Older 2 stroke fans, anyone remember these tuners?

[Rubin215]

ddom said:

Stan, fell out with him, never rated his work for regular customers, shafted me on a 350 build. It was supposed to be S3 but was weak. Turns out it wasn't honed properly. Bob Farnham sorted it, and also cleaned up the ports, made a huge difference. Best for me was Graham File, a true gent. His kit copy on my old TZ was absolutely brilliant, made a 96 bike able to match some of the fast lads on mega bucks A Kit stuff. I'll dig out the pictures, made Stan look very ropey.

One of the guys I worked with had a Stan Stephens tuned RD500 with a 916 fairing grafted on (mid-late 90's).

It ran like st unless you had the throttle wide open everywhere and it was high up the rev range and if you stopped anywhere it wouldn't start at all when it was still half-warm.

It also wasn't any faster than a decent 600...

[Rob 131 Sport]

Rubin215 said:

ddom said:

Stan, fell out with him, never rated his work for regular customers, shafted me on a 350 build. It was supposed to be S3 but was weak. Turns out it wasn't honed properly. Bob Farnham sorted it, and also cleaned up the ports, made a huge difference. Best for me was Graham File, a true gent. His kit copy on my old TZ was absolutely brilliant, made a 96 bike able to match some of the fast lads on mega bucks A Kit stuff. I'll dig out the pictures, made Stan look very ropey.

One of the guys I worked with had a Stan Stephens tuned RD500 with a 916 fairing grafted on (mid-late 90's).

It ran like st unless you had the throttle wide open everywhere and it was high up the rev range and if you stopped anywhere it wouldn't start at all when it was still half-warm.

It also wasn't any faster than a decent 600...

All is forgiven when the 4 pipes are crackling and smoking away. They also look great.

[kev b]

I had little spare cash in the 70’s and early 80’s so paying a tuner was out of the question, spare time was readily available though.

However a library book by Graham Bell and a magazine article by iirc Howard Lees gave just enough info to safely tune up various bikes especially when neighbouring engineering businesses had been persuaded to help.

As well as the usual lathes and grinders one place had a spark erosion machine with which you could reprofile combustion chambers after they had been skimmed. This was done by making a graphite electrode of the required shape and then burning away metal until you had the shape/depth needed.

I started out by blueprinting my ypvs 350 which was very successful then buying blown up bikes and seeing what could be done.

A watercooled TS125 Suzuki and an aircooled TS 250B worked out really well too, much faster but never exploding.

A blown up ex racer 250LC was soon sold on though as despite detuning it for the road it was still way too revvy and peaky, very fast though. I think it had blown up because the compression ratio was too high and it had been run on pump fuel when avgas might have been required.

Many an hour on night shift was spent calculating, measuring, making thicker/thinner gaskets and doing squish with plasticine and solder, using a burette to find CCV, dial gauge for ignition timing etc.

I hated maths at school but managed to find the figures I needed with a desk calculator and many an A4 sheet of calculations.

Great fun and I learned a lot about engineering on the way, very grateful for the help and advice given by old hands who are mostly no longer with us.

I

[Tom Logan]

Tango13 said:

Iirc Clive Padgett was the only person to get a win with an RG500 in F1.

It was a much modified 500 Gamma ridden by Darren Dixon ('88 I think).

Another tuner of note back in the day was Harry Barlow of Pro Porting in Leicester, he went to the US to work for Star Racing in Texas for a while, last I heard he was back in the UK tuning racing scooter engines.

[Rob 131 Sport]

Tom Logan said:

Tango13 said:

Iirc Clive Padgett was the only person to get a win with an RG500 in F1.

It was a much modified 500 Gamma ridden by Darren Dixon ('88 I think).



Another tuner of note back in the day was Harry Barlow of Pro Porting in Leicester, he went to the US to work for Star Racing in Texas for a while, last I heard he was back in the UK tuning racing scooter engines.

It was 1988 and it was the F1 Series (the forerunner to the current BSB) that Darren won on a race spec RG500. The bike was actually badged an ‘RGP’, with the ‘P’ standing for Padgett.

