| Author | Message | ||
     Isiahstites |
I got a great lesson from Randy at MDR on how to mill the pistons, he finished them Monday evening but I just didn't have the time to install them between work and my busy schedule. So this will be my last post on the bike until we get back from Bonneville. I will finish the bike when I return and hopefully will have it ready for the El Mirage race on September 16th.  Scott | ||
| Skully |
Scott! Good luck!!! | ||
| Isiahstites |
My friend Randy(rchop) and I made it back from Speedweek, both with records as rookies. It would be great if that could happen every year. We had a great time at Bonneville and I know I will always remember my first trip with a great deal of significance. Here is Randy getting ready to run.......he chased the record all week and finally got it on the second to last day. I think we both agree that this picture is probably one of the best that either of us took during the meet. It really captures "Bonneville". Randy set the record for the APS-PG 750cc class to 120 mph and some change with his home built BMW.   Here I am getting ready to ride my way into the history books on Kents very healthy 750 Suzuki sidecar.  Receiving my instructions from the starter.  Heading down the course.......  I had a few firsts while at Bonneville, first time to ride that bike, first time ever riding anything with a sidecar and first time down the salt. All were great experiences and I am grateful that Kent was nice enough to let me ride one of his bikes. I made three passes while at Bonneville all were on the sidecar. My first pass was a rookie run in which I did 137 mph. The record at the time was 135 and some change, I was kind of shocked I went faster than the record on my rookie run. This first pass was quite an experience as I had all of those firsts going on at the same time, almost overwhelming but what a rush, it left me only wanting more and to make another pass. My second pass consisted of me doing 146 mph and qualifying for the record, had I not short shifted the last gear I may have been able to pull a 150 mph pass. Things were much easier to concentrate on this time like actually riding the bike and watching the tach. My third run was a back up run for the record. I didn't quite hit the shift points exactly where I was suppose to, but I did have a top speed a 150 mph and backed up the run and got a record. This pass was much clearer than the previous two and I feel that if I had the opportunity to make a few more passes on the bike I could defiantly get into the mid 150's, but for now the record for SC-G 750 cc is 147 and some more change. So all in all we had a great trip and met a lot of great people that I look forward to speaking with again next year. Thanks to all that helped it is really appreciated! Got back to building the bike today with intentions of wrapping up the motor this weekend. I started off by finishing the end gap on the rings and weighing the pistons to make sure they were the same after the milling work.  Turns out Randy N is a very precise machinist as both pistons were exactly the same and did not require any more work. Here are both pistons on the scale with wristpins, clips and rings.  Got everything together and was ready to move on but..........   I decided I better check piston to piston clearance before I move forward. Good thing I did as the picture shows the pistons do come in contact with on another. Not much but anything in this case is a lot. So I may just clearance them myself and re-weigh everything, if not I will have them machined.  Stay tuned more to come.............. | ||
| Isiahstites |
Got the pistons marked and the tool of choice ready to do the job......  A finished piston......  I started to check the squish band and it is way out so I am assuming I am going to have to mill down the cylinders........more fun.......it seems to be never ending! So I started on some other areas of the drivetrain I could finish..........here are the cams installed.  I got the new lifter blocks installed along with the new Jim's hydro solid lifters and roll pins. I also put in one push rod tube so I could figure out where all of the seals go......  For my build I decided to run a total loss system, here is the before picture of the front primary sprocket.  And here is the after without the stator and rotor. The rotor weighed over four pounds, this should reduce some of the rotating mass with in the motor.  Got the tranny in and am still trying to figure out the shift mechanism.......I will leave this for tomorrow's work.  | ||
| Isiahstites |
I found out today in order to take apart the clutch pack you need a $75-$100tool. I have neither the time or money so I made a few things I had in the garage work. First I took a piece of 4" pipe I had left over from a bench grinder stand I built.  I cut a 2" section off of the end.  Set that on the clutch pack  I then took a part from my steering wheel puller and set it over that.  Set it in the press and very carefully compressed the pack and used a flathead screwdriver and very carefully moved the clip out.  This took me about 5 minutes to do from start to finish and I used stuff I had laying around. Got the new Rivera/Primo pressure plate installed along with the new steel and friction plates.  I got the sprockets installed and the primary chain on..............  Tomorrow a call to NRHS to figure out the minor issue with my motor. Scott | ||
