my bike ate a wheel bearing could have been nasty but i will steal the rear wheel from the track bike project and come back in six weeks
What a brilliant, informative, and fun thread, @speedrattle! Thanks for taking the time and energy to share your family and your racing and travel adventures.
i'm going back in six weeks, and maybe taking the number three son. there's all sorts of stuff that goes on that i don't have time to document, because i'm raciong, or testing, or helping the kids. i've got some videos that i'll see about posting. nobody crashed, but some people blew up if you don't blow up every now and then you aren't going fast enough also i have to get a smaller sprocket for the ninja. stock is 45 teeth, and the kids were bouncing off the rev limiter at 104 last year. so i put on a 43, and this year the ran 105 in still air, and 108 with the tail wind. i'm going to bring a 41 tooth sprocket with me, just in case there's a tailwind. if i had had one to put on tis time, they could have run the little bike to 109 or 110, which woul dbe unobtainable without both the sporockewt and the wind. but you have to be there, and you have to be ready. there's no substitute for showing up prepared. it's how you set the records.
Yep, great videos. But there's even better ones on SR's channel. (Ooops did I say that or did I just think it). Sorry mate, but that 650 is really something else and needs to be shown off. I love the BSA cutting on the throttle opening and the chuckle that goes with it. (I didn't really get the trumpet getting up the hill though). And there's fluffy bitey things, snow, ice, trucks and cats on there too. Go give them all a look see. Going to go off and hide now. Over
riding the bike up the hill was a detonation test. the hill is 18 to 19 percent. my triumph is 9.5 to 1 with dual plugs, running as slow as i can make it go in as high a gear as it will pull. the tank is full of 87 octane, lowest grade unleaded and the bike never pings. that bike doesnt ever ping, no matter how much i lug it or how bad the fuel. and it still goes 117 mph on worn rings the fluffy bitey things are orphans wr raised last spring. raccoons and american opossums. chocolate chip cookies arebtheir preferred diet
Good on you and yours for helping out the orphans. My preferred diet is also chocolate chip cookies All the stuff we thought we knew should have that bike detonating the gudgeon pins out of the piston. You've obviously looked at the pistons knowing that the rings are worn. No signs of detonation? How bloody confusing is that.
its because the head has four plugs, two 14mm normal and two 12mm inboard. i run two dynatek dual lead coils in series, with an ancient mk3 boyer, so all the plugs fire at once every 360 degrees. i have the timing set at 30 btdc, which makes idle timing too retarded, but i have some resistors im going to test that will let me reduce the total advance. i also have a four plug head on my race bike that doesnt detonate at 11.75 to 1 and 110 octane, using 10mm inner plugs at 30btdc. on the two plug head there was pecking at the piston crowns running 38btdc. its a magneto, which makes ignition unusual, but it runs just fine
Ah, ok twin plugs and reduced advance timing. Less burn time and more spark to ensure it all burns properly. I'm just happy that mine run ok - mostly. I get upset when the Geezer over the road revs his bike on start up. I got really upset when I took one of my bikes to a Dyno - it was all I could do not to stop the bloke who was trying to blow it up. I was glad to get it off that machine. Getting more power and faster was easily solved when I was younger. I bought a Jap bike. I like to poodle about now and shine up the paintwork. More power to your elbow (and your bike). Over.
i have an older buell for when i want stupid. i used to run a 74 trident pretty hard until it poked a rod through the cases. my 72 is not special, but its had some serious upgrades over the 40-plus years ive owned it. when i just want to go fast i go the races and get it all out of my system there. ive never dynoed the race bike. tried once but melted the clutch pushrod at both ends. a friend of mine who is slower gets around 65 crankshaft horsepower on his. he has more torque, but i spin mine higher.
well, i didnt manage to make it back. a couple of weeks out of work due to various issues made me redistribut the money so the LSR is on the lift while i make a decision about the wheels, an in the meantime i got curious about a long-term interest. ive always been interested in carburetors, especially the old amal-style things, concentrics and monoblocs, VM mikunis. ive had mikunis on my commuter for way over thirty years, and ive tuned them for dirt bikes, an old trident i had, my LSR machine at one time, too. tried to fit one on a 1966 BSA thunderbolt but there is no way to do a single carb the size of the mikuni on that frame. but the other day i snagged something interesting to experiment with. a pair of AMAL GP2 carbs, complete with a remote matchbox float bowl, an original mounting bracket, and some spare bits the matchbox spare slides rubber mount for the matchbox even an extra bod. with a GP needle annother slide these carbs were developed to replace the AMAL GPs from 1954. first came out in 1962, and were fitted to the fastest superbike of the 1960s, the 1966 BSA spitfire mk2. that machine was supposedly good for 125 with a stock head and some compression. these carbs are famous for two things-- flowing lots of air, and being impossibly hard to live with. they have no idle speed adjustment, fairly crude low throttle metering, and parts were --and are-- expensive. aside from the spitfire, the only place you ll see them stock is on the last of the 500cc gold stars. customers hated them, and took em off to add either the last of the monoblocs or the first of the concentrics, either of which was less fuss and worked better on the street. the venturis on these things arent very big, only 30mm through the middle. but theyre smoothbores, no obstructions except the spray tube, not even th eneedle is in the bore. the inner body is like a monobloc, with no open cavit under the slide, just a smooth tube from front to back, which means the velocity stays high. at the moment, im running 35mm FCRs on my LSR machine: these carbs are pretty good, but are only about25 years newer than the GP2s. they work very well, but i'm not as fast with them as i want to be. so im trying the old GP2s. im dubious that their speed is enough to make up for the 36 percent disadvantage in cross sectional area compared to the FCRs, but you never know until you try. and the GP-pattern carbs are on teh fastest triumph mile machines there are- alp sungertekins altered 650s. ^^^this machine has maxxed out on gasoline at 139mph, and i'm three percent behind at 135. these instruments were expensive, but for the forseeable future, they wont lose any value. theyre rare enough and still in demand enough that i can always re-sell them for more than what i paid. and i have a trackbike project as well, so who knows.