From what I can recall a stock RG500 (race bike) would produce 130BHP. I’m not sure what was done to this bike or what the power output was.

In addition to him winning the title, I do recall him going very well at a very hot British Grand Prix at Donington Park.

I and I’m sure many others miss 2 Stroke Racing Bikes.

[Tom Logan]

Rob 131 Sport said:

Tom Logan said:

Tango13 said:

Iirc Clive Padgett was the only person to get a win with an RG500 in F1.

It was a much modified 500 Gamma ridden by Darren Dixon ('88 I think).



Another tuner of note back in the day was Harry Barlow of Pro Porting in Leicester, he went to the US to work for Star Racing in Texas for a while, last I heard he was back in the UK tuning racing scooter engines.

It was 1988 and it was the F1 Series (the forerunner to the current BSB) that Darren won on a race spec RG500. The bike was actually badged an ‘RGP’, with the ‘P’ standing for Padgett.

From what I can recall a stock RG500 (race bike) would produce 130BHP. I’m not sure what was done to this bike or what the power output was.

In addition to him winning the title, I do recall him going very well at a very hot British Grand Prix at Donington Park.

I and I’m sure many others miss 2 Stroke Racing Bikes.

He also had the full blown race Mk 10 RG raced by Mark Phillips the previous year.

Padgetts had obtained the rights to the RG after Suzuki ceased production and they bought the full parts inventory hence from the Mk 9 onwards they were designated RGB500 available only from Padgetts in the UK although some incomplete bikes went to Italy.

Suzuki GB continued with a few 'works' builds, notably the honeycomb frame developed by Nigel Leaper, plus Paul Boulton and Nigel Everett built a reed valve engined bike.

The RG was well past its development limit when the 3 cyl RS500 appeard on the scene as a customer bike.

[BroadsRS6]

lazybike said:

Bill White at Beeline tuned my LC when I was racing, he built some fast sprint bikes, Stan did my KR1S, I did have an ex "works" LC engine from Stan, but it wasn't exactly legal for production racing..

I hear Bill has left us. Do you know when it was?

[Tango13]

Tom Logan said:

Rob 131 Sport said:

Tom Logan said:

Tango13 said:

Iirc Clive Padgett was the only person to get a win with an RG500 in F1.

It was a much modified 500 Gamma ridden by Darren Dixon ('88 I think).



Another tuner of note back in the day was Harry Barlow of Pro Porting in Leicester, he went to the US to work for Star Racing in Texas for a while, last I heard he was back in the UK tuning racing scooter engines.

It was 1988 and it was the F1 Series (the forerunner to the current BSB) that Darren won on a race spec RG500. The bike was actually badged an ‘RGP’, with the ‘P’ standing for Padgett.

From what I can recall a stock RG500 (race bike) would produce 130BHP. I’m not sure what was done to this bike or what the power output was.

In addition to him winning the title, I do recall him going very well at a very hot British Grand Prix at Donington Park.

I and I’m sure many others miss 2 Stroke Racing Bikes.

He also had the full blown race Mk 10 RG raced by Mark Phillips the previous year.

Padgetts had obtained the rights to the RG after Suzuki ceased production and they bought the full parts inventory hence from the Mk 9 onwards they were designated RGB500 available only from Padgetts in the UK although some incomplete bikes went to Italy.

Suzuki GB continued with a few 'works' builds, notably the honeycomb frame developed by Nigel Leaper, plus Paul Boulton and Nigel Everett built a reed valve engined bike.

The RG was well past its development limit when the 3 cyl RS500 appeard on the scene as a customer bike.

I have a copy of the Performance Bikes magazine that features the Padgetts RG500 being speed tested. As the rules in F1 said you had to use a road bike they were hamstrung by the lack of cassette gearbox that the proper racebikes had, I think the bore/stroke may have been different too?


Looks like I'm having a rummage in the loft later...

[ddom]

A couple of others, if we are talking about RG500's Roger Keen has to be mentioned, and his son Mark Keen more recently with KRP.

[Turn7]

Tom Logan said:

Tango13 said:

Iirc Clive Padgett was the only person to get a win with an RG500 in F1.

