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Mashup
Here's a hypothetical question.
You're building a 600cc race bike. You have forty thousand dollars for the project (we'll leave the initial cost of the bike out of it for now) and a decent machine shop available to you.
Do you take a stock bike and modify it to meet your needs or do you mix and match components from a number of bikes to create a winning bike. Or do you pull a Britten and throw away the standard design book and build something unique?
What components would you use?
Which stock bike in this class do you think is best?
I'm not looking to start a flame war here. I'm interested in opinions of bike design and approach. I've seen some very cool stuff done with bikes that combine many different components, frames, fronts, rears even engines all from different bikes. Then again, starting from stock and modifying only what you need to is pretty impressive too.
Of course, in the end, it all comes down to the rider but we'll leave him (or her) cooling their heels for now too.
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Re: Mashup
For 40 grand, you are not going to be able to beat OEM Japanese engineering these days as a basis to start with. If you fully account for the cost of the labour, it will cost somewhere near that to take any of the modern Japanese 600's (or a Triumph 675, which is my favorite in that class) and properly race prep it.
Stock 600 + Ohlins shock + Ohlins fork internals + bodywork + paint + Ohlins steering damper + go through the engine and do what's legal + rearsets + exhaust (Akro seems to be among the best these days) + chain/sprockets + tires + a spare bike. You can spend 40 grand like this NO PROBLEM.
Any other course of action will cost more and will probably be less effective, and in any event it may not be allowed due to homologation rules in all 600cc racing classes. If the fundamental course of action is against the rules, then the whole deal is a non-starter.