This Fireblade is FAST! On Track shake down and finishing touches for Franco's Honda Superstock Bike

The Fireblade is ready for the track so Dave heads to Cadwell Park for a cold start to the year. Is the Fireblade as fast as he hopes? Will everything work?
When then track action stops it's back to the workshop to fit the Motec Datalogger and get ready for Spain
Obsession Engineering and Marvel HCL Motorsport are building a Superstock Fireblade for our racing protege Franco Bourne.
If you'd like to be involved in the journey with us, to bring on racing's next star rider, please email team boss Matt at
[e-mail]
Or check out the Obsession Engineering pages
obsessionengineering.co.uk/
Big thanks to Paul at TrackSnapz for the thumbnail photo

[@stephenbeamis1151]

Loving all the insight you are showing to make the bike into a racer when you see the bikes in the paddock you can't appreciate the hours that have gone into converting it. Sounds awesome on track 😊

[@thebones]

That's a lot of clever thinking going on there Dave, you'll be exhausted for the rest of the season now. Crack on though , another great episode.

[@DeathsStalkerRVT]

Great video I always enjoy your stuff and I see Lee Johnston gave your a plug in his video today

[@missydee6085]

Lee never plugs anyone for nothing. He'll be after summat! 😄

[@Bow-to-the-absurd]

My big take-away from this build is that new bikes are ridiculously complicated.

[@gerrycollins2335]

Oldie alert! Like me you are nostalgic for the pre-electronics era. And like me you use a full stop at the end of a sentence.

[@Bow-to-the-absurd]

​@@gerrycollins2335 my last new bike was 2005 zx6r. Those early electronics sucked, only now are they delivering the promise of elevated, seamless control.

[@barry5138]

Cars nowadays are designed to be unserviceable or maintained by the owner

[@philipbrown2514]

True that

[@bigal5895]

Very enjoyable - great insight into the prep required to compete in BSB stock thou . The devil is in the detail..

[@cbrrob1670]

This video has already made my Sunday

[@bigjam8429]

A lot of money in this bike well done davey

[@stevesanelli90]

Hey Dave, what an incredible masterpiece of development & ingenuity. Hopefully it all goes well in Spain for rider, bike & your expertise! So looking forward to this next chapter & challenge 🤙

[@user-nt9nd7xm5f]

Love the technical insight, quite some engineering. All the very best for the season 🏍💨✊

[@Final_Boss_Racing]

Those Hel brake lines are looking good!!

[@karlvanboxel561]

Top notch work as usual beast of a bike

[@stevec-b6214]

Great work! attention to detail is outstanding.

[@Oilyhands749]

Best of luck in Spain , seeing all this it really does give a great insight 👍

[@stewartgunter9878]

We had the same pot issue on our 23 R1 Ktech DDS shock, we made a clamp that went around the ride height nut ride height nut

[@mattmid7012]

A job well done Dave! Amazing how much had to be done. I'm no mechanic but it seems to me the stock road bike has now essentially been turned into Trigger's Broom Superstock race bike. Now Franco just has to keep it on the tarmac to keep your workload down! Looking forward to seeing how he gets on this season.

[@cecilwilson5442]

Great video thanks it's going to be a great year for the Honda,, with so much R&D put. Into the fireblade now it's paying for the focus on the track,,be a great season coming ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ from northern Ireland 😁

[@troywee4774]

very nice - lots of faff but worth it in the end! cheers.

[@paulhenry1387]

Fantastic job, as ever Dave. Great to see the tests in Spain went well. Will be down to watch official test at Donington & can't wait for Silverstone opener. Great team, great young rider.

[@obsession_engineering]

Pop in and say hi at Donington

[@Errol.C-nz]

@@obsession_engineering I thought "engineers" were supposed to be creative.. your shock sensor..fit a double nut to the shock eye bolt to extend out.. make an extension tube/sleeve to fit the end of the sensor rod end to bot direct to the double nut.. elegent & simple !

[@lukesavage1801]

Awesome video 👍

[@Shinysideup]

Interesting stuff as usual Dave, looking forward to seeing Franco doing the business STK class.

[@jhstony]

Well done Dave another great video

[@lewissabin3884]

Brilliant video’s so looking forward to watching next one

[@hazlo1836]

Great vid!

[@miguelgoverno]

Great bikes, loved mine to bits but too crazy for knockhill so swapped for RS660 🏁🏁

[@joshuaman1126]

Cool look inside all the telemetry mounting

[@kevinjewison4951]

Good luck for Spain Dave great insight into developing the blade there is a lot of thought goes into it but your doing a fantastic job yeaa. Motorbikes are great 👍

[@richardhorton25]

rear shock potentiometer - why not make a circular plate to fit under the spring with a tab to take the lower potentiometer mounting ? - only measuring the actual movement of the damper rod then and mostly out of the way of the ride height adjuster

[@obsession_engineering]

I did look at that, my concern was the very slight spring rotation when it compresses/extends could move the pot. And it'd change the preload so would have to move the preload adjusters too

[@deanmsimpson]

That was really interesting. Things look very delicate 🙈 Let's hope Franco doesn't crash the bike much ☺️

[@gerrycollins2335]

I hate to think of all that complexity sliding along in a gravel trap.

