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Mid Ohio Vintage Races

1969 CL350

1969 CL350

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2020
Total Posts
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Total likes
609
Location
Alabama
Our vintage club race team competed in the AMA Mid Ohio vintage races this past weekend in the 500 Sportsman class (V2). Our rider, Graham Carlton, had never ridden the track before and took home 1st place finishes in both the Saturday and the Sunday races on the CB450 racer. Congrats to the team!!!

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1969 CL350 said:
Our vintage club race team competed in the AMA Mid Ohio vintage races this past weekend in the 500 Sportsman class (V2). Our rider, Graham Carlton, had never ridden the track before and took home 1st place finishes in both the Saturday and the Sunday races on the CB450 racer. Congrats to the team!!!

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Congratulations! Really cool bike!
 
1969 CL350 said:
Our vintage club race team competed in the AMA Mid Ohio vintage races this past weekend in the 500 Sportsman class (V2). Our rider, Graham Carlton, had never ridden the track before and took home 1st place finishes in both the Saturday and the Sunday races on the CB450 racer. Congrats to the team!!!
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RJ and company clearly have that thing running very well. Yes, congrats to him and Graham, another nice win.

Nice to see one without all the external oil lines and other trappings. He can't be running the stock oil pump, can he?
 
ancientdad said:
RJ and company clearly have that thing running very well. Yes, congrats to him and Graham, another nice win.

Nice to see one without all the external oil lines and other trappings. He can't be running the stock oil pump, can he?
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There are some external lines to a filter (?) on the front of the engine. There used to be some sort of contraption attached to the case where the centrifugal oil “filter” is normally found, but it’s gone now. If I remember correctly, the engine incorporates ported CB500T heads that are converted to use conventional valve springs. If the CB500T oil pumps were better than the old ones and will fit, maybe that’s what it has.
 
1969 CL350 said:
There are some external lines to a filter (?) on the front of the engine. There used to be some sort of contraption attached to the case where the centrifugal oil “filter” is normally found, but it’s gone now. If I remember correctly, the engine incorporates ported CB500T heads that are converted to use conventional valve springs. If the CB500T oil pumps were better than the old ones and will fit, maybe that’s what it has.
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Typically when you see external lines from the right crankcase cover and the different oil filter cover, it means it has the Cappellini parts in it - their Eaton oil pump (lots of bottom end mods necessary) and the paper cartridge filter along with the external oil delivery. I can understand going to the coil spring conversion for road racing, lots of laps at continuously high rpm, long term reliability with aftermarket cams. If it wasn't so expensive I'd do it myself, but at least I have NOS torsion bars for my last engine build effort and it will get run a much shorter amount. Pretty sure the 500T had the same pump as the later 450, I'd be shocked if they didn't use something better. Maybe they just ditched the cam feed lines and paper filter but kept the Cappellini pump, I'd imagine it could be done. Either way it's good to see that bike running good and winning races. (y)
 
Cool, nice 450 racer! Congrats! I’m guessing this will be racing in October at Barber as well? If so, I’ll have to try and catch it in action.
 
At the Barber Vintage Festival a couple weekends ago, Graham finished 6th on Saturday and 5th on Sunday, among some pretty stiff competition. The engine needs a little more power for that track, but yesterday R.J. told me that he and the team are working on a couple more engines that should make more power.
 
1969 CL350 said:
At the Barber Vintage Festival a couple weekends ago, Graham finished 6th on Saturday and 5th on Sunday, among some pretty stiff competition. The engine needs a little more power for that track, but yesterday R.J. told me that he and the team are working on a couple more engines that should make more power.
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A couple more ENGINES? For a total of three engines to choose from?
Or a couple more engine modifications for the current engine?
 
ts354 said:
A couple more ENGINES? For a total of three engines to choose from?
Or a couple more engine modifications for the current engine?
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Pretty sure he really means engines, easier to have at least one spare engine while on a race weekend so they can simply swap engines instead of trying to repair one engine while at the track if something fails.
 
ts354 said:
A couple more ENGINES? For a total of three engines to choose from?
Or a couple more engine modifications for the current engine?
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A couple more engines. RJ (the owner of the race bike) is working on some different head porting on the second engine, as well as duplicating most of the other mods that were done to the current race engine onto the ported one. He’s being a little secretive about the third engine, though…😄
 
1969 CL350 said:
A couple more engines. RJ (the owner of the race bike) is working on some different head porting on the second engine, as well as duplicating most of the other mods that were done to the current race engine onto the ported one. He’s being a little secretive about the third engine, though…😄
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How reliable are the 450's?
Would a rebuilt to factory spec engine be safe to do a few races or track days on?
 
ts354 said:
How reliable are the 450's?
Would a rebuilt to factory spec engine be safe to do a few races or track days on?
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I've had my 450 to 2 different drag strips (1/8 mile and 1/4 mile) since I put the engine together and thrashed it both visits in multiple runs, plus I ride it hard on the street every time it gets ridden. It has over 3000 miles on it since I built the engine and it runs like new, with 74mm (497cc) 11.6:1 pistons, MegaCycle 120-40 long duration camshafts and 36mm Mikuni carbs so even a non-stock 450 engine, built well, can handle the abuse as long as you do your due diligence in maintenance and oil changes.

Check out this video and this video.
 
Dang, what redline??? I saw the needle go into the red and then come out the other side!!
That's amazing. Well, certainly a well built stock engine should hold together for a few laps at a track day. I'll keep that in mind. :)
 
ts354 said:
Dang, what redline??? I saw the needle go into the red and then come out the other side!!
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Nah, but it will easily go 11,000 if you don't shift in a hurry. The video on the local road was almost 100 mph when I shifted to 5th at just under the cams' power peak of 10,500 sitting completely upright (Gearing Commander calculates speed from rpm, internal and sprocket gearing and tire circumference, our old speedos aren't good for much more than stock looks)
ts354 said:
That's amazing. Well, certainly a well built stock engine should hold together for a few laps at a track day. I'll keep that in mind. :)
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Thanks. So when people say these old engines aren't capable of running hard reliably, I say BS. In my build thread for that bike, I posted a couple pics from back when I built and ran my original drag bike in the early '70s with essentially the same parts combination, and with a younger, more svelte me riding (at 170 lbs) it ran consistent 12.50s at 105 mph at the local quarter mile.
 
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