[nf343vr]

I am new here so maybe some one already thought of this. Over the winter I built a cl160 race bike. I will be racing it in USCRA events as well as at the Atlantic Vintage TT in NS. I checked out all the online info to make them fast and did what I could but never found anyone who had done this. It seems the hot set up is the Petronix system. I thought, maybe unnecessarily, that keeping the spark advance would be a good thing, especially since the 160 is only a 4 speed and the two tracks I race (I already run a cb450) are pretty hilly. The Petronix requires you to do away with the advance unit and run full advance. I bought an EMPI Accufire system for an air cooled VW on E-Bay for $39 and adapted it to the 160. It took some adapting but it works great and I still have my advance. The hardest part was making the original points cam longer and squaring it and then carving out the rotor to make it fit the cam. The rest was easy, mounting the unit to the points plate, punching out two of the four magnets and making a spacer for the bolt that holds the whole thing on the end of the camshaft. At $39 a pop you could keep a few around for spares! Anyway I will be glad to answer any questions and, by the way, I figured out an easy way to adapt Mikuni flange mount carbs to the 160 also!
Ride and race safe.

KCampbellNH

 

[jbranson]

The reason people don't use the OEM mechanical advance on a CB160 race bike is that the advance is all in before 4,000 rpm....about the only time you'll be below 4,000 rpm is in the pits.

OEM advance is mainly for starting issues...allows them to run a low advance for easy starts and stable idling. On a race bike the timing inaccuracies caused by the slop in a mechanical advance is far more of a disadvantage than the lack of low advance at idle and just off idle rpms.

I'm pretty sure the intake flanges I sell here: http://www.jrbranson.com/BikeParts/CDR-Parts.htm
will fit a 160...but I could be wrong. I just use a pair of these and weld on a slightly curved section of 1.125 OD tubing and clamp the carb spigot to the tube.
JohnnyB