its spring, and ive spent money. called up th emotel in maine, 1200 miles north, and reserved rooms at the motel for the races in the summer and the fall. we're headed up again. i hold the MPG 650/4 record for my 1965 triumph bonneville at 135.259 mph. MPG means production frame, no fairing, motor from the same make as the frame, and no fancy fuel. basically, a streetable hot rod. i run mine without an electrical system to make it simple. the bike weighs about 280 pounds as i last ran it, is maybe 26 inches high and extremely loud. its the fastest 650 triumph in a production frame thats ever been, anywhere in the world. if i can get faster than 139.226, it will be the fastest 650 triumph of any kind, ever, that i know about. this means the united states, britain, australia, you name it. had issues last time around because i spun a wheel bearing and had to retire the machine for the event. but im going back this summer with older and more conventional wheels, and we ll see what we can do. i have all the horsepower i can reasonably expect to make with this motor, and im much better off trying to make my fat ass smaller to stay out of the wind. something like 90 percent of the motors horsepower over 100 mph is used up fighting the wind, and thats where the action is. im already riding the machine at 135 with my ass up in the air so the wind flows between my legs and my head upside down looking at the tach with one eye because two eyes give me too many images to process. there are a few little aerodynamic things i can still do to the bike to be smaller, but i dont know what i can accomplish. the big problem at 135 mph is the rider. at any rate, i have one and maybe three kids comng along to run the little kawasaki ninja for a nother record. we already hold the production and pure production records for the 250s with that bike, and may be able to get it to go faster if the gods of weather are favourable.
old configuration these 1990 suzuki wheels lower the bike to a seat height of 23 inches. everythuig drags under even mild turns. but the races are straight line. i spun a wheel bearing with this setup, and while i like the 17-inch wheels and the little tiny 2.5-inch tires, im short on time and need the machine back up and competitive without any delay. so its back to the stock wheel setup the stock triumph 18 and 19-inch wheels add something like 30 pounds to the machine, but in LSR, weight is not nearly as important as aerodynamics. the machine has been fastest with the heavy, high wheels, and theyre a straight swap back in. so thats what we ll run. the motor is about as developed as i think i can get it. theres just not a lot more horsepower to be found there. im running an old belt-drive ARD magneto, which has more spark scatter than i should put up with, but it still works and not having an electrical system means i have that many fewer things to go wrong. conceivably i could get a bit more power with a little more accuarte spark timing, but im not at the edge of the envelope there. the tach is technically illegal according to th erules for my class. its supposed to be up in the stock position, b ut itf its up there i cant see it during a run, so i have it down where i can use it. if somebody complains, ill take it off, but until then im leaving well enough alone the pipes stick out into the wind. i copies the angles of stock pipes in 1-5/8 inch tubing, and theyre 34 inches long around the curve. they work well, but they stick out. if i can tuck the new pipes in behind the front wheel out of the wind then maybe i can get one or more mph more than i have. i dont know whether ill have time to make new ones. this stuff is all very slow. but the real kicker is me. i have to lose about twenty pounds so i can fold up tighter. i do this every year for the summer, and then melt back into the flabby old 66 year old lump i am the rest of the year. but i havent given up yet.
thats the idea. turning them in and then running straight down side by side parallel and close to the front downtube. for the ones i have i bought a pile of mandrel bent and straight tubing from cone engineering in america, and then just started cutting and fitting. theyre an excellent resource if you need to make your own pipes
hot damn its showtime again im headed for maine in july. got two and maybe three kids to run the little 2007 ninja 250. we have the record in two production classes at around 109 mph on it, and theyre up against the 14000 rpm rev limiter at that speed. so, if the wind gods are favourable well need a smaller rear sprocket to enable them to maybe hit 110. no way to tell until we re there, but if i dpnt have one well not find it. loring maine is way up in tbe middle of nowhere unless you ate running a vintage britbike. if you ate, its perfect, as british cycle supply has a warehouse on the airstrip.
sorry about the typos, my fingers sre clumsy. anyway, ill be running the 1965 T120. its the 650 cc vintage machine that holds the class record in maine at 135 mph. its a naked class, no aero. i could get 140 with a fairing but im looking for aesthetics here. its a personal challenge to go superfast without any aids. if i can get 140, it will be tbe fastest triumph 650 that has ever been. on normal gasoline anyway. i am considering oxygenated fuel, which is legal in my class and may noost mecas much ss 4 petcent in horsepower. if it does, 140 mph is within reach. so stsy tuned. still have somevchassis issues to resolve, butvwe ve booked the motel so were committed.