Hitting the big time

So, Doug and Wilson and I went to Mid-America Motorplex.  Makes my local look like a paved MX track.  I wanna go back really bad!  This is our pit, with the TPL transporter.  Sunday was crap and wet, but I did get out once before packing it in.  Saturday was too good to push it on Sunday and bring home a broken bike.

Here is a pic of a portion of the track.  My camera has no hope of capturing the size -- long, with the top guys doing about 1 min 45 sec laps.  Going slow and cautious on the 'mono, but still having an absolute blast, and pissing off guys on bigger bikes in the infield.

And I guess I have made the big time -- Performance Bikes Magazine printed a 1-page feature on the 'mono in the most recent issue.  Feels pretty cool that they devoted an entire page to the project.  Will likely get it scanned so I can post it proper.  Will also buy a couple of copies of the magazine, and maybe get the page dry-mounted.

The big news is that I was able to score a more competitive LW bike off of an online auction called Crashedtoys.  A 2008 EX650R -- or ER6F in Europe.  It doesn't look like this right now, but I hope it will look something like this in the near future.  Dad picked it up in Minneapolis for me, it runs, although it has a "junk" title -- hence the cheap price, and perfect for a racebike.  Will have to start another blog!!!

updates

Not a whole lot to report.  Mid America is coming up on June 18-22 -- a real "mancation" planned with Wilson and Doug, who have both been there before.  I can't wait -- only 2 weeks away.  In the interim is the next MRA race.  Will bring the mono in the hopes of doing a bit more testing and tuning.  I did raise the forks up in the triple by 10mm to try to get some more weight over the front.  Might have been a bit of overkill, but I can always halve that length if it is too skittery.  I can also fit the steering dampener, which I will take with me.

I have also started another helmet-painting exercise.  This time, I got a Roof Diversion helmet from the UK.  Not many of these around these parts.  It was in VG condition -- a display model, apparently.  It is very light, and is quite an expensive helmet when bought new.  This had a 2002 build date, so it is not legal for racing, so I was wanting a nice street helmet.  It originally came in red, and looked like this:

What I plan on doing is painting it in Gulf Oil colours, orange stripe, with a dark blue pinstripe, on pale blue.  The striping (I hope) is this pattern:

Here's where I'm at as of today -- tire bead breaker is acting as a helmet stand.  Orange has been painted and masked, and now the blue pinstripe has been taped:

I'm simply using Testors plastic model paint at this point.  Goes on fairly smooth, and the grey primer covered well over top of the stock red.  The helmet itself was scuffed with a plastic scuff pad -- no abrasive sand paper needed!  The last helmet I painted, I used auto-air.  A very coarse paint that required layers and layers of clear, along with wet-sanding in between.  I still plan on applying multiple coats of clear -- here's hoping less sanding is required to get a shiny finish.  I have gulf oil stickers in hand (hopefully they are small enough not to be affected by the helmet's compound curves) as well as replacement "ROOF" decals on the way.  Stay tuned.

Good Weekend

A successful first round.  The reffing went well, with only one spill on Saturday, and no crashes on Sunday.  First time I can remember the ambulance sitting idling all weekend, with no red flags.  Awesome.  Also got out on the bike, courtesy of Rod at TPL racing  http://tplracing.blogspot.com/ -- on Sunday am, he flagged the first trackday session so I could get out on the mono -- put in another 7-8 laps.  Bike ran well, if not a little cool, and I think it was jetted too rich in the main -- wouldn't seem to pull to redline or the rev limiter.  Had a 150 in, will go down to a 147.5 for the next try.  Bike handles pretty good -- still need some seat time, but got my knee down!  Pretty good considering the few laps I put in.  No, I haven't carved off a few inches yet, but its a good sign.  Gonna raise the forks up in the triples 5mm to get some more weight over the front.  Not used to the "mass centralization" -- feels like the front isn't planted.  The frame was origninally designed to work with tz250 forks, so perhaps these street forks, with more travel, are a bit too tall.

This is my final kick at the cat re tachometers.  This is a SunTach -- claims to work with any ignition system, any combo of cylinders, any machine -- even a deisel.  It appears to work as promised, with a shift light that can be set just under the 10000 rpm mark.  Nice, small, simple to hook up.  Had to add a hadlebar switch so it wouldn't constantly draw the battery voltage.  Trying to make it idiot-proof; hence the reminder.
Oil changed from the Motul petro-based break in oil to Torco semi-synthetic.  Might re-install the thermostat, as the bike peaked at 162 F after several laps on a hot day...

Dry Run

Took the bike out to my top secret test facility this past Sunday, partly to ensure that everything still fit on the trailer as it should. It did. Only got one clean run at the strip as I was chasing some jetting gremlins. Was running without a filter, and the rear was throwing up a lot of small stones... was worried that the carb would swallow something. Got a filter sourced, so will do some more runs at Gimli to get the jetting finalized.

Scitsu tach was a bust -- wouldn't rev past 2000 rpm.  Dammit!  Will try something else, going sans tach for now...

another vid

Rule Britannia

After some trying, I couldn't get the AIM tach to read properly, nor could I figure out the lap time function... so I sold it to a cart racer.  I think the wasted spark of the engine had the tach fooled.  Regardless, with the sale of the mychron I had some coin for some other guages -- simpler, I hope.

This is a scitsu tach from the UK.  Bought used off of eBay -- internal battery was shot, so I went to Prairie Battery and they are making me up a new one, to be housed externally -- the original was inside the bezel.  The water temp guage is by KOSO -- a nice, simple unit that works perfectly.

Further on the electrical front, I got a custom mini battery from the 13x forums.  Less than half the weight of the original, and even works better, apparently.  Starts up the mono easy.  Put in an aluminum heat sheild over the header to help protect it.

Hopefully the battery for the tach gets done in short order and I can test out the tach.  Am also removing the thermostat from the cooling system, as per ATV racing mods. 



Serviced the carb and found that a diaphram was stuck -- caused some serious popping on decelleration.  The internet is a wonderful place for information!  Also cleaned up the jets, and installed a 152.5 main, vs the 140 that I started with.  Its getting harder and harder to find jets....

rad!

Wow, that's a weak title.  Anyway, courtesy of eBay, and dear ol' mom and dad, the following came on the bus today:

Almost twice as thick a core as the OEM rad (which had developed a pinhole leak).  Should hold an extra 30% more coolant that the stock one.  This one actually seems to fit better than the original!

And what seems like a fairly regular occurence, I sliced open my finger.  Looks far worse than it is.  I just can't seem to get used to using those "Mechanix" gloves that the Nascar boys do.  Can't feel anything with them on.

Nothing new on the outside, but this fork had a bit of a leak since new.  I replaced the seal, along with adding 20W oil to each fork.  It seems to have really stiffened up the front -- the oil adding a bit of hydraulic assist to the spring.  Will have to re-measure front sag when I can.