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BadS1
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 08:08 pm: | 
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Who did you talk to at Hal's??Buell is in...as much as they want to.Thats what you need to understand.What don't they have???The pipe they spoke of...they have but are having problems with to my understanding but maybe they have it figured out now. |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 08:11 pm: |
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quote:Whoever thinks that they can design a better more expensive bike with a keyboard, mouse and a good CAD program better talk to Mr. Czysz. Lot's of time, loads of money. It just ain't that easy!
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Xbcrazy
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 09:31 pm: |
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BadS1... I think that we are on the same page now. Buell is in...as much as they want. We can argue how much that is all night.
And I think it is great that Hal's is going racing and has ironed out some of the problems they faced last year. But I believe that the commitment, money and resources that Hal's puts into its race program made that possible, not Buell.
The CW article gives a lot of credit to Buell for the dealer teams' successes. Did you see anywhere in that article a quote from Jim Winters or anyone else at Hal's? I didn't. How about Lou at Kosco H-D/Buell or Rich at Innovative Motorcycle Research? Again not one word. These are the guys who deserve the attention in the article. Right now,they are the ones pushing Buells into the racing spotlight.
Do you have a race bike? If you do you know exactly what I mean. You need a race body kit, a chain drive conversion, suspension, clip-ons...where do you go for that stuff? Hal's or Innovative, not Buell. Man, I work at a Buell dealer, was the number one nationwide Buell salesman in Buell's spring '04 contest, have a CCS/FUSA competition license and a dedicated race bike and I still had to give up my first born just to get a programmable ECM from Buell. When all that changes I will truly believe that Buell is serious about racing and that the editors at CW had it right all along. |
BadS1
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 09:44 pm: |
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So you think Hal's fit the bill all these years???Your wrong.Last year they didn't run Daytona cause they weren't ready.That was cause they the factory and Hal's were still working on mechanicals.Who cares that you have a race bike or your the hot shot sale person of the year.Talking that way like your some kind of hot shot you couldn't give me or several others on this board a FREE sling bag.Your right we could argue all night but I don't have the time or the energy. |
Buell2001b
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 09:50 pm: |
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quote:
Whoever thinks that they can design a better more expensive bike with a keyboard, mouse and a good CAD program better talk to Mr. Czysz. Lot's of time, loads of money. It just ain't that easy!
If you were referring to me. My philosophy is when there is a will there is a way. I have a degree in automotive technology and architecture. I never said anything about designing a new bike from scratch but rather on improvements to the XB. There is no reason why there could not be a 3rd team. I never said that i could do it alone either, but with a commited group of guys it can be done.
As far the the Czysz bike is not a bad looking bike, but we have not seen it race.
if you read the arcticle on CW it mentiones how the buells beat the japanese bikes in the corners but lost ground on the straight away. The key i think is that it says the buells were able to reach 171mph compared to the hondas 173 to 175. It definetly shows this guys are aching to win. |
Davegess
| | Posted on Thursday, February 10, 2005 - 10:38 pm: |
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But this requires Commitment to Win at all costs.
José you have hit the nail on the head. Buell loves racing but not at the expense of the well being of the company. They need to pay the bills first and EVERYTHING needs to make financial sense. There is a bean counter counting the Buell beans, you can be very sure of that, and this person will be a hard •••. Eveery bean spent will need to bring in a return, and not some mythical return either but a hard real live dollar return that he or she can count. |
Blake
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 12:46 am: |
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I bet if we got the AMA FX Buell Racer fund up to say six figures, and posted it up for grabs for podium finishes we might see some serious entries popping up. We might be lucky to make five figures. Wish more would support the effort. Tomorrow I start cold calling dealerships. |
Xbolt12
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 02:30 am: |
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Unfortunately I think there may be some truth to what xbcrazy is talking about. I really don't know, but there were some posts on this board that included links to racing news that quoted Erik Buell about not giving full time support to the FX teams in '05 as I recall. If this is true, I have to wonder does that mean Henry Duga will be absent from the Formula Extreme races?
