Saturday 8 November 2014

Go with the flow

At the end of every race season i nearly always have a plan to not change much on the bike, as usually it was just starting to run pretty good by the end of the year. It would make sense to cover it up with a sheet, change nothing and carry on where we left off. However, that never happens, something always appears or get offered to you at a good price and you end up changing lots of stuff.
Only this year thats not the intention. The bike went well all year, with the only improvement  being the 60ft times and the MPH. It went 7.5 at the first event of the year and never went much quicker.
And so the intention this winter is simple - to make it faster.

The priority at the moment is to sort the problem with the clutch. The engine is out of the bike and partly stripped down. I'm not 100% sure what the problem is just yet, but it seems that the primary gear on the clutch basket may be bent. It's an odd part to get damaged in that way, but it has a fair amount of side to side runout.
The focus after getting that sorted is to upgrade my nitrous system. I've always used the small NOS 16080 powershot solenoids, and they've worked really well, however they only flow so much especially at the low fuel pressure my pump delivers, and i've reached the limit of what they can deliver. And so, i have a plan to carry on using the small NOS fuel solenoid but to double up and use two of them. Each one feeding just a pair of cylinders this time rather than all 4. This also means i can position them really close the the fogger and pretty much eliminate the fuel line from solenoid to fogger. The long lines i'm fairly sure are the cause of the lean spot i've talked about in the past.
The nitrous solenoid will be replaced with a new Nitrous Express one, and i've gone for one that should be pretty future proof, a 15300L with a .125 orifice that can flow up to 500hp of nitrous.

I've also decided to go with the flow where the new bike build is concerned. I was hoping it would be finished for the start of next season, and it may well still be. But there's still a long way to go and i simply don't have the funds to go out and buy all the remaining parts brand new. I have to wait for bargains to appear, and i want it to be right. If that means it's not done then so be it, and i can't help but think that it's no disappointment to have to run the old bike for a few meetings or even the whole season as it's running so well and has loads of potential left in it. Especially with a better nitrous system that i can perfect on it before transferring it to the new bike.

And talking of the new bike, today was spent making the rear brake caliper hanger. The caliper is off a 250 Aprilia scooter so comes with a mega long brake hose and a left hand side handlebar lever. It saves a lot of hassle making a rear brake foot lever, was fantastically cheap, and will be easier to use.


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