Donington BSB: Engine woes hit Buildbase Kawasaki

Buildbase Kawasaki are investigating five mystery engine blow ups that have hit Tristan Palmer in his last three track outings.

At Donington, Palmer suffered a seized piston in Saturday’s first free practice session and he was forced to sit out the afternoon as the engine was sent back to the team’s base just a few miles down the road.

Subsequently stripped, the team could find nothing wrong with the engine and rebuilt in time for Palmer to go back out on Sunday, eventually qualifying 15th.

“We dropped a valve in the second race at Oulton, seized 3 big ends at Mallory and then seized a piston so we’ve been getting through engines like mad,” said team boss Stuart Hicken.

“We’ve changed all sorts on the bike – wiring looms, the injectors, the engine management system – in a bid to get to the bottom of it but, at this moment in time, we’re a bit stumped.” admitted Hicken.

“We’ve even switched from distilled water to tap water!”

“We’ve suspected the fuel, the oil and it looked like there were hot spots on the engines but each time we’ve stripped the bike down, everything’s looked fine.

“We normally do around 1800 miles with our racing engines and they still look fairly fresh so it’s a bit of a mystery at the moment.

“The engines have been rebuilt to the spec that we feel they should be so we’re hopeful that we’ve seen the end of all the blow ups!”

Team-mate John Laverty had a trouble free weekend and qualified 14th.