1 Attachment(s)
DodgyTim's Australian RHD 818R
I picked up my kit, crate and all, and delivered it to the shipping agent on 6th March, so I thought it was time to start a build thread.
It was great to visit Factory Five, Joe gave me the tour, FFR do amazing work and the showroom was my first “in the flesh” view of the 818. Both the S and the R were there, so it was good to get to see the differences firsthand.
The crated kit is being land freighted to Long Beach, then sea freighted direct to Port of Brisbane, Australia, where I live. It should be there about mid April, but the build work won’t start until I get back to Australia at the end of May.
My build will be a pretty basic “to the manual” and “single donor” build, - I suppose most start that way and then evolve into better (more expensive) beasts…
Different bits from normal
a It is an R (but will be street registered)
b The steering wheel is on the correct side (the right!)
c It will be registered in Australia, with all the hassles that living in the nanny state brings with it
d shipping ½ way around the world
Why an R and not an S?
I'm building an 818R for the track, but with street registration. Australia is a bit of a “nanny state” where everything fun is forbidden, or taxed, or both. We have multitudes of speed cameras, red light cameras and other enforcement to make sure we are “safe” (or to raise money for the gov’t, depending on your viewpoint).
Because of this it doesn’t make any sense to have a high performance road car. The only place to use a fast car, or motorcycle, to anything like its capability, is on a track day or in a race. Track days are pretty common for bikes here, are damn good fun, and much safer than fast road riding. Track days for cars aren’t anywhere near as common or popular. So my 818 is going to be for the local hillclimb at Mt Cotton, and track days when available. For this reason it needs to be properly race legal and I believe the R roll hoop is more likely to pass the tech inspection.
There are a number of other reasons for me to choose R over S:
In Australia we have some funny (not really) design rules
1 Torsional rigidity > 4000 newton metres per degree (has to be proven by a torsion test)
2 Burst proof door locks
3 Side intrusion bars for doors
4 Fully functioning wipers that sweep a certain % of the windshield, + 2 speeds + demister + washer bottle ++++
The R is likely to be stiffer, and doesn’t have doors, so #2 and #3 don’t apply, and no windshield means #4 doesn’t apply either.
It will be easier to get an R registered than an S, weird rules…..
My plan is minimalist interior, good seats and harnesses, helmets for myself and regular passengers, safety glasses for other passengers for very short "how does it go" demo's.
The family all has helmets for other reasons, you can never start them too early…....this bloke is now 9
Attachment 27135