| Isiahstites |
I found out earlier this week that the problem was with my pistons and was the manufacturer's fault when the order was placed. So I was destined never to make it to Bonneville with this bike this year after all. Turns out when the pistons were ordered there was an error when the order was taken and the pistons were made with the wrong compression height. They were .187 off to be correct, basically I got stroker pistons. So now we have a new dilemma, no pistons! And it takes 5-6 weeks to get pistons made for this bore. After a lot of thinking I decided I was going to have the heads turned down. This didn't work out either because it is an interrupted cut and the cylinder couldn't be held in a manner that was safe enough to cut it without breaking the cylinder or the tooling. Back to square one, again! After a call to Dan at NRHS it was decided that they were going to take the pistons out of one of the bikes they are working on and send them to me two day so I can have them by Friday in hopes of finishing the bike and making the next El Mirage race. So a big thanks to Dan for making this right and getting me a set of pistons to use while my other set are be made. This looks more like it......the piston actually comes to the top of the bore.  Testing for the squish band clearance, this lets me know how close the piston is coming to the head. I have domed pistons and the head has been cut to match the piston.  Squish is in between .0032 - .0035 depending on where the measurement was taken from. I checked six locations per piston. .0030 is the optimum clearance, however I feel good with the clearance I have and not running things so tight.  Here is the pile of measured pieces of solder that were not the desired clearance. The clearance is achieved by adding or taking away of base and head gaskets. When I started I was at about .005. Also remember every time you take a measurement the head has to be put on and torqued down in sequence, kind of a pain in the ass!  Next job is to clearance the rocker boxes as the stock boxes will not accept the big valves.   Finished with one box   Tomorrow I will finish the rockers boxes and put in the push rods and bleed down the lifters so I can clay the motor to check piston to valve clearance. If all goes well maybe I can finally button the motor up for once. | ||
| Isiahstites |
Got the boxes all cleaned up for all of the new gaskets as well as got the roller rockers installed,  Filled the valve reliefs with clay to check piston to valve clearance.  Lifters have been bled down and installed and the motor is ready to be turned over.  Here is what it looked like after the motor was rolled over.  Here is how I measured the thickness of the clay. I have over .100 on the intake and the exhaust was not even close. I also have plenty of eyebrow clearance where the relief gets closer to the valve on the side of the piston.  Motor is pretty much done FINALLY! Just need to finish installing the cam and primary cover and anything that hooks to them or runs through them. I still need to install all of the oil lines, ignition, starter, oil tank and make up some spark plug wires.   | ||
| Isiahstites |
preformed the leak down test today and it was 0-2% on both cylinders. I had to raise the back of the tank a little bit to give me some clearance to keep the petcock from sitting on the rocker box.  Here is the clearance after raising the back of the tank.  I got the intake, carb, fuel line and velocity stack installed. I am not sure how much I like that stack sticking way and the hell out there, but it is gonna have to do for the time being. This was a pain in the ass job as I had a hard time with the intake and the new seals.    I got all of the sprocket, trans and clutch bolts torqued down to specs. I finished installing the primary cover, adjusting the chain tension, adjusting the clutch and installing and adjusting the foot shifter.  I installed the new higher flow oil pump and installed all of the fittings. Also figured out the whole oil system so I can run the lines tomorrow after blasting the oil tank and painting.  Tested the starter then painted it to match the motor and then installed it.........  I was also able to run the clutch cable to the perch and set it up as well as hook up the throttle cables. | ||
| Firemanjim |
Scott,I get a chuckle every time I look at that Yamaha 100 Enduro tank on there. | ||
| Isiahstites |
Well I am glad that my build can bring some enjoyment to you. Scott | ||
| Road_thing |
Nice work! rt | ||
| Blake |