It was a much modified 500 Gamma ridden by Darren Dixon ('88 I think).

Another tuner of note back in the day was Harry Barlow of Pro Porting in Leicester, he went to the US to work for Star Racing in Texas for a while, last I heard he was back in the UK tuning racing scooter engines.

Harry Barlow used to run a heavily modded LC in the Ultimate Streetbike series, was laways one of THE fastest....

Brother had an LC with a Stephens S2 , that used to run fast at the top end in Ult Street, regular top 6 in the mph, but ET's erratic due to trying to balance wheelie/power on launch.

[lazybike]

BroadsRS6 said:

lazybike said:

Bill White at Beeline tuned my LC when I was racing, he built some fast sprint bikes, Stan did my KR1S, I did have an ex "works" LC engine from Stan, but it wasn't exactly legal for production racing..

I hear Bill has left us. Do you know when it was?

I don't, I'm sad to hear that, he was always really helpful, even when dealing with skint 19yr olds, RIP Bill

[croyde]

I bought a secondhand Stan Stephens tuned LC 250 back in the early 80s, a production racer.

It was unrideable but then I was shoite

It had been a championship winner but in my hands the poor thing just kept coming last.

I remember my first novice race at Mallory Park. I got pole position by lottery.

Green light and I was off, on one wheel. Effing hell this is brilliant, I'm in the lead.

First corner is coming up, keep going, I'm in the lead. Ooooh time to sit up and brake, everyone passes me.

Yep! I'm not racer material and I didn't like the upside down gearshift.

[Tom Logan]

Turn7 said:

Harry Barlow used to run a heavily modded LC in the Ultimate Streetbike series, was laways one of THE fastest....

Harry also built a very rapid RD400 drag bike, he also tuned a few RD400s for some of the guys who rode in the old FRC, they were usually at the front.

[BroadsRS6]

I am shocked at the Stan Stephens bad reviews, i have only ever heard good reports and he made an RG500 absolutely fly for my dad 20 years ago. 130+ bhp and totally reliable. That was and still is a lot of power from 498cc.

[ddom]

BroadsRS6 said:

I am shocked at the Stan Stephens bad reviews, i have only ever heard good reports and he made an RG500 absolutely fly for my dad 20 years ago. 130+ bhp and totally reliable. That was and still is a lot of power from 498cc.

No match for many tuners IME. Mark Dent was the man for road RG’s. Stan seems to be very hit and miss.

[Caddyshack]

BroadsRS6 said:

Stan Stephens. Beeline Racing. Terry Beckett. Nigel Porter (Sondel Sport). Granby Yamaha.

This was more dad's era than mine but Stan nevertheless put me onto someone who tuned my current little Cagiva.
At 76 Stan is still quite active though with 'things 2-stroke'!

Who did the Cagiva?

[Supercilious Sid]

BroadsRS6 said:

I am shocked at the Stan Stephens bad reviews, i have only ever heard good reports and he made an RG500 absolutely fly for my dad 20 years ago. 130+ bhp and totally reliable. That was and still is a lot of power from 498cc.

My brother drag raced an RD400 that IIRC was Stan Stephens tuned. I think he was pretty happy with the work.

[Caddyshack]

Stan Stephens was a legend when I was 16. Recently read his book and really enjoyed it.

Now 47 I have gotten in to 2 strokes again, have 3 250’s and 2 125 engines to keep me happy with another 125 on the way. I can just look at my Cagiva Mito.

Mick Abbey has done one of my pipes, Martin Johnson did my tzr 250 pipes and Kevin Ashton just did some head work for me to adjust the squish on my 257 rotax.

[MattOz]

Many years ago (early '90's) a good mate of mine had an RD350LC with Stan Stephens tune in it. Was one of the first bikes I rode on the road. Cracking thing. Remember Swarbrick as a tuner too. Swarbrick race spannies were a thing back in the day.

[rigga]

My first LC had Dave Swarbrik pipes on it, sounded epic, but made it very peaky to ride ..... having rode 4 strokes for many years afterwards, buying another LC at 50, I'd forgotten how much use the gear lever needed.