Featured Land Speed Racing 2023

well, theres nothing i can do ablut these images. theyre stored on imgur, which is an ordinary image hosting site. the forum software here cant display them

i dont have these stored anywhere else, so thats that

 

https://i.imgur.com/z97i60ll.png

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/z97i60ll.png)







^^^none of the available image formats from imgur.com will display on this forum. i have no difficulty anywhere else, so it has to be here.

you can see some of them if you click on th elink, so thats what ill have to do next time

 

nopw none of them appear to work

random image from the net

https://www.bennetts.co.uk/-/media/...hash=F9371F7E97540C842733781A1C8856F858B333B9

in image tags:



no problem hot linking to someone elses picture.

 

heres a hot link from the front page of this forum:

https://www.thetriumphforum.com/data/featured_threads/icons/39/39198.jpg?1690827936

deleting the last part of the url aft the jpg:

https://www.thetriumphforum.com/data/featured_threads/icons/39/39198.jpg

and now putting it in img tags



no problemo with img tags in a jpg.

 

so heres an image stored in my imgur.com web hosting site, first tag is broken so you can see the url

[ img]https://i.imgur.com/ySAh2mMl.jpg[/img]

here it is with the tag fixed using my usual code:



now running down the list of imgur options:

image link:

https://imgur.com/ySAh2mM

markdown link, for reddit:

[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/ySAh2mMl.jpg)

html:

<a href="https://imgur.com/ySAh2mM"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ySAh2mMl.jpg" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

bbcode for forums, the one i usually use:



linked bbcode for message boards:



direct link, error

in no cases will the image simply appear in my post, as it used to. you must click the link, which can appear as the "X" and then wait for an imgur page.

this is beyond me.

 

so here is where we are

bike is done. all the parts are on it: stator, rotor, coils, battery, deadman, kill switch, all there with dangly wires.

im going to wire it tomorrow morning when my head is clear.

a lesson i have learned.

anyway, heres the barrel style rotor and stator.



andy at pazon was having problems with the smartfires when i bought this. the old round rotor plate with holes was not controlled well enough at height on the cam and wasnt working. this barrel rotor was appatently the soution, as the tall slots in the hall effect mechanism wrre not sensitive to how far in or outboard the rotor was positioned.

i have another smartfire in a nA65 that has a butterfly rotor. im mot sure what wuestion was answered by b that.

 

the pazon has a red led that makes static timing of the ignition boringly easy. i like that and the tiny screw connectors on the stator plate very much, much better than the boyer there. but the pazon has tiny wires, so you need to be careful to secure them.

 

ive got tbe coils tickef onto an aumimum late connected to the old CEI hole where the tsnk mount bolted, then another bolt to an added bracket.

 

sorry for the confused posting. i dont typically use my telephone for this and the software is pretty unfamiliar. but its the only way to post an image.

 

sorry for the confused posting. i dont typically use my telephone for this and the software is pretty unfamiliar. but its the only way to post an image.

all the xcomponents ar eon and located. all i have to do now is connect the wiring, and i will do that tomorrow morning, and then see whether it will start.

nothing else to do to it. im keeping the 21/46 gearing (keeping in mind the 36/68 primary on bob newby's rubber belt). that gives me a theoretical top speed of 135.1 at 7250 rpm, which it has done. if the machine will pull up to 7500, then i have 139.7, a spectacular record., faster than any triumph 650 has ever gone without aids, anywhere in the world, at any time.

but that is a very hard mark to achieve.

 

heavens the world changes and the children grow up.

the two girls are resting on their laurels and moving on with their lives. neither is racing the 250 ninja this last event of 2023. im delighted with them both and sad that they wont be in maine.

the older son with the current record of 108.814? will not be racing the 250 ninja- he has other plans for the late summer.

the younger boy- only a half second behind on the mile point five- will accompany me but wants to work pit without racing.

why do you want to come if you dont want to race, i ask

so if you crash your triumph you wont have to die alone . . .

not exactly the happiest motivation but what the hell. i still have one kid coming along, and he's turning out well.

maybe the bug will return. they all have made speed records on that ninja, and i have three sprockets to test that might give it one more mile per hour. perhaps one and a half.

thinking about it, i may ride the little kawasaki myself. i may be old and fat, but i still know what 14,000 rpm looks like and i know how to shift.

 

vastly limited time between now and race day, and the maine people have had to cut the event short by a day.

so instead of wednesday through saturday, its wednesday through friday.

we arrive tuesday night and set up wednesday morning, so we have minimal time to mess around.

but while in the past i had to run 30-plus times to dial in the carburation and jets, i now know within a few RAD what i need to run with my machine to go fastest. the power of testing and of keeping records. in some activities it pays to be anal-retentive, and LSR is one of them.

the addition of the electronic ignition will add no complications, just quick and easy accuracy.

i do have some interest in modifying the pipe configuration, but have no time to set up in the next seven days. instead, i will concentrate on chassis through the next year, and build a set of adjustable pipes.

about time for a rebore, too. i think i have maybe two hundred miles on these pistons and maybe five hundred miles on the valve springs.

pretty tired for a machine that lives at 8000 rpm.