I also hope I am wrong with another suspicion but I haven't heard anything about the Kosco effort lately and I noticed they weren't listed in the qualifying times for Daytona. It would be a big loss to us all if they withdrew. They sell parts they race with (for instance a nice damper I use) , are great with support and have a competitive effort with Barnes as a rider. What a shame if that goes away. I hope my fears are wrong. Just when things are getting better it appears that it could be the plug is being pulled on FX?
Then again a racer I know blames the problems on AMA mis-management and he thinks the AMA may not be the top races of the future.
Please feel free to tell me I am wrong Mr. Anonymous.
xbolt12 |
Xbolt12
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 03:19 am: |
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I now understand after reading some of the other posts that Kosco and Inovation are not one and the same. My appologies. It was Rich Cronrath and Inovation (Kosco team manager?)that have the cool parts and support.
xbolt12 |
Xbcrazy
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 08:25 am: |
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If you think that relentlessly promoting the Buell motorcycle to the public and loving to ride one is being a "hot shot" then call me whatever you want.
You live in WI and I work in NJ. How could I have possibly had anything to do with you not getting a sling bag? And for the record, neither I nor the two other salesmen that I work with got one either because we gave them to customers until we ran out. If you really want one, go on Buell's web site print out the coupon for your free hat so that you are eligible to get a bag when that promo starts again in a couple of months. |
Henrik
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 08:52 am: |
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Even with "only" (and please note the quotes there - they indicate irony, just to clarify  ) Henry Duga as the factory support of racing, Buell racers are still a lot better off than pretty much any other brand of low budget motorcycle racing today. As Gowindward pointed out, just a short time with Henry getting info on where to spend your $$ on the bike, which mods will gain power without sacrificing reliability etc. etc. will do wonders not only for your riding, but for your race budget as well. Tapping into a lifetime of experience is no little thing.
And for comparison, think of this:
Who would I call at Suzuki for advice on turning the SV into a competitive race bike  . No one - that's who.
Who would I contact at Honda to pick up a test bike to use for racing, such as Walt did? Simply doesn't happen.
If I were to build a race bike of any other brand than Buell, where would I start shopping for parts?? You got it ... aftermarket. Exactly the same for Buell.
I would love to see Erik go racing on a no-punches-pulled budget, but since that ain't happening, I think Buell is doing darn pretty well supporting Buell bike racing in general.
Henrik |
Trojan
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 10:20 am: |
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When we were the ONLY team in the UK to be running a Buell in road race competition we were able to telephone the factory for advice and help at pretty much any time. Try that with Mr Honda. I think that Buell have done a tremendous job for such a small outfit and deserve nothing but praise.
What I would say though, is that as H-D now own 98% of the company, and have been making bigger and bigger profits every quarter for as long as I can remember, they should stump up the dough for a full works Buell racer. It would probably cost them less per year than hiring Elton John for a day!
Now where did I put that V-Rod motor and Spondon chassis? |
Xbcrazy
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 10:27 am: |
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Henrik...you are absolutely right. At the CCS/FUSA level, Henry Duga and Buell provide more their privateer riders than any other brand.
Davegess...I think you got it too. Buell is not the largest of manufactures and may not have the budget to support the FX teams. Do the FX teams bring in the needed dollar return? Maybe every dollar, both in the physical sense and the effort of its human resources, is needed for investment in the production bikes.
Xbolt12...do you have any other info regarding this "posts on this board that included links to racing news that quoted Erik Buell about not giving full time support to the FX teams in '05 as I recall." That would certainly help clarify things a bit.
Let's assume the things above are true...then where did the article in CW come from? To be honest, I'd like then to be not true because I want to see Buell be competitive at the pro levels.
Court, Do you have any insight that you can share here? |
Gowindward
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 11:42 am: |
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For you guys that want a full factory backed race team, what would be your guess at how much that would cost per year? |
Davegess
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 11:59 am: |
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DuHamel gets paid a million bucks a year just for riding the Honda. The rest of the program probably runs at least that much.
