Bike of the Month June 2011.
Owner: Henrik Tomforde, Bremervoerde, Germany.
This bike has been with me since 1987 when I bought it and it was just 3 years old
and slightly crashed. At that time I was already a lunatic for the ELR's and of course I was
extremely happy. After disassembly, some small repairs, a paint job and a ‘4 in 1’
race exhaust system the bike was good to run in 1988 (unbelievable how noisy bikes
were at that time).
But I remember typical problems that occurred in stock condition,
- Oil leakage very soon from valve cover, head gasket and bottom cylinder gasket
- Oil consumption up 1,5 liter per 1000km (probably caused by the exhaust system)
- Wobbly chassis
- And the engine performance wasn’t what I expected.
Then equipped with only half knowledge of motorcycle technology I started to improve the engine (at least I tried to).
1. Overhaul of engine with stock components and only small success.
All the problem's re-occured again after one summer.
2. Then forged pistons from Arias,
ported head,
Yoshimura stage 2 cams
Mikuni RS36.
But due to still incomplete knowledge of engines I made so many mistakes that it ends up
with more oil leakage and not enough engine performance.
I was simply not able to adjust all the parameters to the right level
and the 4 in 1 exhaust was a big mess as well.
However I call this EVO1.
3. In the 90th I did my degree in engineering
(if things go wrong you have to do something right!)
and I kicked off EVO2 of the engine:
increase of capacity to 1170cc with WISECO pistons,
Web cam stage 3 (the Yoshimura cams have been worn out by the way),
RS36, new Vance and Hines exhaust, ported head with big valves, polished connecting rods,
enforced clutch basket, dual plug head with Suzuki Ignition.
The output was 120hp on the rear wheel.
This engine was used over 10 years on race tracks without any problem
(and even the oil consumption was fully acceptable).
The success was based on accurate assembly and proper parameter adjustment.
With EVO3 the engine started to bend the upper rear engine mount and the drive chain became loose.
Solution Redisigned rear engine mount.
Today I’m using engine type EVO4 and here is a little inside view:
1) Custom made connecting rods from Carillo (longer than stock)
2) Custom made JE pistons 1170cc, Valve pockets and dome shape developed with 3D CAD to suit new valves and valve timing.
3) The reduction of oscillating mass is about 30% which means less vibration and lower internal forces at max rpm (or higher rpm possible).
4) Compression ratio 11:1
5) Self made overstock valves from stainless steel
6) New Valve springs, spring force adjusted to 11.000 rpm. (That job took me a long time for cam calculations)
7) Ported head
8) Dual plug with 28° ignition angle (still the good old Suzuki ignition box)
9) 4 Dyna 1.5 Ohm coils (2 in a row)
10) Self made exhaust system with Akrapovic titanium baffle.
11) No generator
In parallel I changed things on the chassis to follow up the engine performance:
1) WP front fork
2) Marvic Penta magnesium rims (the best thing I’ve done on the bike. The increase of performance is incredible)
3) Öhlins rear shocks
4) Brembo race calipers
5) Enforced Suzuki GSX-R swing arm.
6) All adaptors and bracket designed with 3D CAD and FEM
Total weight with oil and fuel: 196 kg.
After now more than 20 years I still have many ideas to make my ELR more competitive,
and I’m sure it will never be finished.
See pictures below of many items i designed for this bike and now sell.
Henrik Tomforde.
Tomforde Engineering Service
Dipl. Ing. Henrik Tomforde,
Finkenmoor 56,
Bremervoerde,
27432,
Germany,
Phone: +49 4761 74 97 97
Fax: +49 4761 74 97 77
mobile: +49 172 97 52 580
E-mail : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: www.tomforde-engineering.de
We will be featuring a different bike each month on kz1000r.com
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