 

okay, the machine runs.

this is always a stress test for me when i make a major modification to the machinery i use: will it start, or do i have to deal with a last minute crisis?

but i have found that pazon ignitions are apparently foolproof. i have limited experience, using only the smartfires, first on a T120, then on an A65. no issues with either one, then i tried a different twin-plug smartfire on the LSR, and about twenty minutes ago it rewarded me by starting and allowing me to set the timing. so all is good.

the difference between the expensive smartfire and the less expensive surefire is nothing more than whether the package includes ignition coils. everything else is the same. unless the surefire doesnt have the rev li
iter? i dont know about tbat

the twin plug pazon i am using has a different advance curve from the single plug unit:

single plug:



twin plug:



standard T120 points ignition is fully advanced at around 2000 rpm, set to 38 BTDC. the typical boyer or pazon has a slower advance, and doesnt have as much spark knock under acceleration from lower rpm. this twin plug unit doesnt hit full advance until about 4000 rpm. i have no idea how it will affect top speed runs. ive always run 30 BTDC fixed advance using an ARD magneto, so having a machine that has an advance curve is somewhat new to me. although once warmed up, that 30 BTDC twin plug magneto willl idle at around 1000 or 1500 or so, pretty lumpy, but even when it had a kick start it wasnt hard to make it go.

anyway, i ve set the timing to 31 BTDC. thats realistically no different from 30, and ill see what i need to do. the old belt-driven magneto was a wonder of simplicity-- no wires, ground to kill, easy . . . now i have a battery, a fuse, wiring from the transistor box to two coils, variious other complexities . . . i dont like that stuff, but i allow that the spark is a lot steadier with andy's unit than it was with the magneto, so we'll see where we are once i run the machine.

 

does anybody besides me still use the old gunson colour tune? ive had one for years, use it frequently, and recommend it to anybody who cares about doing things right.

th egunson colourtune is a glass spark plug (mica, really) that lets you look inside the combustion chamber at idle to set the mixture visually, rather than by the seat of the pants.

it consists of a spark plug with a mica window:



the window lets you look inside the chamber during combustion. a rich mixture burns with a yellow flame. a lean mixture burns with a pale blue flame.

a correct mixrue (14.7 to 1) burns with a solid blue.





rich:




transitional:




lean:



comes with beaucoup directions, or at least mine did thirty something years ago. i keep it out of th elight so the coloured instructions dont fade, but really, you if you can distinguish yellow from blue thats all you need.

you dont need to know the chemistry. anybody who has used an oxyacetylene torch knows the difference bewtween a rich and a lean flame, and this is the same. works just like the gas stove in your kitchen, if youve ever had to set on up. easy.

i had a spare moment this afternoon, so i started up the LSR on e lift, let it warm up a minute, then put in the colourtune plug. the flame was yellow, so i turned the idle airscrew out until the flame just turned blue. you can do this by ear too, but i like using both my ears and my eyes at the same time.

i had a somewhat lumpy idle at 1200 to start with. when i was done, i still had a somewhat lumpy idle bnut it was at 1000 rpm. thats an improvement. cant help my lumpy cams, but the colourtune lets me get the best out of the motor while im waiting in the starting line, not loading up the plugs or overheating the cylinder head.

amazon sells em still. mine came in a nic e little paperboard box, with a bottle of solvent and a brush and so forth. they seem to be a bit stripped down these days, but the plug is all you need

 

and while im at it i want to put in a vote fpr the unisyn as well. this is a device that gives you a visual measure of air velocity into the carburetters. also bought this baziilions of years ago, and i use it whenever i set the carbs.

the unisyn is a vacuum gauge. you stick it over the mouth of a carburetor and a little orange bobble rises and falls with the manifold vacuum. it has an adjuster wheel in the middle so that you can set the height of the bobble at whatever is convenient, which will be different for different machines or for any machine on different days of the week.

here it is setting the mikunis on my commuter





that little knurled disc in the middle is what you spin to set the bobble at a convenient height:



here's the other side-- the bourdon tube is on a pivot so you can use it even on things like nortons where the carbs aren't very vertical.



the unisyn is specialized for synchronizing carbs. you do one side, and then put the tool over on the other and adjust it to exactly the same manifold vacuum. then you just lower the slides with the idle screws the same amount to where you want it. i haven't used it on a triple, but i imagine it works as well there.

i put mine on the LSR after i adjusted the mixture with the color tune, and saw that i didnt have to do anything. my cams are pretty hot (duration is 296.5 degrees, as opposed to stock at 272), so they have erratic vacuum at idle, but even then you can achieve a noticeable improvement.

both the colourtune and the unisyn are for idle only-- they dont tell you anything about the mixture any higher than the slide cutaway, and you should t try. you can blow the colourtune plug apart at much above idle, so dont try.

but for a street bike, theyre aces. i could get my commuter idling so low i had to turn it up because i was afraid of insufficient oil pressure at 500 rpm.

both these tools are still available and they will last forever. but modern machines dont need em, so if youre interested, buy yours now.

 

i also use a relative air density meter when im running a machine at the races. i tune by RAD, and im a believer. dunno whether theres interest in that. it gets pretty specialized unless you tune for seasonal weather conditions.

if you change your timing and jetting for winter and summer, using a RAD meter is the way to get the most out of your machine.

but im a tuning junkie. im fascinated by getting the timing and the jetting correct. little percentages make a difference to me, and having a machine that doesnt falter when i roll on the throttle or hold it WFO is a success to me.

mostly. my old grocery getter BSA thunderboltss dont care one way or another what i do. but the commando and the bonnevilles care very much.

 

i use a mechanical device that appears to no longer be available



most systems now use a battery and some sort of digital readout. mine is old school mechanical analog:



i used to also measure temperature and get an estimate of humidity too, but the temperature is taken into account with the RAD, and the humidity is pretty simple, really



i still record it, because, why not . . .

 

shit i forgot this forum cant do jpgs.

ill try to upload later