| Author | Message | ||
     Rocketsprink |
This was my good friend Greg Holman's race bike. I changed it up a little, and used a mix of our race numbers. I won't be racing until July due to Family plans and the very stupid CCS Midwest schedule. I have a little more odd and end things to get done, but it's close. I'm hoping to do a track day or 2 as well. It's going to be hard to be out on the track and not be dicing it up with Greg. But at least, riding his bike, it will be like he's still around.      | ||
| Gearhead |
Lookin' good!! | ||
| Coolice |
Very nice Rocco. When is your first race? | ||
| Slaughter |
Rocco - this is an AWESOME tribute. All the best in the coming season(s) | ||
| Paint_shaker |
Cool beans!!! I am sure Greg will be watching over you as you turn your laps!! | ||
| Rocketsprink |
first race probably not until July. Just the way the schedule is working out. It sucks too. Trying to find a track day before then, but with work and travel, it makes that hard as well. It will always be Greg's bike to me. When I decide I've had enough racing, or it's time to move on to a different bike (1125), this bike will stay in my "collection". Too much sentimental value to me to sell it. | ||
| Schmitty |
Lookin good Rocco! I thought you were comin to Road America? Change of plans? I'm pretty pissed about my new bike!! It runs on leaded fuel, and the map isn't right so it runs like shit right now. Hoban's tried to tune it, but without being able to use an O2 sensor they couldn't get it done like they wanted. I'm in the process of trying to switch it over to unleaded to hopefully have it ready for Blackhawk the end of May. The bike runs a 13:1 compression, so I need like 102 octane or higher, which is kinda hard to find. I'll probably end up racing my XB from last year. Ralph, are you and Troy coming up? Gonna be pretty empty in the Buell Alley section of the paddock. Schmitty | ||
| Coolice |
Empty?  | ||
| Gearhead |
Rocco, great to hear your plans as they seem to be mirroring mine! Schmitty, I think both Troy and I may bag Road America next weekend although he is in Topeka racing this weekend, Drake Relays for me today and tomorrow. The forecast right now has a high percentage of showers and with a 5 hour drive up to ride in the rain, well, that's not the way I want to start the season. Right now I'm 99% sure I'll make the late May Blackhawk event for my first race of the season and it sounds like BHF has had some major revamping! Speaking of revamping, my bike has a brand new look for this season! BTW, Schmitty, what is this beast you built over the winter??   | ||
| Schmitty |
The bike looks great Ralph! I didn't actually build the bike I bought it. It's a former Bartel's HD bike similar to what Slaughter runs. It's got an XB9 crank lightened and balanced, 1170cc big bore kit, Red Shift cams, 13:1 compression pistons, chain drive. It's a full Thunderbike build, not LWSS legal. I'm still tryin to make it run right. The tune in the ECM just doesn't run right. Schmitty | ||
| Rocketsprink |
bike looks good Ralph. what can I say Ben. Things aren't going as planned. Do they ever? The schedule this year, in my opinion, for the races is just plain stupid. I'm all for racing at tracks other than Blackhawk, and am even planning to do Mid-Ohio (let me know if you guys are interested in that one). But there are a lot of tracks that are closer than Topeka. Oh well. I plan on doing 3 BHF race weekends, Mid-Ohio, and maybe one more. That's about the best I can do. Sorry to here you're having issues with the new bike. That's what scares me about built up engines. When they're on, they're great. But when they're off..........watch out. At least you have the other bike for a back up. Plus you have time to get the new one sorted out. | ||
| Schmitty |
It pisses me off, the bike runs great at idle and at wide open throttle, but as soon as you back off to a maintenance throttle it sputters like it's only hitting on one cylinder. The bike has the "racer only" ECM in it with the old DOS system so it's tough to find someone to tune it, and dyno time ain't cheap! I'm gonna look into some other options for the ECM. Schmitty | ||
| Rocketsprink |
Just get ECMspy. It's the cure all!!  I won't get into that though. The only issue I know of on my bike is a trouble code for the fan. Greg rewired the fan to a toggle switch so it could be used manually. So unless I can get the code (sensor) erased from the ECM, I'll have to live with the light on. Or rewire it to the stock configuration. That sucks ass about your bike. Like I said, full fledged race motors are very fickle. They are either right on, or way off. I remember Greg Avello and Mark Bernard having mapping issues with their bikes. They were downloading maps constantly. I really hope you don't run into that. If you really have issues, at least swap swingarms. They should be the same. At least you'll have the option to switch gearing. And your other bike can still be moved around. Just an option if the new bike gives you that much grief. Again, let me know if you guys, Ralph and anyone else are interested in a road trip to Mid-Ohio. I used to go there as a kid when my Dad raced cars. It's a nice track. Something new. Just have to be a member of the AMA, which you should be if you ride/own a motorcycle. Just an idea. | ||
