Blowing up my NSR engine

Went to Tsukuba to the first time with my NSR and did two sessions.  It is one of the most interesting, technical, challenging, exciting circuits I've been to and I had a blast.

However, in my lapse of judgement I didn't fill the radiator properly with water.  I forgot to kick start the engine once to pump the remaining air out, to fill more water in, so I only had about half the amount of water necessary.

Oddly enough I didn't feel any reduction in power or feel any side effects so I just rode like normal, full throttle whenever I could.  But unluckily a clamp snapped and the little water that was in the engine all evaporated out. 

I'm super lucky that I pulled the clutch in when I did, because just then I heard the sound of metal exploding as my piston shattered to pieces.  If I had delayed by even a second I would've probably high-sided and damaged the rest of my bike.

I should've been more careful and checked my temperature more closely after the first session and before the second session, but whats done is done.

Took the bike apart to see how bad the damage was, hoping I might be able to fix it up.

And then this fell out of the exhaust.....

Took the left cylinder off and found this lonely connecting rode with no piston.... very different from all the images I've seen online.  If you look closely at the bottom of the rod you can see a chunk of my piston just chillin'.

Piston fused to the cylinder, and there is no way I'm getting that out easily.  Got a quote for an engine rebuild + the cost of replacing the cylinder and it came out to a little more than I was willing to dish out, so I decided to just call it quits and part the bike out.

I'm going to miss this bike, especially since I barely got to ride it.  I rode it about 4 times, and out of those 4 times crashed it once and blew the engine once.  So I probably only got 4 hours or so of track time on it.

Beautiful bike, and maybe one day I'll get another one, but not now.

Drastic weather calls for drastic measures

Race 3 is approaching and the weather looks really crappy so on Monday I took a look at my budget and cried a little inside, as I decided to buy a spare set of wheels and a set of rain tires

I want to get better at racing and getting rain experience is one step in the right direction.  I know it's going to be tough but this is what I signed up for.

Found a good deal on Yahoo Auction for a set of wheels, putting me back about ¥35,000

Grabbed brake rotors from the same guy as well, costing around ¥8000 and ¥4000

And then the most painful of them all, rain tires, which cost about ¥40,000 (phew)

I say painful because I've talked to many people who have bought these only to have them sit around for a year or two, get stale and have to be thrown out.  As much as I'd like to race in the dry, I've already bought these so it better rain!  Plus it'll give me practice.

Anyway it's also my first set of rain tires, so let's see how they handle on Saturday practice!