[@stephenbooty3773]

Great vid. Loving this series. Anything on the Tuono yet? 😂

[@obsession_engineering]

Not much, but I will get to it eventually 🙄

[@mickymondo7463]

Whenever I have had to plug and move a threaded hole like that, I always install a Timesert into the Aluminium, I have found it to be much more secure, especially if the bolts will be removed and refitted at any point, and on something as important as brakes I prefer a belt and braces approach

[@robincoulter5228]

You shot past that rider on the approach to the first corner.

[@grachoderunwiderstehlichen]

so much wight😊

[@TheOriginalCoda]

Dave, daft question, could you not affix the pot between the swingarm and seat rail? Is it swingarm travel one is interested in or purely the shock length? I'm sure you can easily figure this out if you take a 'Big cuppa tea and a Slice of Swiss Roll break' 😀

[@obsession_engineering]

Really wants to be the shock travel as that's the measurement needed to know where in the stroke the shock is, topped out, bump stop etc. With swing arm position you'd need calculate the shock movement still and that'd require exact linkage ratio and position on the swing arm would need to be very specific

[@TheOriginalCoda]

@@obsession_engineering Thanks for the explanation. One learns something every day 🙂

[@sharvey1192]

Couldn’t you have drilled and thread the bottom shock bolt to mount your pot?? Anyway keep it up nearly there.

[@obsession_engineering]

I did look at that, but it needed an even more elaborate bracket to miss the linkage

[@LasseJOugaard]

Is the bracketry on the damper necessary? Couldn't you get away with drilling and tapping a tiny hole in the end of the bolt for the linkage? Even with the ballsocket on the end, the bolt would still fit through the clevis. You just need to pop the potentiometer off, when you want to remove the damper. Anyway, interesting to follow along with the process. Any racing machine is so complicated nowadays. Imagine running one of the modern hybrid racecars! 😬

[@obsession_engineering]

I did look at mounting on the shock bolts but the bracket would have been especially elobrate!!

[@davidpierce7318]

Love cadwell but how cold was it

[@obsession_engineering]

Actually surprisingly good weather, considering the time of year

[@steveball2307]

Oh for the days when it was a magneto, some Bowden cables and a stopwatch! 😂

[@franklinwilkerson2061]

And of course 2t.

[@peterlandberg]

Why not tap the shocks lower mountingbolt for the sensor?

[@obsession_engineering]

I looked at that but it would have needed an even more elaborate bracket

[@peterlandberg]

@@obsession_engineering ah ok! Hope it works :)

[@am3197]

Dave any reason why this over a s1000rr or R1? Looking at a trackday/club racing bike with very few mods budget £15k

[@obsession_engineering]

It's faster and easier to set up than either the r1 or bmw. Simples! Although you've no chance of building one for £15k. For that budget I'd chase a good spec gen 3 bmw or r1

[@theeezypeezy2870]

Could you point me in the direction of a company who makes brakes lines with quick disconnects? TY

[@obsession_engineering]

I've never used dry break lines but hel list them www.helperformance.com/staubli-quick-release-dry-break-coupling-3mm-flow-diameter-3-jic-4-jic-and-m10

[@Final_Boss_Racing]

I saw you had a cameo on Lee Johnston vid today how many teams do you work with bro😂

[@obsession_engineering]

I might have to watch that, best content he'll get 😂

[@Final_Boss_Racing]

@@obsession_engineering 😂 very true!! You were wearing a white shirt and you were sitting at a table on your laptop and he told you to wave to the fans!!

[@jeffo_511]

Hey. So the 2022 hrc ecu has some diff setting and values over the hrc 20/21 version. But they haven’t update the hrc data setting software. So I’m lost on how to set up the ecu data settings. I’m in the USA, club racer. Please please any help would be appreciated. 🙏🙏

[@obsession_engineering]

There's an update supplement for the manual. If you drop me a message to [e-mail] I'll email it over

[@jeffo_511]

@@obsession_engineering omg. Thank you so much!! 🙏🙏 emailing now

[@Tyrekickingwetdreamer]

Why not a scooter brake

[@obsession_engineering]

Franco thought the thumb would be better, as you can keep a normal grip of the bar and still use it, oh and with the scooter brake it's not uncommon for riders to over use them, as they're so easy to just keep pulling.

[@franklinwilkerson2061]

I Just want the potentiometer on my front fork cuz it looks cool. The data itself is just gobbleygook to me .