| Slaughter |
Schmitty, I can send you my maps that I used. The main differences are that I'm running 10.5 to 1 compression (unleaded premium) otherwise the motor is pretty much the same. I am running the windows software now but can send you both fuel tables - I think you'll have to enter them manually as comma separated values - but the new tables I've run were developed using oxy sensors welded in both pipes. We actually tried running Ecklund's bike with that pipe and then switched it to my Beson just to compare the two - and that pipe you have does work pretty well. Shoot me a note if you wanted to try the different fuel values - but you'd HAVE to be able to at least run a sniffer for a few pulls if you don't have a data system. IIRC, that engine can ONLY run leaded so you really can't run an oxy sensor. Ecklund tuned using exhaust gas temperatures for mixture adjustment of the leaded fuel. I'd guess that if you were running the same fuel, you might not need to mess with the maps as much as changing the "LFUEL" values based on whether you needed to lean or richen a little. LFUEL is the global fuel command that bumps the whole map up or down. Once you have a working map - you can usually just tweak the LFUEL value up or down depending on conditions (I only mess with altitude changes) - unfortunately, that means doing some dyno work at the different tracks BUT once you record the atmospheric conditions at a few different altitudes, you can do a good job of "guessing" your LFUEL settings. Hope that helps a teeny bit. | ||
| Schmitty |
Slaughter, We tried adjust the learned fuel when it was on the dyno the last time. The bike fell flat on it's face on the first pull before we changed anything. Mike from Hoban's ended up changing the LFUEL to 1700 or 170%. He thought that seemed kind of high? And with it set there, the bike still only put out 81hp/72lbft on their dyno?! I took it out on the highway out in the country for a couple runs, and it pulled well through the gears but at maintenance throttle it trips over itself pretty bad. The bike may not have been completely warmed up, but I'm not sure if that would have made that much difference? If you could send me your maps, that would be great. At least it would give me a starting point. Do you send them via e-mail? I don't have the ability to open the software on my laptop yet, still haven't figured that out yet? But I can forward them to John at Hoban's. I talked to Eklund about the fuel for the bike and he said it could be run on unleaded, but the bike is a bit finicky, 102 octane and up is a must! The guys at Hoban's said it would be a lot easier to tune on unleaded. Schmitty | ||
| Slaughter |
Wow! It sounds like you don't have a high pressure fuel regulator if you are THAT high on LFUEL!!! I don't have an extra pressure regulator or I'd just send it out. These engines DON'T run without a high pressure regulator and if that bike was put back together at Bartels to be sold with a stock fuel pump and stock pressure regulator, that could explain why it's running so sour. If Ecklund wasn't there to supervise the re-assembly, it MIGHT NOT have a high pressure regulator. Since you do have a racing license, you might go ahead and ping Bob Sweeney at Buell Racing and get his take on it. He is the official go-to-guy for the modules and he can help with the software and some troubleshooting. He can be emailed at (disguised email - F***ing Spam-bots!) robert "dot" sweeney "at" buell dott com That motor DID put out close to 105-ish HP and I THINK it may have been more than 110. I'll see if I can get ahold of Ecklund. I've got your email and can send you the maps later this weekend (I'm at work today) I can talk to Mitsu (Higbee's crew chief - Bartels mechanic) - and see if he was involved in putting the bike back together before it was sold. He might know. **(we ought to take this off-line - I hate polluting Rocco's thread here since he's doing such a cool thing getting Greg's bike racing again!!)** (Message edited by slaughter on April 25, 2009) | ||
| Schmitty |
Agreed! You've got my e-mail. Sorry for the Hi-jack Rocco!  | ||
| Rocketsprink |
Now big deal Ben and Steve. I found the issue with the trouble code. Greg pulled the pin out of the ECM to run the fan manually. I just rewired it into the plug and poof, no more trouble code. I prefer not having a big red light looking at me while I race. |
