Laverda 650 Formula

Back in the day, wobbling around Three Sisters Race Track in the North of England, around mid 1998 I think... Excuse the terrible rider positioning.... 😂

1 spark

3 years ago

Naked Laverda... Notice that where the fuel tank normally is on a regular bike, on the Laverda this area is the airbox, and the throttle bodies, injectors.... The alloy fuel tank is centrally mounted inside the frame, and the alloy rear subframe with a lower section down to the swingarm pivot area, up towards the engine, and up under the rear seat. It has kinda a wide Y shape to it. With the fuel tank and (internal efi pump) mounted low, this improves the center of gravity, the bikes starter battery is fitted alongside the bottom of the tank. To fill up the tank with fuel, you lift up the pillion seat, the alloy billet cap with knurled edging in underneath to fill it up. The riders seat is actually sat on top of the fuel tank.

3 sparks

Alistair O'Grady

@chris.van.der.gaag Also, my engine got rebuilt at around 20, 000+kms, due to the dodgy Italian wiring giving the temperature gauge the wrong resistance, so when I was coming back from the WSB (or BSB?) in 1999, stuck in slow moving traffic, the needle was over halfway, but stopped before the red, i thought I was ok, once traffic had gained speed, as I went up through the gears at 70mph, the engine seized, in the outside lane of the motorway, luckilly, not much traffic, si i was able to get to the hard shoulder, my friend hadn't seen me stop, so i was a bit stuck. After letting it cool down, it started up, the starter wouldn't turn it before.... I managed to get back the few hours drive home.... The gauge reading when it stopped moving, was actually off the scale, the heads had overheated and nipped up the cams. It was 1 day inside warrenty.... It got rebuilt and blueprinted, new cams, heads, barrels, pustons, rings etc....

Alistair O'Grady

@chris.van.der.gaag BTW, my bike has high mileage, i did nearly 30,000kms during my time the first time around, the other 2 owners before I bought it back again did about 3000kms. I did over 25,000kms in the first 2 years.

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3 years ago

Laverda 650 Formula Prototype. Originally the prototype was going to be finished in a satin matt black paint, along with drillings in the fairing bodywork like the first gen Honda Fireblade. Also, the tiny letterbox headlight didn't make it to the UK due to lightning regulations, but was on European only bikes, very rare to find one. The rearsets were also drilled, which didn't make to final production.

2 sparks

3 years ago

Hello, and welcome along to a pictorial blog of the rebuild of my Laverda. I have been using the last few lockdowns to eventually put it back on the road after hibernation for the last 13 years... A short story follows.... I bought it new in 1997, owned for a few years, traded up to a new Laverda 750 Formula.... Was off bikes for some years, lost dear friends, years later found my old first bike for sale on eBay... Bought it back - the dealer had it for months without interest, it was literally weeks away from the dealer chopping it up and turning it into a trike! Laverda produced just 200 of these, and about 50 came to the UK, of those, a handful were converted to C spec, a full race Termignoni exhaust system and ecu chip was fitted. The Formula had additional carbon fibre parts over the standard 650 Sport The chassis was designed by the renowned Niko Bakker, a twin spar alloy box section extrusion, with a wheelbase of only 1375mm. The best components in the day were used, Marchesini wheels, WP Racing dampers and Brembo Goldline cast iron fully floating rotors and PR19B radial master cylinder, Weber Marelli efi. The engine was a 668cc parallel twin, oil and air cooled, based on the Laverda Montjuic, with a 6 speed gearbox. A very fine handling bike with a a peaky power band, still a competitive handling bike even now nearly 30 years later from the original prototype back in 1992. A few pictures of the Laverda below. I'll be adding more, as the rebuild is nearly done, bodywork paint and final build up just the last few things left. Supplier delays and lockdown due to the Covid 19 pandemic has caused it to drag on for quite some months longer than I had hoped, really wanted it to be done for summer, so 49 year old me csn enjoy it like 26 year old me.... Anyway, here we go...😊 Alistair

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3 years ago