Things what make me really happy.
There's one thing that always puts a smile on my face. What is that thing?
VICTORY!
Yesterday I took the Black Bike to AF-1 Racing, and let Micah Shoemaker work his magic on it.
It took about five hours all told. Run after run, he'd set the bike to a certain throttle position, set the dynamometer to hold a specific RPM, and use his exhaust analyzer to read the exhaust gases and tune the bike accordingly. The map has 12 throttle positions, and 12 key RPMs, so that's 144 datapoints to plot. Now you see why it took five hours.
We had a few exciting moments. At one point the final drive boiled over and began spewing Guinness colored gear oil out of the breather like Mount St. Paralever. Turns out that my salvaged final drive had some water in the oil. As the drive heated up, the water boiled and made the whole mess boil over. A quick oil change and we were back at it. Luckily this happened early on, before Micah started really giving the bike a lot of gas and stressing the final drive gears.
And there was the time that we were making changes to the rev limit, and suddenly the bike began to stutter and knock and sound like it had just thrown a rod. What happened? I'd meant to set the rev limit to 10,000 RPM, but instead had set it to 1000 RPM. Whups!
Micah's dyno room has two giant fresh air fans, two giant exhaust fans, and two more blower fans that can be aimed at radiators and intercoolers. And then add in the sound of a turbocharged engine at full bark, and everything in the room shakes. But that's nothing according to Micah,"Sometimes I have a Hayabusa or Harley in here, and after a couple of hours the vibrations are so bad that I run out of the room and either puke, have diarreah, or both at the same time."
Sometimes it was quite scary in there. You're hot and tired. You're a foot away from a howling motorcycle that is strapped down to the platform with its rear wheel on the roller, and it is straining to escape and go crashing through the front wall of the dyno room
(As a sidenote, this can happen!)
Knowing all this, it's hard to make yourself stay in the room. Several times I wanted to run away.
After many hours, Micah had a fuel map that would let the bike run well at any throttle setting and RPM.
We did a little work with the acceleration enrichment values. These numbers control the injection of extra fuel that is needed when the throttle is being opened. Even with our values, the bike wasn't happy on the transitions. But it was good enough for a test ride. So long as I opened the throttle slowly, it was happy. But if I would open the throttle quickly, the bike would buck and shudder for a second, then come back on power as I stopped moving the throttle.
I hauled it home and went to bed.
Today I played with the acceleration enrichments. I switch from TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) based to MAP (Manifold Air Pressure) based, and immediately the bike was running like a top.
I still want to play with settings. I've had the bike up to 120mph so far. There's a few weak spots on the fuel map that I think can be fixed. And I can always go after more power by increasing boost levels. That's the fun about turbos. You turn one screw and gain horsepower.
I lost some power when I regeared the bike. I put on a K1100 final drive and swingarm, which geared the bike up by 10%. That's a lot, and it means that the bike's traded acceleration for top speed. I'll get the acceleration back when I start upping the boost.
I have a leaking fork seal from years of the bike sitting still. There's a slight oil leak at the turbo oil return. And the turbo itself does need a new compressor shaft seal. But that's all easily done.
The point is, the bike can be ridden.
This was a good weekend.
Still to do. Find a K1100 front wheel to match the rear. Fix the three leaks. Minor tweaking of the fuel map and accel enrichments.
VICTORY!
Yesterday I took the Black Bike to AF-1 Racing, and let Micah Shoemaker work his magic on it.
It took about five hours all told. Run after run, he'd set the bike to a certain throttle position, set the dynamometer to hold a specific RPM, and use his exhaust analyzer to read the exhaust gases and tune the bike accordingly. The map has 12 throttle positions, and 12 key RPMs, so that's 144 datapoints to plot. Now you see why it took five hours.
We had a few exciting moments. At one point the final drive boiled over and began spewing Guinness colored gear oil out of the breather like Mount St. Paralever. Turns out that my salvaged final drive had some water in the oil. As the drive heated up, the water boiled and made the whole mess boil over. A quick oil change and we were back at it. Luckily this happened early on, before Micah started really giving the bike a lot of gas and stressing the final drive gears.
And there was the time that we were making changes to the rev limit, and suddenly the bike began to stutter and knock and sound like it had just thrown a rod. What happened? I'd meant to set the rev limit to 10,000 RPM, but instead had set it to 1000 RPM. Whups!
Micah's dyno room has two giant fresh air fans, two giant exhaust fans, and two more blower fans that can be aimed at radiators and intercoolers. And then add in the sound of a turbocharged engine at full bark, and everything in the room shakes. But that's nothing according to Micah,"Sometimes I have a Hayabusa or Harley in here, and after a couple of hours the vibrations are so bad that I run out of the room and either puke, have diarreah, or both at the same time."
Sometimes it was quite scary in there. You're hot and tired. You're a foot away from a howling motorcycle that is strapped down to the platform with its rear wheel on the roller, and it is straining to escape and go crashing through the front wall of the dyno room
(As a sidenote, this can happen!)
Knowing all this, it's hard to make yourself stay in the room. Several times I wanted to run away.
After many hours, Micah had a fuel map that would let the bike run well at any throttle setting and RPM.
We did a little work with the acceleration enrichment values. These numbers control the injection of extra fuel that is needed when the throttle is being opened. Even with our values, the bike wasn't happy on the transitions. But it was good enough for a test ride. So long as I opened the throttle slowly, it was happy. But if I would open the throttle quickly, the bike would buck and shudder for a second, then come back on power as I stopped moving the throttle.
I hauled it home and went to bed.
Today I played with the acceleration enrichments. I switch from TPS (Throttle Position Sensor) based to MAP (Manifold Air Pressure) based, and immediately the bike was running like a top.
I still want to play with settings. I've had the bike up to 120mph so far. There's a few weak spots on the fuel map that I think can be fixed. And I can always go after more power by increasing boost levels. That's the fun about turbos. You turn one screw and gain horsepower.
I lost some power when I regeared the bike. I put on a K1100 final drive and swingarm, which geared the bike up by 10%. That's a lot, and it means that the bike's traded acceleration for top speed. I'll get the acceleration back when I start upping the boost.
I have a leaking fork seal from years of the bike sitting still. There's a slight oil leak at the turbo oil return. And the turbo itself does need a new compressor shaft seal. But that's all easily done.
The point is, the bike can be ridden.
This was a good weekend.
Still to do. Find a K1100 front wheel to match the rear. Fix the three leaks. Minor tweaking of the fuel map and accel enrichments.