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![mickmack22](/community/{'last_name': u'McKinley', 'show_signatures': 1, 'ip': None, 'image': u'img/users/spokaneandwork_001.jpg', 'site_id': 1L, 'preferred_name': u'mickmack22', 'avatar_t90': u'img/avatars/minime_t90.jpg', 'id': 3292L, 'occupation': u'P.E. Teacher', 'city': u'Auburn ', 'first_name': u'Michael', 'user_id': 3348L, 'zip': u'98002', 'title': u'New Reader', 'post_count': 1L, 'avatar_t50': u'img/avatars/minime_t50.jpg', 'show_postpreview': 1, 'state': u'WA', 'geocode': u'47.306531, -122.215664', 'homepage': u'http://www.myspace.com/macpioneerpe', 'interests': u'Racing and More Racing!', 'bio': u"I race a 1970 Fiat 850 Spider that my father owns. My father used to race a Fiat 600 in Conference racing back in the 1970's but has since lost his sight. So I've taken the mantle as driver and he remains as my able bodied mechanic.\r\n\r\n", 'staff_order': None, 'display_on_map': 1, 'open_board_links': 1, 'birthday': datetime.date(1964, 11, 22), 'collapse_board_posts': 1, 'country': u'USA', 'send_emails': 0, 'partner_share': 0, 'avatar': u'img/avatars/minime.jpg', 'signature': u'', 'send_newsletter': 1}/){kind=link}
Stripping and mounting the Berzerkeley body Nov 13, 2007
Chassis builder and former GRM/Kumho Challenge winner Denny Crabill brought the now nearly done Berzerkeley to the $2007 Challenge to show competitors and spectators what he had been up to.
With the Challenge, and not the SEMA show over, it is time to dig in and finish the Berzerkeley. The first order of business was to strip the body of its old paint. It does not appear that the fiberglass car had ever been gelcoated.
Team member Gary Hunter had the body stripped in a little over a day. The outside of the body was stripped with 80 grit paper on a DA sander. He also blasted the inside of the body with Eastwood’s unique soda blaster kit. This kit uses less air pressure than a standard media blaster and the baking soda like media cuts well and does lots less damage to delicate old fiberglass than standard sand.
With the body stripped and cleaned it was once again time to fit the body to the chassis. This time, rather than pull the engine and disassemble the frame, we took the three-piece body apart. We were planning on re-riveting and bonding the body pieces together anyway so this proved to be a valuable step.
At this point we also got our 13x5.5” alloy wheels (bought from someone’s abandoned BMW 2002 project at a swap meet for $100) cleaned up. To these wheels we mounted some Kumho 215/50x13” tires. These Kumhos stretch the limits of a 5.5” wide wheel, but give us a great footprint and the ECSTA V710s are some of the fastest tires we have ever tested.
With the body mounted it was clear we would need slightly more wheel well in the front and we also had to adjust the shape of the dash to fit around the killer paddle shifters that Denny had designed. The modifications were so easy to do in fiberglass. In fact, we got most of the glass work done on the body on one Saturday all for the cost of materials, which was about $100.
Berzerkeley goes to PRI Dec 13, 2007
Our Berzerkeley project car is now in gelcoat and on its way to the PRI show in Orlando where it will become the centerpiece of our booth (#1145).
Gary Hunter and Tim Suddard handled the body repair with expert guidance from Tim Manders of The Body Werks, who came over on a Saturday to give us a lesson in fiberglass repair. Full coverage of every aspect of this project will begin in the April, issue of Grassroots Motorsports.
With this crucial body work step complete, after the PRI show, the next step in this nearly finished project will be to plumb and wire it. Once running, the next step will be to test, tune and sort. Once everything is sorted, then final paint work will commence.
This project will be finished and run for exhibition at the Kumho $2008 Challenge Challenge, presented by CDOC and eBay Motors. This event, sanctioned by NASA will be held then first weekend in October 2008 at Gainesville International Raceway.
Berkeleying Berzerkeley Mar 17, 2008
We were able to spend some quality time with our cantankerous little Berzerkeley over the weekend as we work toward getting it to move under it’s own power. Now that all of the major components have a home in the chassis, our most immediate need is to sort the wiring.
We gave our eyes and brains some exercise by tracing the bundles of colored wire around the chassis. Our donor bike’s wiring harness wasn’t 100% complete, so to ensure our ability to flow electrical energy to all the important components we’re going to need to splice a few connectors together before this stage of the build is complete. The good news is that we’ve got all of the major branches of the wiring harness identified.
As we’ve been spending more time with the little beast, we noticed that the long hours of pushing one another up and down the driveway (driver has to make engine noises) have taken their toll on our VW-sourced steering box. Tightening a setscrew helped, but we’ll need to pin or spline the shaft before attempting any speed records.
Berzerkeley Lives! Jul 28, 2008
Well, the Kumho Tires $2008 Challenge presented by Grassroots Motorsports is approaching rapidly, and there's still a lot of work to be done on our Berzerkeley. However, we have completed a very important step: The Berzerkeley's Suzuki GSX-R powerplant came to life over the past weekend.
After chasing sparks through the wiring harness, we finally got the motorcycle ECU to play along with the rest of our electrical system. Completing this step and verifying that our engine would indeed run, we were further impressed by the absolutely angry noises the car made. We haven't quite installed an exhaust system, either, so it kicked out some pretty impressive flames from the header.
Next, we'll further clean up the wiring, install the exhaust and refit the fiberglass body shell. We'd also like to tighten up the steering gears a bit before taking the Berzerkeley on the road. That should even leave us some time to test the car before the Challenge.
Berzerkeley in Motion Jul 30, 2008
We've really gained momentum with Project Berzerkeley. It seems that getting the engine to fire last week inspired a flurry of additional activity this past weekend. We've heard that success leads to success, so we shouldn't have been surprised when Per and Tom got the beast in motion.
Now that the engine was running, we affixed a somewhat rough facsimile of an exhaust system to prevent the roadside grass at our double-top-secret test facility from erupting into flames. This will also protect our test crew from going deaf.
Before we tried to drive it, we gave the whole Berzerkeley a thorough preflight inspection--we wanted to ensure that we'd be able to stop and turn when we were underway. Once we had checked all of our vital fluids and reinstalled the seat, we felt we were ready to test the core of the vehicle in motion.
We only drove about a quarter of a mile, but it was a long enough distance for us to make a few important determinations.
Our GSX-R 750 engine is running well and seems to be happy in its new home. The gearbox is also working as advertised--while we didn't rev beyond 5000 rpm or so under a load, we did row through the gearbox without incident. Mechanical controls for the clutch, brakes and throttle all work well, but we're still not 100 percent sure about the steering. The suspension seems to be pretty compliant and controllable up to about 30 miles an hour in a straight line, so it won't be long before we're ready to expand the test envelope to include some real driving.
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