Dave Rawlins .Performance Commando .

Anyone got the original series of articals that these were presumeably purloined from .

Ends up 4S Cam. , 11.5 Quater .

http://commando.yolasite.com/performance-mods.php

Text and testing / development . Said they threw the intake ears out on Aircleaner too. . :lol:

Aren't these based on the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Factory Tuning sheets that were put out ?
Dave Rawlins (and Mark Baker was it ?, the development engineer)) were Norton Villiers employees circa 1973.

Where did you find words to go with those diagrams ?

It was previously discussed here that Dave Rawlins on the factory tuned bike did a clocked average 143 mph at an official meet in 1973.
Andover Norton had a pic recently of this pair and the bike - looked like an average 850 Roadster. The ultimate street 'sleeper' ?

Yes indeedy , Back in the stone age , these were published in one or two off the magazines .
Likely Cycle & Motorcycle Mechanics . Prattleed on about 4S cams , DRAG STRIPS , and Tyres .

Now Re Call the picture of the Dunlop R 43 or whatever , with the series of little round holes for grip in damp ?
The information sought refed to the development stges and 1/4 mile times achied .Culminateing in the 4S Cam.
18 in rear , and sticky tyre for TRACtion .(Id mistakenly thought TT100 , NOT )

I saw Dave R' race this bike a few times at Mallory Park in UK. It looked like a bog standard Roadster but was very rapid. He raced in open races & went very well being usually up near the front & beating a lot of pukka racing machines. He was a very quick rider though.

I met him a few years later when he was a tyre tester for Dunlop when I worked at a friends shop selling motorcycle tyres (Tex-Gee). A pretty laid back character.

Ian

Correct me if I am wrong, but was Dave Rawlins also the guy who went to Santa Pod a few times to put a Commando through the ¼ miles times?

The exhaust design looks like CR Axtell's one that I think is in the back of the Clymer manual.

The very same Bernhard . The very same young John . States 1 7/8 o.d. pipes ? .

Joined Fr pipes at fr cr low , 1 pipe under The Mega as per there , worked o.k. .on my 750 .Hi Rider tank then .

Guess Rawlins came along in the era of the sophisticated rice burners :lol: and no one cared , except the die hards .

When comparing 1/4 mile times, consider the experience or lack thereof of the pilot. I would guess an inexperienced drag strip rider could probably be bested by at least one second by an experienced drag rider on the same bike. Just guessing.

That is a point . But what he got out of it is what IS capeable of being got out of it .

Used to be a CB350 four at a certain set of lights most days on the way to work , on the Pre-Unit Triumph .
Laughable , but eventually he picked it up .
One day I come in half asleep , and he trys my game on me . Off like a flash on the green .
Im still blipping and graunching staggering off the line as he's shot through the other side , Gone .

Might've ended up with a Complex , otherwise . :lol:

Like anything else , knowledge , study and apptitude are interrelated , along with dedication , or is that fanaticism . 8)

Finesse and a delicate touch & instantaeneous reactions are likely to reduce the reliability issues .
Any hamfistedness and lack of coordination could well end up rather expensively .

Any machine set up for competition use isnt going to benefit from being used as a general dogsbody ,
so far as maintaing things in their optimum state and adjustment goes .

Generally , a entusiast road user maintained to these standards . well above average .
Explaining why some consider the performance ' available ' to be superior to the rice burners of the day .

A car maintained by the local K mart for grocery getting isnt the same as one prepared for the years anuall production raceing series , neccesarily .I hear the Hertz Shelby 350s wernt too bad though . :shock:

Matt Spencer said:

That is a point . But what he got out of it is what IS capeable of being got out of it .
Used to be a CB350 four at a certain set of lights most days on the way to work , on the Pre-Unit Triumph .
Laughable , but eventually he picked it up .
One day I come in half asleep , and he trys my game on me . Off like a flash on the green .
Im still blipping and graunching staggering off the line as he's shot through the other side , Gone .
Might've ended up with a Complex , otherwise . :lol:
Like anything else , knowledge , study and apptitude are interrelated , along with dedication , or is that fanaticism . 8)
Finesse and a delicate touch & instantaeneous reactions are likely to reduce the reliability issues .
Any hamfistedness and lack of coordination could well end up rather expensively .
Any machine set up for competition use isnt going to benefit from being used as a general dogsbody ,
so far as maintaing things in their optimum state and adjustment goes .
Generally , a entusiast road user maintained to these standards . well above average .
Explaining why some consider the performance ' available ' to be superior to the rice burners of the day .

Click to expand...

This certainly applies to the pilot, but also the engine tuner and his/her ability, or, lack of.
I rode to a Santa Pod run-what U bring meeting on Saturday on a 1965 model Norton Atlas that had been Dunstallised in the 1970s and saw an old wheezing 650 Triumph humiliated by a 250 Rice burner, just before my turn against a 400 Yamaha. I am glad to say I was first across the finishing post, but not by much, in the mid 13secs.
This with, I later found, a rubbish camshaft, that I later binned, which came from a certain shop at Well Hall Road.
As I previously stated, Dave Rawlins tried timing no less than 10!!! Norton camshafts before he got one that was right, and he also used to ride down to the Santa Pod meeting, race, and then rode home again.