Track stories 2007

[lecroy]

Good to have oyu back with us Jake! Was starting to wonder. I have two old mechanical advancers if you need one to chop up.

Hope the spreadsheet helps. If you ever go to an MTC multi-stage you have all of my math for it. I just don't know if it is right or not. LOL

Congrats on the win! I hear ya on the humidity. By 8:00 Friday we were at 40% at 70 deg. Every weigh yourself before and after a day of racing? Was the 9.481 the quickest you ahve run with it?

I was not expecting much on Friday because so many kids show up with their street cars and the track prep is not the greatest after hours. I started out with the boost turned all the way down. Just getting a bearing on my old turbo versus the eBay one. Was expecting see a low 10 high 9 pass, but she pulls off an 8.7. I still have the same clutch plates in and she broke into the 2s with a 1.279. So, maybe the track was going away, not the clutch.

I was able to make 4 passes with her. The sun was down on the last pass and the guy next to me was saying that the track was going away. I dropped the tire pressure to 5PSI and adjusted the wastegate another turn. She ended up just shy of where I had been running with the other turbo. Made my best run ever of 1.2919 5.4159 @ 128.23 8.5348 @ 155.19. Plenty of room to play with the turbo now. Next step is to adjust the bars to get some weight transfer and add one more shim to the clutch. I have a record 13 passes on this pack now. New parts should be in on Monday for the other turbo....

Saturday was our worst day yet this year. The big bike was puffing blue smoke. Then the kids MSD shift light died. Then the auto died on the big bike and we jacked the tranny. Kid fell to a guy with a 5.04 bulb. Team Green went on to win it. On the plus side, the jet cars were fun to watch!

 

[rosco15]

My fastest passes prior to this were 5.98 in the 1/8th and 9.53 in the 1/4. I'm concerned I may have too much duration for my low compression setup with these cams. I'm also wondering about lobe centers. The megacycle book shows 108IN-112EX. The paperwork I got with the cams shows 108-108. In talking with another racer he said to try lower numbers to increase the pressure I'm losing due to the long duration/low compression. I set them at 108.5In-109.75Ex. The intake valves are about 50thou from the pistons. The exhaust valves are no where near the pistons.

 

[lecroy]

What's you plan then? Are you wanting to go faster now?

As a side note, we turned up the kids bike (he wanted to go faster) last week. The bike did not repeat as good, then we had the rain. This week, same results. I think we are right on the edge of how much power he can plant with that 7" tire and be consistant. And we all know, that's what pays the bills in E/T class.

I can't be of much help setting up the cams. Until a few months ago I had no idea that so many people had so many different ways to degree them. I asked Terry point blank how he degrees his. I then used the same technique and gained about 10PSI cranking pressure.

 

[lecroy]

Video from last weekend testing the new setup. With the last clutch settings I red light every time. Just ignore it. LOL

The Busa was stock. Rider was maybe in the 170 pound range. He ran a 10.1488 on this pass, which was pretty good I thought. He cut a .5851 and that .1 second head start makes it look worse than it was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERBJ0-72g5M

 

[rosco15]

That vid doesn't seem to be working.

I wanna see, I wanna see

 

[lecroy]

Looks like YouTube may be having problems converting the video.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/5bf05ca0-dd78-4de2-9ec7-994b010251bb.htm

 

[lecroy]

Tested the Ward oil pickup Friday. It seems to work for a the mid 8's. Made 4 passes with it and never lost oil pressure. I didn't make any mods to the pan. Problem with the turbo and having the lines routed to the back, when you hit the breaks and all the oil went to the front of the engine and the turbo is still spinning. I guess they will run a deep sump in the Suzuki's but my bike is too low to make the sort of a mod.

The first pass I made, I did not quite have the clutch set right and she dragged me thru the starting line. So I just let let it go. Pass 2 went smooth. Bike ran a 8.51, best time yet and the air was crap. Everything looked so good I increased the boost from 14 to 18PSI. That was all she wrote and the transmission gave out. I gave it one more shot just to make sure she was dead. Still ran in the high 8s with the damaged tranny.

This is the video of me running down a friends sled. If youv'e neve seen a snowmobile drag race, they are pretty quick and smooth.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/d3d1a830-9ba0-41e4-a77c-995000f0c03b.htm


We had the new bike up their testing too. Man, Martin is not the place to test when they run the street cars. There is no track prep after hours. The bike took off sideways. Has an auto and there was no choice but to lift. 8 second car tire bike fell to a 600cc street bike..... We were really worried we lost another transmission. This would have made 3 these last two weeks.

We made it home around 3 next morning and had to be on the road by 10 to make it back up for points. I think there were 6 oil downs. I wonder why they don't make the cars run a blanket. Green and us all fell first round.

 

[rosco15]

I like how the sled is staged with the rpm up and your still doing a burnout. I always thought it racer etiquette to wait till the other racer pre stages to go in all the way. We had three sleds out racing this weekend. Seems like a good way to bracket race to me. No wheelie, no shifting, no balancing. Just hit the throttle and go. Seems like they should be very consistent.