Nice work Isiah. And thanks for taking time to share your race bike building experience with all of us here. Cool stuff! One thing you might want to consider: The 4 lb rotor may contribute significantly to engine dynamics and beneficial flywheel effect. Removing it could hurt durability, while not likely improving land speed record performance much if any at all. Removing the stator only while leaving the rotor would eliminate parasitic power loss from the generator effect, but retain the beneficial flywheel action contributed by the rotor. | ||
| Madduck |
Isiah, You can save more mass in the primary by going to a single row primary chain, be gentle on shutdown tho. There are three to four ponys in that chain just wanting to run free. they do stretch some but we've got nine or ten runs down the shortcourse out of one safely. In 2005 when Kirk went airborne at about 145 and finished out the run it was still good. Make sure and shave your rear tire, there is a lot of unneeded rotating mass out there also. | ||
| Isiahstites |
Thanks for the great posts guys! I will research both of your suggestions as I am looking for all I can get! Scott | ||
| Isiahstites |
Welded these tabs onto each side of the coil mounts to keep it from snapping off due to vibration. Also got the top motor mount painted and drilled the hole for the top motor mount to hook up to the frame.  Coils mounted.......and painted.  Got the camchest installed, ignition installed, oil tank painted and installed, oil lines ran, and trans sprocket cover painted and installed.  Got chain and chain guard installed.  All cables are hooked up with the exception of the kill switches and the tach.  Brake line has been hooked-up and installed  Its coming together.......here is a side view.  | ||
| Isiahstites |
Well I got all of the wiring done and most of the small stuff done. Here are a few pics of the exhaust being painted with some high temp rattle can stuff that ended up looking way better than I ever thought it would. The pipes look ceramic coated.   Tonight I fired the bike up and man is it loud! It fired right up and ran for a few seconds and died..........now I can only get it to fire with the enrichener and same thing it will run for a sec or two at most and die. When it does fire and run for the short time it sounds real healthy and dies just as fast as it started. So to this point I have checked the petcock for flow, checked to make sure the float bowl was getting fuel and checked the main and intermediate jet for any clogs or debris and everything appears to be good. I am running a dyna 2000i ignition and feel the timing is correct, I feel the problem is with in the carb as I can not see any fuel sprayed into the carb when I twist the throttle open. I am running a S&S D with a Thunderjet. It got late here quick and everytime I would fire it off I think I scared all of the dogs and cats with in a square mile. So tomorrow I will get to troubleshooting the problem on a fresh mind and hopefully get the beast to idle. Scott | ||
| Isiahstites |
I got the bike figured out this afternoon! It runs, it runs!! The problem was that I wired the coils in parallel like I have always done not realizing that when I bought the coils six months ago that I bought lower resistance coil for the race application, these need to be wired in series so the ignition was trying to protect itself by shutting down since it saw 1.5 ohms instead of the 3.0 ohms it was looking for. I still need to make adjustments on the carb and the timing. I will do all of these changes on the dyno hopefully next week sometime. I am taking the bike to El Mirage tomorrow to have it inspected in preparation for October's meet. I have decided against running it tomorrow because I was not able to tune the motor at all. I will get a good tune in it in the next week or so and be ready for October. For those that have asked in the past about the riding position, here is a picture of me testing to see if tach is located is the optimum postion.  | ||
| Rasta_dog |
Scott, I just wanted to let you know that I have enjoyed reading about your build here on BadWeb, more than any other topic. It's been cool. Do you have any thoughts on having someone help you video the event in October? | ||
| Isiahstites |
Thank you Rasta, they always do a video out there of everyone's runs. It takes about a month to get, but I will try to get someone to do my own for the board to view. Well I made it out to Elmo today to have the bike inspected. Everything went well and I only have to change one line on my carb from the Thunderjet (an oversight on my part) and I was given advise on a few other items, but all were said to be safe and would pass inspection. So this month I will get the bike tuned and maybe even go up to Elmo and run it in preparation for October's meet. The gas tank seems to continue to create controversy, people either really love it or they want to see it painted as they like the shape and say it goes well with the bike. The Yamaha tank was definitely a conversation piece for a few people today whether they loved it or hated it. Hear are a few pics.......   | ||
| Road_thing |
