Windle F2 Chassis in NZ.. Build Date? Setup Advice? History?

[Fast Eddie]

Hi all, new to the forum and fairly new to sidecar racing.

I race in New Zealand, previously on an NZ built Mo Haley chassis which is a short bike/engine in front but with hub center steering and a few other unique design features. It was a great learning bike if not a little bit heavy you can see the bike here in its hey day with its team in the late 80's early 90's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DBDHie8zRU bit of Kiwi sidecar racing for ya

Anyway, after a season on that bike and having owned a terribly built long bike previous to that, and having done a bit of swinging - I went out and bought a neglected but very nice Windle chassis, it has been fitted with an R1 motor though.. which isn't a problem in NZ, it just gets slotted into the f1 class.

Anyway, before I babble on - I was after a few tips or instructions on a base setup - as this one has been mucked around with a lot by people who do not know what they were doing and had never raced a sidecar before.

Things like how to set up the front end? the tie rods, the off center or elliptical adjusters and any other adjustments that they have. How about suspension? I weigh 92kg and my passenger approx 78kg, I'm about 6 foot something and he is about 5'9/5'10. suspension? it has maxton all round.

How about brake bias? my old short bike with the hub center steering seemed to prefer a 50/50 bias or if anything a bias toward the rear (although this could have more to do with its current chassis setup than it being the ideal brake split)

I have test ridden the windle on the street and it has a violent head shake.. like a tank slapper on a solo but happens on partial/neutral throttle and deceleration. on full acceleration the front feels so light that I thought its doing a wheelie and it simply will not turn.. it just goes straight.. infact under any throttle it either shakes its head or just doesnt turn.

Other things I was curious about was how to find out its build date? I am lead to believe Ian Bell may have had it.. and it came with an IOM TT tank and some bits so it may have been to the TT as well.. I have pinned it at early 2000's maybe.. but really have no idea.

Cheers all.

[Fast Eddie]

Oh I should add its next/maiden race meeting is a road race/street race. The Wanganui Cemetery Circuit.. so a more road race/street race friendly base setup would be ideal..

[Kickaha]

The last UK owner was Pete Goodwin who apparently had the 1000cc Thunderace motor fitted to it before he moved out here

We also dont want Fast Eddie getting to much help because he might end up being too fast for us to beat

[Fast Eddie]

Just popped in to check if anyone useful had replied (that excludes Kick :p)

no setup tips for an F2 windle chassis? surely someone out there... Just want a nice neutral/base or starting point setup. Suspension and any adjustable geometry for the front rear and side. I see a lot of adjustments possible on the bike. Need a basic/neutral starting point so I'm not starting with a chassis that has been mucked around with too much by people that don't know anything about it and spend half a season trying to figure out why it handles crap

will have a trawl through the forums as well.

[steve-e]

I'll move this to the paddock see if anyone reads it there.
The words were probably too big

[Kickaha]

The words were probably too big

Uni student, not too much you can do there

[oldbelly]

Kia , i think your bike was mine. It was the first of the fourstroke F2 Windles. It was built in the winter of 93 and was the first of its type out on circuit at a Mallory test day in February of 94. Nick and me used it in the British Championship that season and finished second to Mick Boddice ( tied on points, lost on countback ). Our Ian had a new Windle built by August of that season and did a few meetings on that. The following season I took Ians outfit to use with the new shortstroke motors. Ian used the bike you have to finish 5th and 6th as a newcomer at the 95 TT. In the winter of 95/96 Mike Crawford bought the rolling chassis off us to go with the longstroke motor he had already bought off us.This was later sold to Pete Goodwin. As for Windle set up ? they needed very little. When new they were and still would be the best F2 money could buy. Obviosly as you race any outfit you get to know where they are at and tweek things as you go along. A Windle was a very neutral outfit with very light steering that went where you pointed it.

[Fast Eddie]

Hi Geoff, thank you very much for that info.

very cool to learn a bit of the bikes history! Especially the british champs and the isle of man TT. It is much older than I thought.. its in not bad nick though for its age! last owner or 2 neglected it a wee bit, But I have since spent many hours stripping it down and polishing off all the rust and tidying things up as well as making a new seat and kneelers etc. Its looking quite good at the moment.

