What makes a superbike?

Most of us are familiar with the sight of these shrieking mechanical monsters firing round a racetrack - even if it's only via a TV screen - but we rarely get a chance to get up close and personal. So we here at BikePoint thought we'd help you with that.

The Private Don

We decided to go with the latest toy out of the Stafford Motorcycles stable, partly because it was easy to access, and mainly because it is representative of the state of the art in Australia. Privateer team owner and ringmaster Don Stafford has been involved with these things since Moses played fullback for Jerusalem and is a good source of info on the subject.

So what we're looking at here is an Over Racing Yamaha R1, based on the 2003 model road bike. The 2004 gizmo has changed substantially.

 Local superbike rules allow a pretty free hand on modifications. It's effectively a silhouette class, which means it needs to bear a strong visual resemblance to the road machine and many components can be upgraded.

We'll start with the chassis, which in this case scores an Ohlins (which is Yamaha-owned) shock, along with upgraded internals on the forks and some careful tweaking (rather than radical replacements) on the brakes. Wheels are standard. Add a steering damper and dump anything that looks like superflous road gear.

More horses, Vicar?

The engine is where the big changes happen. We're talking about going from around 135 horses at the back tyre in stock road trim to a hair-raising 185 in race mode.

Over cams (more duration and different timing), valve springs (heavier and stronger) plus ECU (with variable settings) are central to the package, as is a full titanium competition exhaust. The airbox is also given a seeing-to, while the head is ported and flowed.

 This year, for the first time, the head, valves, pistons and exhaust all received high performance coatings from a business (HPC) in Wonthaggi, Victoria. Don is uncertain about what the actual performance gain for this is, but did mention that the overall development from 2002 to 2003 raised the output from 174 horses to the current 185.

A final touch is the switch to a lighter 520-grade chain and sprocket kit, versus the 530 rear. Though theoretically less robust than the stock kit, the lighter gear will also rob less horsepower.

Hot times

Finishing off the package is the inevitable race bodywork, plus crash protection such as the Oggy knobs that double as a race stand pivot up front and an Over clutch protector.

Rider 'comfort' is taken care of with a nylon race seat and four-position Over rearsets.

 What does all this add up to? We've already mentioned the horsepower - the real test is lap times. In this case regular rider Stephen Tozer (who came a very respectable fourth in the champs in 2002, but dropped to eighth after a more traumatic 2003) scored a best time on the 165 kilo missile of 1:35.8 at Phillip Island. So how fast is that? It would have got him front row at a GP at the same place not so many years ago and is a hot time by any standards.

In case you were wondering, the machine is for sale - we spotted a price tag of $24,000 on it. Staffords can be reached on tel (03) 9459 3427.

By Guy Allen