Very cool, can't wait to hear how it goes! By all means, paint the tank... rt | ||
| Isiahstites |
Got the bike on the dyno for a short time today. We made a real soft first run just to make sure everything was good with the drivetrain and the new motor. All went well and it was clear the bike was on the rich side of things on the main jet. We didn't make any changes as it was more of a shakedown pass then anything. We made two more passes and had some problems with the sniffer/gas analyzer so I couldn't make any changes and then be able to see the affect they had. So all in all I am happy as I found out that all of the motor/trans work I did held together on the dyno. Checked the hp on the last two passes and both were 110 rwhp @ 7000 rpm with a great power curve that had no dips or spikes in it at all and created power nice and steady all the way to the rev limiter. I have the rev limiter set at 7000 rpm, but may play with it after some research on what will be a safe rpm to rev to without blowing the motor. We fill that once back on the dyno after it is repaired and some jetting changes, playing with timing a bit and maybe the rev limter we may be able to pull another 10-15 + horse out of the motor. So for just setting up the motor in my garage by sound and throttle response I am happy to this point with the 110 horse out of the little 82 cubic inch motor. Scott | ||
| Isiahstites |
Ok, I finally got some video of the bike today. I bled the brake today so I thought I would take it out for it's first run. Video one is 1:37 long and you can really hear how good the bike sounds and video two is 1:50 long and was added because it was kinda hard to see the bike with all the cars parked along the street. I have'nt done much work to the bike lately as I have kinda been taken a break, however it is almost 100% race ready. I still have to do some small minor stuff to finish along with saftey wiring the bike. Scott #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWAvkV3TyHM #2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqdzIWy6MFU | ||
| Rasta_dog |
NICE! I knew that motor and exhaust would sound killer. That sound is almost indescribable. Kind of like the bored out Buell and the big MX 400 had a love child that has a bad attitude. | ||
| Isiahstites |
I got the air/fuel analyzer working on the dyno and made a few passes this evening. I am still on the rich side but getting closer. I had a nice big dip in power around 6600 rpm and it came back on strong after that so tomorrow I will mess around with that and try and figure it out, I need to read up on my Thunderjet as thinking something may be happening there. After I get the air/fuel right I will move onto the ignition and hopefully be done tomorrow afternoon so I can get ready to go to the race on Sunday. As we stand now it as at 114 horse at 7300 rpm and if I recall correctly around 90 ft tq give or take and about 12-1 a/f. If all goes well tomorrow hopefully it will be in the 120's. Scott | ||
| Blake |
Rock and roll Scott!  | ||
| Isiahstites |
I got as far as I could this afternoon on the dyno. My final number were 122.7 hp and 95.5 ft tq. I got rid of the dip in power at 6600 rpm by tightening up a loose connection on one of the coils. That was not the only thing that loosened up and had to be tightened......dam Harley's! I got the a/f as close as I could, it is about 13.5 at 4000 rpm and slowly tapers to about 12.5 +/- as it gets to redline at 7500 rpm. I could not get the a/f as good below 4000 rpm because the bigger intermediate jets I ordered are back ordered. I drilled one intermediate out to .041 which helped, but did not completely fix the condition. Good thing is once I am out of first gear the motor should not see to much of 4000 rpm and below. I played with the timing a little bit and got a few extra horsepower out of the motor, however I may have got more if I would of made a few more passes. I feel there is little bit more hp and tq in the motor if I did some more fine tunning, but it is good for now. I definately feel a good experienced dyno tuner could exceed what I have done as I am just a rookie tuner. For now I am very happy with the numbers and all that is left to do is race the dam thing! Scott Horsepower only  Horsepower and torque........not sure what happened to the dyno/printer with the torque line??  | ||
| Rasta_dog |
When are you racing, Scott? | ||
| Isiahstites |
I went to the races last weekend and the meet got canceled due to high winds. The bike passed tech with flying colors and I was ready to run, but it just didn't happen. I got another race in two weeks and am prayer for better weather as it is the last race of the year. Wouldn't it suck if after all I have accomplished I didn't even get to race this year and I had to wait another 6 months? Scott | ||
| Rasta_dog |
If that happens, it'll definitely suck, but until it does, it only adds to the drama! Good luck. | ||
| Hexangler |
I would wait my entire lifetime to get a chance to ride WFO. Be patient, your time will come. Hex |
