CB900 engine failure

[Commander_Chaos]

I saw a couple of posts about CB900s on here and it reminded me of something I saw when I was racing in WERA vintage.

There was a guy who was racing a CB900 and kept building hotter and hotter engines for them. He was an excellent rider and didn't all of that power, but it was something he liked doing. The last time I raced against him he DNF'd with a broken connect rod. I took this pic in the pits after the race. The outlined area (A) is where the broken rod sawed completely through the case and the bottom of the cylinder. The outlined area (B) is the only material still connecting the end of the case with the rest of the motor:

http://nort_comm.tripod.com/other/hobbies/cb900failure.jpg

 

[SenseAmidMadness]

Wowie. That is absolutely catastrophic.

 

[Commander_Chaos]

Wowie. That is absolutely catastrophic.

It was good news for the rest of us because we could only beat him if he didn't finish

 

[gggGary]

Ran a brand new stock 81 900F in WERA. Raced stock, modified, and superbike classes, sprints and endurance in about 1982 Crashed our way through over 20,000 racing miles, then sold the bike to a street rider. Ran into it years later, it then had 44K on the clock, the motor had never been opened. It smoked a bit on start up but was still a great runner.

Changing front pads in the pits during a 6 hour endurance.

 

[Commander_Chaos]

It's a great bike as long as you're not trying to 135 hp at the rear wheel (I don't think he was actually getting that but it's what he claimed).