ANy idea how many BRAG events you could run for 2 mill? |
Gowindward
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 12:25 pm: |
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I seem to remember from the movie "Faster" someone state it cost in the range of 4 to 6 million.
Let's say it's 2 million. Buell makes roughly 10K motorcycles per year. They would have to tack on another $200 to every bike sold to cover the cost. I can't remember anyone ever post on this board asking where could they pay an extra $200 dollars for a new Buell. |
Court
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 01:07 pm: |
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>>>But I believe that the commitment, money and resources that Hal's puts into its race program made that possible, not Buell.
That is inaccurate information.
Lack of time and the threat of becoming uncivil cause me to leave it at that. Let me pose and anecdotal question.
"Buell is doing nothing in the area of racing so I, noted, credible and respected journalist Steve Anderson, shall sally forth to East Troy, WI and prepare a feature article which I will ply my reputation to get into a prominent motorcycle magazine who doesn't mind sullying their reputation by running a major article about a racing effort by a factory who had no interest in, and refuses to support, racing.
I've played some "tough rooms" in my years of writing. Steve Anderson's one of the best, I don't see him doing that.
The article was concise, precise and informative.
I'm confident we'll speak more.
Court |
Davegess
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 01:19 pm: |
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Go, you can look at the sales charts, as silly as it may seem bike sales will drop significantly if the list price goes from 8995 to 9195, or 9999 to 10199. This is true even if no actually pays that list price. This why you see so much stuff for sale at 19.99.
People seem to think in round numbers, the wife says "yes you can buy a bike as long as it cost less than 9000 bucks". No one ever says less than 9100 bucks or 9200 bucks.
So 200 bucks does not seem so big on this board when it comes time to go shopping it does. Heck, even most of the pledges are for 100 or less.
Plus I am not sure 2 mil would get you enough to run a whole season of FX with a top rider. It might be just enough to run the 200 with a Roger Lee Hayden on board but than you shut up shop and go home.
Sombody listen know this I bet, what was Hondas FX budget last year? How much more are they spending this year to make a bike that can finish the 200?
I suspect many of the Buell teams that are not running the 200 are doing so becasue they feel they can't run competively and keep the motor together. The motor was set up for sprint work not 200 miles.
It might cost a million bucks just to build a FX motor that has the power and the stamina to win the 200. Than you have to add the cost of running the team.
The more I think about it the more I think my earlier post is very low. |
Blake
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 02:19 pm: |
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Henry Duga is not the only person at Buell dedicated to supporting the efforts of Buell racers. I'd hazard an educated estimate that there are at least four full time employees working in support of Buell racing, not to mention a bunch of others who contribute as needed and when possible.
"I still had to give up my first born just to get a programmable ECM from Buell."
Maybe Buell Racing needed your first-born as much as or more than you needed the ECM. I wonder what they are doing with him/her. Grooming him/her as a Buell FX racer maybe? Hmmmm.
Kinda strange too since a couple racers I know of were provided the Buell Racing fully programmable ECM with no drama involved whatsoever. |
Gowindward
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 02:23 pm: |
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My point is that, YES $200 dollars is a lot of money and yes it could be much more than that.
IMHO racing is only a form of advertising and Buell must not see a huge return on that expense at this time. You have to respect them for that! |
Court
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 02:56 pm: |
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>>>IMHO racing is only a form of advertising
Ok...I disagree. Actually, I'd give you credit that it is some advertising, but not much, not really, if you are talking in terms of "see it, buy it". Another component is goodwill among existing owners. I mean, ask yourself, why would we, a group of folks who OWN Buells, ever wnat $200 added to the price of bikes to induce future sales?
You, like most this thread, are neither all wrong nor all right and don't read into this that I think I know the answers.
Try this for me.....
If you were looking for a sponsor for Buell Racing...who would you talk to and what would your pitch be?
Court |
Davegess
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 03:35 pm: |
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Court if you get a chance call me. |
Xbcrazy
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 03:43 pm: |
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Court, thanks for so eloquently stating how wrong you think I am. I know that you have the most insight into the inner workings at Buell, so I will not disagree. I am still disappointed that both teams won't be at Daytona, but it is a long season. Let's hope for the best and see what happens next!
