The begining

Well, the NSR treated me very well for the 15 months that I owned it. Nice and quick, being a two-stroke at 30 to 35HP, but coupled with the Honda reliability. My only issue in the entire time was one of the headlight cables that had become frayed and occasionally touched the frame which blew a fuse. Issues like this I suppose are to be expected in a single cylinder two-stroke bone-shaker. It was coming up to autumn, I had done my obligatory one year on a light bike and could now move onto something heavier. I sold the NSR (for only £100 than that I originally paid!), went on holiday to aus, then came back and started looking around for a heavy.

The range of heavy bikes is massively larger than that of light bikes, and just choosing a class to go for was tricky enough. Advice offered would sway in one of two ways:
One: Go for for a 600, then eventually move on up to maybe a 750 and so on as you get used to the lighter bikes.
Two: Just go for a heavy bike, twist the throttle less and give it respect for a long time.

My choice would also depend on what came up in the second hand market, as I'm not prepared to take the £1000 hit of riding a new bike out the showroom and having to ride like a girl for 800miles whilst it beds in.
The bike had to be sporty, something to be truly proud of (it seems every vehicle before this was a stepping stone to the ultimate bike, and I was through compromising on my pride and joy). After weeks of seraching, finally a good deal turned up on a local website: a 2005, fully black Triumph Daytona 955i. Superb. I went to take a look and the feller informed me that he had just changed the tyres at 6,500miles (fantastic, since they usually last ~5000 miles) and that the bike had been used for commuting mainly (never tracked). Further, he was moving permanently to canada in three weeks, and no-one else had even called or come to take a look (selling expensive boys' toys just before christmas is a terrible idea). It was a buyer's market!
After playing the usual game involving teeth sucking, tuts, and 'hmmms', I made a guy an almost insulting offer a week later. At first he turned it down, but a week later accepted a marginally higher price. Bingo! A pretty much mint, low mileage beast of a bike for £3,400 (he was asking 4000, the book price for the model and year of bike is £4,500 to 4,800).

Insurance was steep, but I'll not go into that!


First rides

Holy shit. Coming from a 50cc bike that did ~55mph and had 6 gears (lots of shifting!), then a 125 that did ~100mph with 6 gears through to a bike that does 170mph and will hit 125mph in second gear - on it's back wheel - is more of a leap than a step up. Being a torquey 3-cylinder engine, pulling off is a cinch and was far easier than my dad's 600 inline-4. The torque curve and power curve blow you away. The power just keeps coming long after you expect it to begin to wheeze. She purrs when cruising gently but becomes gnarly when opened up with grunts, snarls and a throaty roar that's sure to make children cry. Just opening the throttle gently to full in the lower two gears will see the front wheel come off the ground as it devours straights. 75mph in first gear and a 3.2 second 0-60 time is sufficient to ease even the most extreme cases of constipation.
A lot of respect must be given, however. It's fair enough opening it up on clear straights, but I really do not have the confidence to be taking corners at any sort of speed. My riding has been of the wussy variety thus far that would likely cause much mocking laughter amongst the biker fraternity, but I would rather sacrifice 'street cred' than my life whilst learning to tame this beast.
The bike is very stable and seems quite forgiving. Since it's winter and there's often wet roads, a lot of care is needed if you're thinking of opening the power at all as she'll wheelspin and wheelie at the same time. Something you don't want to be doing, really. When the front comes down a little off-straight, the wobble sorts itself out very quickly, and the suspension can handle Jersey's dodgy roads.


Modifications

Why modify? Because this is my ultimate toy that has been on my agenda for many years now, and I want it to be a close to perfect as possible. What needs to be changed:

The exhaust: This seems to be a common gripe amongst the Daytona community. These bikes have a stunning single swingarm setup that the massive can hanging off the side obscures. The answer? A Wolf underseat exhaust system . These bad-boys promise a slight increase in power (not really needed), make a throatier sound and, most importantly, clean up that rear end. It'll prevent pillions from burning their legs, and will also make fitting bags for long distance running much simpler. There pipes aren't cheap, however.
The underseat pipes will be a nightmare to clean and will cause loads of steam when wet, so I'll have to invest in some kind of hugger to keep them clean.