The gear selector/linkage for my gear lever is a nightmare - the chassis is fitted with a 2003 R1 motor, so it has a series of rods and linkages to go from the right foot all the way to the gear selector shaft top left of the motor. Changing gears is very hard - I'm hoping to swap motor for something more suitable like a gsxr1000 or even a 600 where u can change the selector shaft from left side of motor to right side. I believe GSXR motors can do this. Not sure how the f2 chassis handling would differ between 600 and 1000cc. I'm thinking probably better with a 600 in it. But there are not many 600's in N.Z. maybe 3? Kickaha would know..

As for the handling/setup - I will just try my luck. I think people have already fiddled with whatever adjustments there are, so I was just curious as to how the chassis should/would have been setup from Terry Windle himself when originally built or was that entirely up to the team that rode it?

[Fast Eddie]

I'll move this to the paddock see if anyone reads it there.
The words were probably too big

hahaha - will tone it down in future

[oldbelly]

Kia for the 2000 season Terry built us an F2 chassis to take an R1 motor as well as the 600 Yams . The 1000 motor was left standard ( I bought it new and didnt even have a look inside). We planned to do the British Open class Championship on it and of course the TT with the 600 motor. It was a disaster, the worst handling bike I have ever ridden. It was very quick in a straight line but I couldnt lap anywhere as quick as we had done with an F2 600 . The end result was a crash at Croft which ended my passengers ( Graham Biggs ) career with a shattered leg. It was only four weeks before the TT and Terry did an amazing repair job. We went to the TT, Craig Hallam in the chair and finished third. The only change was to put the 600 in, it handled perfectly as an F2 but was useless as an open class bike. I suppose it depends how hard you want to race it through the bits between the straights Good luck. Kia as for the gearchange. When we got the F1 Suzuki LCR for Phil it had a right side gear change conversion which worked fine. The problem was getting bosses welded to the case ( magnesium) ,you had to pay someone to do it When we changed to the K7/8 motors we made our own cross over shaft. It was better than the slider gear change we had ( the lever moves in the same arc as your foot). The bike did 5 seasons with us like that and as far as I know is still the same. Our F2 R6 has a cross over shaft and our Ian has always used one on his F2s.

[steve-e]

Actually Kai, now Geoff's been here and answered there's not much point moving it BUT I've realised why it probably didn't get much response here at first.. the topic is Windle F2 chassisn in NZ, Build date... etc... I'd say the majority read it, thought to themselves "f2 windle in NZ, wouldn't know much about one of them" and left it at that
Thanks Geoff for getting the thread going

[Kickaha]

Kia for the 2000 season Terry built us an F2 chassis to take an R1 motor as well as the 600 Yams . The 1000 motor was left standard ( I bought it new and didnt even have a look inside). We planned to do the British Open class Championship on it and of course the TT with the 600 motor. It was a disaster, the worst handling bike I have ever ridden. It was very quick in a straight line but I couldnt lap anywhere as quick as we had done with an F2 600 .

Pete (the Pirate) Goodwin was very quick on the Bike Kia now owns with tuned chunderace motors in it, quick enough to give us a good run against the 200hp RWHP Hayabusa motor in our outfit

[oldbelly]

Kia for the 2000 season Terry built us an F2 chassis to take an R1 motor as well as the 600 Yams . The 1000 motor was left standard ( I bought it new and didnt even have a look inside). We planned to do the British Open class Championship on it and of course the TT with the 600 motor. It was a disaster, the worst handling bike I have ever ridden. It was very quick in a straight line but I couldnt lap anywhere as quick as we had done with an F2 600 .

Pete (the Pirate) Goodwin was very quick on the Bike Kia now owns with tuned chunderace motors in it, quick enough to give us a good run against the 200hp RWHP Hayabusa motor in our outfit

Well what you need in N.Z. then is a top line F2 with a good crew on board for you to compare with Warwick Hope you all have a good season down there

[Kickaha]

Well what you need in N.Z. then is a top line F2 with a good crew on board for you to compare with Warwick Hope you all have a good season down there

I think they would clean up, when are you coming over?

The Lawrences on the F2 they crashed at the Isle of Man would just about always finish top 5

[oldbelly]

I was over Feb this year Warwick ,with wife , visiting sister in law. We did a tour of South Island + a few days in Wellington (thats where she lives ). We just missed the racing. Got talking to a couple of bikers at a cafe and we had missed a street race in Nelson, we stayed there for a couple of days. You live in a beautiful place, if we were younger we would have moved down there.