Pete |
BadS1
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 03:55 pm: |
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Carefully reread your post.I was the spring 04 sales person of the year blah blah blah?? |
Gowindward
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 04:06 pm: |
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Ok...I disagree. Actually, I'd give you credit that it is some advertising, but not much, not really, if you are talking in terms of "see it, buy it".
Right, not much advertising, and I think that is why Buell does not have a "factory team". It's business that's all. Look at NASCAR. Last time I looked "Net Zero", "Kraft" "Budweiser", "U.S. Army" don't manufacture and sell cars. It's about advertising for those companies.
I think the way people get down on Buell about not supporting a "factory team" is out of line. Everyone has to realize Buell is a business and for it to be hear next year and the year after...etc that it has to make money for the share holders.
If you came to be looking for sponsorship for Buell racing you are going to have to show me the ROI on my racing investment.
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Xbcrazy
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 04:13 pm: |
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Hey Blake,
You may be right about there being more full timers, but that has not been my experience. So far all race related questions that I have had have been directed to Henry. If there are others I haven't met them yet.
While I exaggerated the ECM issue to make a point, your friends are right. Getting one is not that difficult once you have acquired the appropriate experience, gotten the required track certificate, paid for your CCS license and promised Henry that you won't run the bike on the street. As a street rider, getting one is impossible. Hence all the threads about Techclusion, Power Commanders, etc. BTW...I'm expecting my first child this summer and can only hope that he/she like bikes as much as I do.
Pete |
Court
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 04:36 pm: |
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>>>I am still disappointed that both teams won't be at Daytona,
I agree.
NASCAR and motorcycles are "eggs and golf balls"...look much more similar than they actually are. |
Blake
| | Posted on Friday, February 11, 2005 - 06:32 pm: |
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Pete,
That is my experience too. Henry handles the PR and racer interfacing. Others are happily working on cool stuff to help us win races. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 02:27 am: |
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I might wanna chime in here and maybe state some reasons Buell probably doesn't want their ECM's out in the general public:
1) Tech support is there but imposes heavily on a VERY limited staff
2) The box controls EVERYTHING - and there are a zillion new ways you can find to melt your motor.
3) You control front/rear timing separately. Think of a table of RPM's on X-axis, spark advance (degrees) on Y-axis. Each X,Y coordinate set is an entered value so let's say you're at 1000 RPM, do you set advance at ??? - what about 1200, 1400, 1600.... up to 8000+???
4) You control retard/advance when cold/warmed up
5) you control front/rear fuel pulse separately. Same issues constructing the tables of values for front/rear - say at 700 RPM and ??? microseconds fuel pulse... continue up to say 8000+ and imput a value at each RPM and throttle position (RPM on X-axis, Throttle Position on Y-axis.) - again, like spark, a bunch of input
Temperature limits are user-settable, redline and type of redline are user-settable. There are too many control and limit parameters to really discuss but if anybody's curious, you ought to just get a print out of a single map -- so you can see what you'd be dealing with...
AND THEN the tuning.
You really cannot tune it unless you have headers with ports in each exhaust for O2 sensors. You are tuning two completely separate big single, air-cooled motors. If you think along those lines, you've got the picture.
You give up your O2 sensors so you're no longer running closed loop.
You really cannot tune it unless you have an eddy-current or hydraulic brake dyno. You MUST be able to hold constant RPM while varying throttle position - and take O2 readings from each exhaust at the same time (if the dyno can read 2 simultaneously) - or do separate runs for each cylinder.
Then there are separate settings for Wide Open Throttle.
Of course if your motor is built pretty similarly to another racer and he'll sell you a map, it's well worth the $250-$300 you can pay. It'll take you a full day on the dyno to really get it dialled in otherwise. Took us 2 days and it's gonna start again when the high pressure fuel regulator goes in.
The sniffer up the tailpipe only tells you that the mox of the 2 cylinders is approximately correct - you could be near to melting one lean, the other too rich and the sniffer in the tailpipe wouldn't detect it.
