in three weeks i take my 1965 bonneville to the land speed races in maine, USA currently its the fastest meriden triumph bonneville that has ever been, at 135.259 mph. i'm looking to beat 139.226, which is the fastest 650 cc triumph ever. my machine is M/PG, which means, factory frame, no nitromethane or nitrous, no aero aids, running on gasoline. its smaller than my bicycle, and weighs 280 pounds and runs the mile at around 7250 rpm, which is a lot for an old piece of shit like it is. 649 cc, 11.75 to 1, 35mm keihin FCR, ARD magneto, head by rob hall with OS intake and exhaust valves, billet crank by greg blagus, MAP rods, newby belt, 2.5 x 17-inch suzuki katana wheels, not much else except careful tuning. the competition is all within 2 mph. we'll see how we do.
Wow, best of luck my man. I know you'll be busy with stuff but take some pictures if you have time. We'll be cheering for you from this side of the pond. Go get em, they'll never make up that 2mph.
Great stuff! I wish you best of luck and keep my fingers crossed. Please post back and pictures are always welcome.
Go well my friend. Apparently Burt Munro still holds the LSR for under 1000cc on his Indian Scout at 184mph!! Can that be right?? All 1000cc bikes are capable of over that now, is it just a case that no one has taken one to the official LSR events??
How exciting, @speedrattle! Best of luck to you and please let us know how it goes. With photos, of course.
i'm headed out to the shop right now to look over what i need to pack up. i don't know what class munro was running in. sometimes records end up being permanent because the class is changed, and whoever had the record last keeps it forever. or it could be just that nobody runs a machine like his. the record at bonneville right now for 650cc modified british twins is only 123mph, because nobody runs them there anymore. on triumphs, you can run in altered, which means a custom race-built frame, or in modified, like i do, using a stock frame. i run a naked machine, so there can't be any fairings or streamlining. and i run straight race gasoline, no oxygenated fuel or additives. i could put a license tag on mine and run it on the street if i installed lights. 135 is the fastest anybody has ever gone under ^^^these constraints. you can add a fairing and pick up 8 or 10 mph, or add a custom frame and get 4 or 5. or add nitromethane and pick up 40. i'm trying to get a friend of mine to bring up his own LSR machine. it was the fastest until i squeaked by him, and i want to run the machines side-by-side. might happen. the daughters run a 250 ninja in box stock.
popped it up on the lift, took off the tanks and re-torqued the head. this machine wears itself out pretty quick--at around 65 horsepower, it gets new pistons and either a hone or new cylinders about every 300 miles. valve job every 150 or so. i'm allowed one 0.020 rebore before i'm out of the 650 class, the riding position is pretty radical. my head is down below where handlebars normally sit, so i have the tach mounted low and have to look at it from between thetriple clamps. the seat is minimal. just a sheet of 1/8-inch aluminum. this lets me sit low and also i can slide around looking for a better position during the run. the head has been drilled for two plugs per cylinder. this lets me run way high compression without detonation. i use an ARD magneto for ignition. the spark is erratic, like all rubber-belt drive ignitions, but so far its not the most important thing to change its touchy about the pipes. i test with extensions, and it likes 1 5/8 x 34 inches. two inches either way on length will cost me 4 mph. carbs are 35mm keihin FCR, flat slides with accelerator pumps. wonderful things, but expensive. there's a guy who does 136 with 32 mm concentrics and a custom frame, so maybe the carbs are overkill. but they're easy to tune. tomorrow ive got to go and arrange the tools. ill be 1200 miles from the house, so if i don't bring it, i won't have it, mostly.
Exciting stuff and the tools will be essential so far from home. Best of luck on weather and performance, watching from afar in great interest
i have a 40 mm newby belt drive and clutch in there. it runs dry, so ive installed the crankshaft seal and had to make the cases breathe some other wsy. the 3/4-inch hose you see runs to the back, and tberes also a 3/8 hose from each rocker box to the same same destination.
last minute stuff. i work out of truck two weeks out of three, so today is the day i load up thetrailer and park it in the warehose. when i come back in two weeks, we'll hook it up and drive 1100 miles to maine. in the meantime, i did th elast minute checks, ignition timing, rechecked the valve clearances because there was a tapping (they were fine), and then adjusted the rear chain and aligned the wheel. this machine is hard on chains. if i run a garden-variety parts house chain, the machine eats it in two or three days. i have a couple renolds chains to keep as spares, but i'm running a DID now that seems to work well. i'm using the 17-inch katana wheels and a custom 38-tooth sprocket on a stock swing arm, with 11-inch shocks (stock is 13). this means that the chain is tightest when the theres no weight on the bike, and it loosens up a bit when i sit on it. so i got that straightened out and safety-wired the axle nuts. then i sat down and just stared at the machine, going over everything that might be wrong, from front to back. and i noticed that the right hand exhaust was two inches shorter than the left, as the extension had slipped forward and been tightened there, undoubtedly by me. so i fixed that and came up to the house for lunch. now im taking the trailer out to load everything on it, and everything will be done except the worrying
damn almost broke my leg i was hooking up thetrailer out in the hayfield and had to pick up the tongue and lift it up and over the hitch ball, except it slipped to the side and caught my right knee at the joint and fell on me. luckily i fell down at nearly the same rate, so instead of a break i have a knee the size of a rugby ball that should still be okay, as i don't have to kickstart this machine. i have a hand held automototive starter that plugs into the crankshaft to turn it, so i should be fine. but the trailer is loaded two bikes, two tool boxes with everything i need and all my tuning tools, two totes with more tools, a box with extra sprockets in case i decide to raise the gearing, another with all the fluids and lubricants, a market canopy, four chairs, a cooler, a folding table, two cans of C12 gasoline for the triumph, a jug of 90 octane non-ethanol for the little kawasaki, and whatever else i think we might need. this place up in maine is as far as you can go in the united states and not have to speak french, so lots of people skip it because if something breaks they cant get parts. but if your ride is a british motorcycle, british cycle supplpy has a warehouse on the airport property, and i can get anything i need, up to and including new engines cases and frames. works very well. http://www.britcycle.com/
Yikes! Good thing you avoided serious injury. You should invest in a nose wheel for the trailer. Good luck at the race, and keep the illustrated reports coming.