Eddie Lawsons Commando

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Low revving 850?
You dont need to rev them much for sure, but mine goes to7 k in the blink of an eye, who writes this stuff?

Glen
 
Something's not quite right....

Peashooters & breadbin airbox... with balanced headers?
I was also expecting it to be a Mk.III, but my guess is it's a Mk.IIA with different airbox & silencers - a sensible mod.

So '74 at the latest. I didn't realise that paintjob was available before the Mk.III either, but that's an assumption based on zero research!

Always liked Eddie Lawson though - one of my heroes!
 
That bike is identical to the 74 MKIIa I had. No ES. right hand shift. It may have been bought and titled in 75 but that sure is a 74.
I find it more desireable than the 75.
 
I always thought the balanced pipes only went on the noise reduction 'A' models along with the black-cap silencers, and don't work particularly well with Peashooters.

I have a set of balanced pipes and black-cap silencers for my MkIIA (which still has the plastic airbox), but I can't persuade myself to fit them!
 
I run my Mk2A with the black box but with peashooters, I have ran with and without balanced pipes and the balanced pipes give more mid range pull. Never ran the black caps as they were dumped before I bought the bike so can't say if they drop performance but the sound of the peashooters is too good too lose so will never find out.
 
My 850 had the balanced pipes and steel airfilter, it was dressed originally as a Hi Rider, but is now in Roadster and same colour scheme as The EL bike. It looks pretty original to me? I noticed chrome muffler mounts, same as mine. A mates very original MK5 750 had cad plates muffler mounts. The Peashooter's on mine were a muted type, with a little orifice that fitted in the exit. Before I began restoration I ran the engine and the exhaust note was dissapointingly quiet, so the balanced system got binned along with the mufflers, they were rusted anyway. No doubt a nice collectors item, but not much use for anyone wanting to ride it.
Cheers Richard
 
307311 II IIA 850 Roadster HiRider Interstate 850 motor with black barrel. Roadster & Interstate available as homologated model. Called MKIIA for Europe. For USA with old type silencers and air filter.

1974 first #'s and description, copied from Norvil web site, also states # 325001 first Mk111

so it looks like a 'pukka' '74 (black barrel, old type silencers and airbox for USA)
 
B+Bogus said:
I always thought the balanced pipes only went on the noise reduction 'A' models along with the black-cap silencers, and don't work particularly well with Peashooters.
Click to expand...

All standard 850s had the balance tube.

The Lawson bike is certainly a late Mk2 (not 2A).
History appears to be repeating itself!
Thread from January 2012: eddie-lawson-commando-for-sale-t12101.html
 
I was interested in the comment about the 850 motor spinning up quickly. Mine is on methanol and I'm using a close ratio box. I always try to change just below 7000 rpm, It always revs to 7,500 , and I am frightened of destroying it. I don't like rev limitters, which cause the motor to miss - when I run without a limitter, a miss always means I have a problem.
Probably a standard 850 might get to max revs a bit slower than mine, but if they are tricked up a bit they get there extremely quickly, even when pulling high overall gearing. I believe it is a characteristic of the torque increase which I have always promoted in my motor.
 
L.A.B. said:
All standard 850s had the balance tube.

The Lawson bike is certainly a late Mk2 (not 2A).
Click to expand...

Just checked a few brochures (which I should have done in the first instance!), and yes, all the 850s had balanced pipes - well there's a thing!
I'm still not fitting mine anytime soon, though!
 
Whats with all the wires hanging out of the tail light like that ?

And when you study the fuel tap, rhs, where is the lever ??
 
Maybe I'll give up on the fireflake blue 850 Mk1 (for now) and go with that RWB option.
Its growing on me....
 
xbacksideslider said:
If I had to have an 850, the non ES, RH shift late '73 or '74 would be the one.
Click to expand...

Oh, I think everyone has to have an 850 of some sort :D


Glen
 
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