Oh... I forgot to tell you, fuel squirt time, spark advance, any other values are in "counts" - this is an 8-bit program - "zero" to 255 counts full scale... if you exceed 255 counts, it takes the value in rotation: ie 256=zero, 257=1... etc
I thought I'd be clever and constructed a spreadsheet to re-calculate table values and neglected to put in a limit to prevent calculationa from returning a value greater than 255... I had a range from 4500 RPM to 5500 RPM which exceeded 255 - by only a few counts... meaning that in effect, I was calling for 3 or 9 counts (in effect zero fuel) at that RPM/Throttle position setting. I could definitely feel it on the track during testing but didn't realize what was happening so I tried "feeling" the RPM/Throttle band where the error was - and when I downloaded the data from the bike back to the computer found that "hole" in the fuel calls. Meaning I was dang lucky I hadn't just melted a piston.
I guess what I'm saying in only outlining less than half of what you might have to deal with in one of these boxes, you might understand why (in my opinion) Buell doesn't want them out there being used by a few hundred more riders. I know my phone calls alone tied up 2-3 specific people at Buell and at Hal's for a couple days. They would probably have to double their racing staff to answer the calls from dyno techs, racers and dealers and the constant flurry of emails back and forth trying to troubleshoot errors in maps constructed by well-intentioned people making easy-to-do mistakes while learning.
It might be interesting to post a map (they're just text files anyways with tables made of comma separated values) - so you could see what I'm talking about.
Oh - one cool thing. You can do your own TPS reset! Woooooo Hooooo!
All that being said, it's a useful tool in a race motor. There are just so many things you cannot do to/with/for a carb any longer. |
Blake
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 04:52 am: |
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Thank you for explaining that Steve. So when you gonna invent the self-mapping/tuning box for it? ![: ]](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/proud.gif) |
Kowpow225
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 09:03 am: |
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WOW! The depth of these things....anyways, glad you clarified. |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 10:19 am: |
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quote:2) The box controls EVERYTHING - and there are a zillion new ways you can find to melt your motor.
That was my suspicion all along. And to be honest, the techlusion gets home builders 90% of the way there in a much safer way (can only add fuel).
If we had full access here to a fully programmable ECM, I believe two things.
1) Within two years, we would have posted for free download probably 5 different maps that work very well for most "sweet spot" configurations.
2) At least 5 engines would have been melted into aluminum slag to get them.
3) At least one of these engine meltdowns would have escalated into either covert fraud or an overt pissing contest with a dealer or the factory over warranty claims. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 11:39 am: |
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Reepicheep - right on all counts!
First, there IS a lot of map sharing going on already. The motor can only barely run on somebody else's map unless you're pretty much identical in engine configuration. They (Buell) have a couple maps which they provide based on their best guess on your motor but still, there's no escaping the dyno!
I spent 2 days at Bartels Racing because they had similar problems, they had already swapped back to the stock race ECM (the over the counter version) - and we ran my bike on their dyno getting it setup because they wanted to learn the ECU and software. Little did I know that my "free dyno time" saved me a ton of money but could have turned the motor into a solid metal boat anchor while we were learning.
Before this, Bartels got so frustrated that they started building their big XB using 2 carbs!!! (really REALLY bad move which they now regret)
Once you meet other racers, it is a friendly crowd (off the track) - and I was surprised at how open those "real" racers were - Jeff Johnson at Hoban, Dan Bilansky at Hals especially.
Yes - the techlusion from what I've read here really seems to make good sense - you CANNOT over-lean your motor and you can't hole a piston because you mis-judged ignition timing.
I actually bought lunch for Dan Hurda at Buell when I was back over the Holidays just to pick his brain a little more. Dan is one of the co-developers of the box and software. This program is really an engine R&D software package and so also controls much more stuff - even sets fan turn-on temperature, cyl head temperature differential for fan reversal (yes, reversal) - You could get lost just in the options for the fan - which is removed on a racebike. |
Cataract2
| | Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2005 - 02:49 pm: |
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Which makes me wonder how many I4 riders have melted their engines with programable units. |
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