my bmw cafe racer, strange but true, i posted the photo of barse and me on my beemer at the heart of england mag rally and mentioned that a french bloke had bought the bike, i'm out walking the dogs and my phone rings, the bloke who bought my bike turns out not to be french but an englishman called jim binns who actually lives in france, jim sent me a letter asking for some background on the bike, i phoned him a couple of times and left messages but he never got in touch, [due to getting a new phone], he was having a sort out one day, found old phone and listened to his messages and found my reply, so, here's the skinny, the bike is still 800cc, oversquare so revs like a bastard, it's twin-plugged with dyna coils and magnecor racing leads, the pistons are wiseco, the heads are ported and gas flowed, the squish band altered, the crank is lightened to aid rev's, the air box is modified, the induction horns cut back and knife-edged, four inch and a quarter holes drilled in the lid, lots of modded bmw's run open bellmouths or k+n individual filters but think about the layout of the boxer engine, the air is warmed as it passes over the heads and cylinders of the engine and is sucked back into the motor, first rule of tuning, induction air should be cool and still, hence the airbox, the pipes i copied off my norton commando, the ignition is boyer-brandsen, clutch is lightened but standard plates, the wiring is one off, as is the rear subframe, standard big fuel tank but with a rickman mettise cutdown seat, front mudguard is my favourite rg500 copy with the sides cut out and mounted to a drilled out standard mudguard, headlight is an lc350 pattern part, back light is one of those m+p twin tail+brake cheapo' combo's, paintwork was done by a local scooterboy as a foreigner, [i was running a couple of vespa px 200's at this time so had a foot in both camps], all the fasteners are stainless,the rear shocks are koni 'dial-a-ride's', heavy duty fork springs with pre-load spacers, loved this bike but i just reached the end of developing it without spoiling it, jim say's i have first refusal on it if he get's fed up with it.................................................

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