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Now that the dust is settling from the TT, what were people's experience of the new regulations regarding standard cylinder heads?
A quick look at the results seems to suggest that it made a bigger difference to some than to others.
What sort of reduction in bhp (if any) did people see?
What other work was done to make up for the loss of power?
At first glance it wouldn't seem to have made any difference to reliability.
Is there a huge difference in power between those standard engines with electronics packages and those without?


Honest answers please !!

Our bike was exactly same hp figures and same speed trap times hope that answers question ...

on that note, fuel mileage? Did it make any difference. It's just that I was stuck on this boat had the pleasure of a certain Welsh TWATSS company on the ferry back who ran out of petrol at Kate's, quite adamant that with his tuned head that wouldn't have happened ?

Frank has to take 2 teeth off the back. Probably 1 tooth because he was driving faster, and 1 to compensate for the bog standard motor,

Just look at Moly's speeds through the Sulby trap, way slow to some others Shows the measure of the man (sorry & passenger!)

Some Engines I think were more standard than others.

Oooohh Eddy

272 views and only 6 answers, only 2 of which even partially answer the question. Hmmmmmm...interesting.
One wonders if Eddy's answer is the most illuminating.

Ah I hear the sound of 680 konigs & 700 Yamahas qualifying in the G.P's in the ( so called ) good old days. How many didn't use them Ed. The question should maybe be how many did use them. As it was said at the time when abroad , it's a long way to go for nowt.

The problem is now "RUMOUR" has it scrutineers passed kit parts ???

Hi Geoff,

I probably make a couple of the viewing stats

This was Dave (Atkinson) and Phil (Knapton's) first TT, although Dave did some of the 2009 practice before crashing at St Ninians after hitting oil.

For the TT we used a 100% bog standard K8, the only difference between what you would find in a K8 GSX-R roadbike as Suzuki built it and our engine was the sump kit. We do run Motec and we have a good exhaust.

Because it is the boy's first TT it is difficult to compare to a previous TT on a tuned engine. The only thing we have to go by are speed trap times which are possibly a poor indicator due to differences in gearing. Although they were about 5th fastest through the Sulby speed trap at 140.1mph (Birchall's topped it at 144mph) .... huge amount of factors can influence that time including riders ability and circuit knowledge ... however I mention it as if the engine was a dead duck then I think you can safely say it wouldn't make top 50% through Sulby.

One thing that Atkinson said to me, that before the TT I had not appreciated, is the reliability of a standard....... there are always factors outside a team's control (i.e. punctures, wildlife etc) and preparation is absolutely crucial when it comes to this circuit (I aim that comment more towards me as I am sure you are the last person that needs to be told that) .............. however that little standard engine of ours never missed one beat, the boys didn't have to stop or roll off because of any engine related issues.

As mentioned before in relation to Motec, we use ours to try and perfect fuelling but more as a window to what that engine is doing .... if we had seen anything alarming on that logging the engine would have come out and replaced before she let us down .... as it happens the little engine went in for the TT, did every lap of practice and both races and did the team very proud.

..... I hope this gives a little bit more feedback, just sorry we can't compare to anything and give you a more definitive answer

Graham's superstock BMW did over 900 miles in the 2 weeks (shame no senior race so he didn't get over the 1000) without any issues at all apart from being a bit too quick down pitlane in the first race


Someone else was saying they were getting 20mpg out of their sidecar engine. I think that's where KEW got into the subject of his unscheduled stop at Kate's

There were lots of rumours about protests at KLAFFI/Birchalls being pulled {no point making it nameless and no offense because everyone there was talking about it }with coated buckets and kit valve springs i dont know whether any of these were true or swept under the carpet if things like that ever happen . Whom an i to speculate but after talking to a scrutineer he said everything was 100% with the engine.

Im sure someone will be along to correct me officially

To be honest I am a bit confused (not difficult, I know) my engine now has a standard top end and a balanced bottom end, last year it had a ported head and kit cams and springs.
I use a DTA ECU so that I can log any data I need and to be able to set the fuel mapping accurately. My fuel map is very good so why am I doing less miles to the gallon than I did last year?
My speeds by the way are about the same as last year.

kew wrote:To be honest I am a bit confused (not difficult, I know) my engine now has a standard top end and a balanced bottom end, last year it had a ported head and kit cams and springs.
I use a DTA ECU so that I can log any data I need and to be able to set the fuel mapping accurately. My fuel map is very good so why am I doing less miles to the gallon than I did last year?
My speeds by the way are about the same as last year.

I was thinking about this earlier when Steve mentioned it, my first thought was .. "nerrrr can't be" ... but then I thought about it; could it be like the lorry situation ... i.e. a bigger engine can sometimes be more economical than a smaller one because you don't have to thrape the t*ts off it to get it to go .... could it be that your tuned set up just produced more power so kept you in a slightly lesser rev range to produce the speeds you wanted, where as this year you may have been at more 100% throttle to get the same speeds? ....