The Story of a Norton Commando Racing Motorcycle Rebuild

Part 8

March 2003

After 6 months of long weekends and evenings, toiling by candle light (well, we did have some electric lights too), the bike was finally completed. It was night time, but we didn't let that stop us from firing up the beast for the first time. Believe it or not, the Norton spluttered into life on the third kick. I ran it for 20 minutes at 2500 rpm to break-in the camshaft. I got a nice visit from my neighbor Bob, but fortunately he was there to see the bike and not to complain about the noise!

However, as with all major engineering projects, there is debugging to do. I spent the rest of March and most of April fine tuning, fixing, jetting, etc. Finally the bike was ready to take to the track.

Click here for chapter 9 and the Norton's first race!