the fairings were road rashed. We finally got it registered and took it for the maiden voyage yesterday arvo. We've still got a few little problems to iron out but overall its turned out pretty good for a very quick budget build. I knew very little about working on bikes when I started, but luckily they're easy as piss to work on much like a muscle car because of their simplicity. 

The specs are;

• 1998 Kawasaki ZX9R (900cc)
• Painted matt black with farings removed
• Renthal Fat Bars
• Mini bar end mirrors
  
• Buell XB12 headlight and fairing
  
• Braided Brake lines
• Hindle exhaust
  
• Re-jettted carbs

I took it for a ride last night and it's got stacks of power (more than mine I'm ashamed to say) and the Renthal bars make it awesome to ride, you've got so much more leverage due to the wider grip.

I took my blade down to the street meet at WSID last night. I've never ran before so I was pretty nervous. My best run was 11.94@121MPH (thats 195KPH) with a .009 RT! It was actually the best reaction time of the night but I missed out on the prize by 10 mins. I've still got heaps more in it but I need to work on my launches. It was a huge rush and I can't wait to get back out there!

Here's a pic that Andrea took.

 

I was getting in my car to go down to my local motorbike shop when I saw all these choppers hovering around what looked to be the main road. I decided to take a detour to check out what was going down. The traffic was banked up for kilometers! It turns out that there were 2 servos side by side both offering standard unleaded (ULP) for $0.94 per litre!! There lines were hundreds of meters long and there were helicopters fliming it from the sky and live news broadcasts from Channel 7 out the front. I happened to have my camera in the car so I grabbed some pics of the chaos.

I asked a bloke in the shop what the story was and apparently it was some kind of protest to the oil companies. I'm sure it'll be on the news tonight.