Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer

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Doug MacRae

Doug MacRae

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Me, Kenny and Jamie Waters were up at Calabogie Motorsports Park in Canada being filmed for this Vintage Racing documentary and Jamie brought out his Monocoque Norton replica he had Norman White, who worked on the original Peter Williams bike in '73, spend two years building (he also owns the only un-restored Monocoque Norton in existence). Pretty cool bike. Here is a little video I put together of firing it up and some photos I took.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVztNU-ysZo&list=UUrdIsqkpsY5bR1-LDwMVDSg&index=1&feature=plcp

Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer
 
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Beautiful shots, Douglas.

Here's a vid of the bike on our shop dyno a couple of days before. I ran it up through the gears a few times and my goodness, did it spin up quick! This bike has hair.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDdwSMV0ZsY&feature=g-all-u[/video]
 
If you look at my little start up video you can see Kenny suiting up and walking by towards the end...
 
Years ago, I had a dream to try to build one of those machines. Realized quickly when researching that it was way beyond my means. Good to see one out there.

RSR
 
That is one rip sawing vertical twin engine! What got my attention most of all was the reported new found predicable ease to drift turns to aim its hairy thrust. Monocoque relates back to the sheet metal yokes post as being one the lightest strongest construction methods. What a high yoose racers get to share with us at home.
 
In case you are wondering why he is bouncing up and down on the seat in the video, like the original, the fuel pump is powered by swingarm movement.
 
hehe, that fuel pumping team work before races was soon taken up by the various competing nations teams in hopes it would help their handling too : )
Would of been even funnier if the Norton crew exploited that further by say a hand cranked or electric whirley gig brought to bike in a bag, make some noises then back in bag, just to watch the antics of other teams scramble to figure it out.
 
Re: Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer

Unread postby Doug MacRae » Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:43 pm
In case you are wondering why he is bouncing up and down on the seat in the video, like the original, the fuel pump is powered by swingarm movement.

Long time ago but I seem to remember that they had problems when the fuel pump was powered by the swing arm (vaporisation?) so they went to an electric fuel pump. Anyone else know anything about this.
ando
 
Dave, Jamie's is the only unrestored Monocoque. I believe there are two? others out there, both built around frames found at the race shop, I don't know all the details about them. Jamie's is exactly as last raced by Dave Aldana, untouched and still with the #13 on it. It is a pretty compact bike.
I took this pic of it a few years ago at his shop;

Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer
 
swooshdave said:
Isn't there a mono in MN?
Click to expand...

Dave, Jamie's bike is the one that used to be in MN. It was at the Frutiger brothers shop there. They bought it from NVT in Duarte back when it folded up in the '70s. They had it on display for many years in their small motorcycle shop, and refused many offers to buy it. I visited them once to make an offer, but when they told me they had turned down an offer of $250,000, I settled for taking pictures instead. I think Jamie paid closer to twice that for it. It was totally original as raced. Still had oil stains on the engine. Jamie bought it from them a few years ago (2009 or 2010?) and then had Norman White buld the replica using it to guide him. Here are a couple shots of it as it was displayed at the Frutiger shop.

Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Firing up the Monocoque Norton racer


Ken
 
Not Bad for a obsolette pushrod twin . :wink:

parently the s a pump was ok in the IoM , but Daytona was a bit flat . One must warm the shocks to prime the pump . 8)

Ye norton was the lowest hight & lowest frontal area of the period F 750 Racers . And the pilot had not components exposed . / beyond frontal cover .
So it fare whizzed along . Could snot the big rice burners on a twisty track through vastly superior road holding & controlability . Would think japper HP
vastly exaggerated , and also powerbands bloody useless . All top end so no refined controlability . Remember Rayborn snooted them on the Old waffle Iron
on twity races in the U.K.

The nasty little japs produce a plethoria of Twins these days . The press said they were obsolette & archaic in the 70s . Never happy unless theyre whineing .
 
Is it a short-stroke?, is there a dyno graph to post?
They were modelled to fit P.Williams, when John Cooper joined the J.P.N. team, [having just hopped off a well-sorted, super-trick Rob North/Doug Hele Beezumph] he wasn`t too impressed, he didn`t fit!
Plus - he didn`t reckon it went any better than the previous Commando-based chassis, road-holding-wise.
They do look the biz, though, very swish..although, the `74 J.P.N. spaceframe does have better proportions stylistically..
Matt, the good thing about early F 750 [when there was a big variety of production superbikes for factory homologation as racing machines] was the differences that made for great racing,& do note that Y.Du Hamel [riding a 'nasty, ill handling 2-stroke japper'] tied with P.Williams as individual top points scorer in the `73 Trans-Atlantic Series on those naggery scatchers circuits..
 
Ah Matt, lets just let the facts run away with us for a momentino here shall we?
At Daytona,early `70s - J.P.N. went ~150mph on ~75hp vs Beezumph ~160 mph on ~85hp vs H2R ~180mph on ~100hp...
& as for "powerbands bloody useless" ah don`t think so..check out P.11 this pdf for a dyno chart of the mill Y.Du Hamel used to keep P. Williams`snot in check..
http://www.3cyl.com/mraxl/manuals/h2r/h2rservice.pdf
 
J.A.W. said:
Is it a short-stroke.
Click to expand...

It's been 10 or 12 years since I visited the Frutiger shop, but I'm pretty sure the bike had a conventional 89 mm stroke 750 engine. I don't know what they did for Jamie's replica. I used to have a link to a website where Norman White and his associates explained the build in detail, but I seem to have lost it. They might well have done a short stroke. I'm sure Kenny C. could answer the question, if he reads this post.

Ken
 
Matt, better git googlin` hadn`t ya boy, if``n ya gonna prove me wrong, Daytona-wise...
If you`d given my 'wreck' some stick when you had the chance, you`d have some idea..
Get your calculator out & compute a 1/4 mile with a 160kg curb being powered by 77 rwhp, [bearing in mind its still got 5th to go at the lights - top end is ~225km/h, naked [no fairing - not - R. Free-style..]
 
so will it manage 12.5 in the quater ; got the time card ? Must be a lot of drag to only do 135 , a old R3s timed at 132 .
 
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