The next modification will be a 'double bubble' screen. The current screen is really quite low, aiming the air pretty much right into your neck, which at speed makes your helmet lift. Since I aim to cross France and England on this bike, a taller screen will be essential. Currently the 'silver iridium' Double bubbble that should compliment my craft lid with mirrored visor looks like a great option.

Finally, some smoother indicators would be sweet. The current ones stick out like Prince Charles' ears. However, I'll be looking to find some EC-stamped road legal indicators so that the bike remains 100% legit. It's really tricky to find this kind of indicator, however.


Pipe on it's way

To hell with it!
I took advantage of a special christmas offer and picked up the dual underseat pipes. Since it's been a nightmare finding information on fitting and the sound, I'm thinking I'll put together a decent video to show this.

More to come, as and when...



At Last, Pipes!



Due to the friendly UK customs people holding up the parcel, but not informing anyone they had, there was quite the delay on the pipes arriving. Alas, they did and I was up at 8am on a Sunday to fit the puppies, along with the mini (Road legal!) inicatros I had picked up.


The instrctions that came with the pipes are a tad vague and light on photos which would have been damned useful. Three hours fitting time was quoted, but due to my cleaning the entire area, fitting the indicators, getting confused and being very anal about the whole thing, it actually took me more in the region of seven hours to get it sorted.
It's all very tightly fitted in there, but the replacement parts seem to fit well. My only concern is the radiator overflow replacement that being made of metal, doesn't allow you to check coolant levels without unbolting it and opening the lid. Also, you can't just lift the rear seat to check it, you must take the rear seat, front seat and the rear body panels off. Less than ideal, but this is the sacrifice you must make! Perhaps at some stage I'll try to figure a workable alternative that's slightly more practical.

The instructions were also a little vague about fitting the ECU into the replacement battery box. From the pictures, it looked like it just slotted in right in front of the battery, but with the stiff cables attached it was quite a challenge. The standard battery clips no longer fitted, also, so I had to strap the battery in place with some beefy cable ties. The final fitted parts look nice and neat, and it was good to take the rear end to pieces and give it all a good clean:

When I first fired it up, even with the EC rated baffles, it was crazy noisy and would have gotten me much unwanted attention from the boys in blue. Granted, it is all street legal, but the drone and constant pulling over would become tedious very quickly. Here's a quick video of the before and after sound to give you a basic idea of the sound difference:

Perhaps fine for the race track, but I couldn't cope with it for everyday use. I first had ideas of welding more plates onto the baffles to try and take away the harshness of the sound, but this was going to be very complicated with only marginal chances of success, and a potential to do damage to the engine. Instead, I picked up some fibreglass exhaust wadding my my local bike dealership and wrapped the baffles with it. I measured 10 inches for each can, then secured them with wire to stop them working their way loose. Immediately, the sound was far smoother, but still had the deep gurgle we all long for in an exhaust system.
I dropped the bike off at the local dealership and had the ECU remapped to the Triumph race mapping (there is no underseat mapping for my 2005 model), and all seems well. The power is dead smooth along the entire range, but to be honest, on the roads and speeds I've been riding on, I can't tell you I've noticed a performance difference.
Finally, the pipe and lights are pretty much completed. The only problems I've had was when refitting the rear seat or single seat unit. The replacement undertray mounts on two bolts which previously weren't used. The rubber mounts that the seat unit rests on sit on top of the undertray which of course is now a millimeter higher, resulting in the lock not quite clicking into place. This is easily fixed with a couple of washers under the locking mechanis, or my shaving 1mm from the rubber mounts.

Just for the hell of it, I took the beast up to a picturesque spot during a rather fetching sunset, and took some sexy photos of her. Deelish!




I've also got a quick fly-by video to hear the Trident pipes. Quite an impressive sound, even with the baffles still in!