I've got first place by 3 rounds.

 

[lecroy]

All right!! One of the GSR members is in the points lead!!!

There is no racer etiquette on Friday after hours. LOL. Most of the kids there have never been to a real race and just don't know. I don't mind.

He had the kid ride this sled during one of the all sled meets and he put it into the 8's but he is more than 150 lbs lighter. Jim says that they 60 in the teens on ice.

 

[Baatfam]

Way to go Rosco!

We ran Pro400 for the first time this weekend....And it was hot, hot, hot....92?-96? both days.

Saturday was a bust...
First...the scooter quit again...had to borrow a quad from a friend.
Then the track was slick and with the 46 tooth rear, I blew the tire off hard, turned left and took out the 330' cone....oops, first time for that.
Put the 43 back on for the second time run...still blew off the tire and I aborted.
Never hit the tree good, so I ended up last qualifier.
Picked a dial out of thin air....Took some weight off the slider for the first round and she hooked up....
But, I was late on that pro tree, she wouldn't shift into fourth and I was done for the day...
I almost left for the weekend in disgust.

Sunday morning I dropped the pan thinking maybe I tweaked the shift forks on my aborted runs, (1-2-3 auto)....looked OK.
First time run, launched good....but I had to lift the throtle to shift into fourth and fifth....
Kill circuit? Don't know yet. I just raced it that way. A little slower, but she was very consistant.
Hit the Pro tree for a .006 light...#1 qualifier--1st round bye....\\/
Ended up losing in the semis, but made a little money back and went home a little happier.
Had a .012 light off that .400 tree in the 2nd round.

OK....now to find a new scooter and fix the kill circuit...

Bob T. -- startin' to like Pro400 racin'

 

[lecroy]

It's the Battle of the Bikes I on Sunday and we normally have a good turnout for it. I plan to just pit this weekend.

I haven't taken the old girl apart yet to see how bad she was hurt. Lazy, and don't really want to know....

You know your hard core when the drag bike breaks and you have to race the pit bike!

We picked up an old 84 Honda dirt bike last week. I think it sits a little high up to make a good pit bike. We may take it this weekend to try out. Its a strange bike. One cylinder, but two exhaust pipes and two Mikuni carbs! Kick start only and it has a decompression valve tied into the kicker. It didn't run so I tore it apart and one of the wires fell out of the crank pickup. Ground down all the plastic and soldered the wires in place then used some of that great body work adhesive on it.

***************************

If you ever need to glue your parts on your GS, I swear by this stuff!!

http://www.lord.com/

It's not cheap by any means but it does work. We glued a DynaTek square coil where the mount had cracked off. It's real high vibration, high heat where it's mounted. That was two seasons ago and there is no sighs of it coming back apart!! It dries VERY fast!

 

[Baatfam]

Ha....just picked up a new pit scooter myself....brought it home today.
The old 50cc Jog was just too small and getting unreliable.

Good a decent deal, (considering scooter prices these days), on an '84 Honda Aero 125....
The only year they sold that model in the states...I guess parts can be hard to find, but she seems to be in OK shape...

Bob T.

 

[RacingJake]

Did hit the track on Thursday and was able to get a 7.11 at 103 mph, rear tire was still trying to spin at the line causing the bike to hop alittle. Did order a 45 bandit rear sprocket to replace my 42 that's on there now. That should help my 60 ft I hope.

We did have one guy show up with a 4 wheel ATV with expansion pipe's and all the goodies cause he was running 7.30's at 91 mph. That 2 stroke was burning some oil and boy did it wheel hop down the track. I even ran against him and found myself watching him too...... then I woke up and motor by.

If he had some wheelie bars I bet he could break into the 6's.

 

[lecroy]

We had a small turnout for the first all bike meet. Only a few of the locals made it. Maybe 60 bikes or so total.

They had a 2 round buy back so they were able to meet the payouts. We started out rough. The two old guys fell fast and bought back in, then the kid fell in the second round and bought back in. A screw backed out of a toggle switch on one bike and the throttle stops were bouncing. Dad and kid made it to the quarters. Dad had to run Green and he tree'ed him but could not cover the number. The kid went on to the finals against Team Green. He tree'ed Green but took way too much stripe. Beat him by a bike and a half and it cost him big. Made $400 but the $1000 would have been better.

Had one street bike running 7.40's. Not as good as some of the bike I have seen in ProStar, but for this area it was damn good.

 

[rosco15]

Man I'm pumped. Going to go to the Summit NHRA nationals at Norwalk friday night. Sitting ten rows up right at the starting line.

 

[lecroy]

This should make for some good Winter footage. Is this their first big NHRA event since the change?

 

[rosco15]

It will be their first and my first NHRA national event. I talked to my dad about it a couple months ago and he wasn't really interested. Then he called me tonight and asked if I wanted to go. I got right online and bought the tickets. So far the weather looks good. I have the camera on the charger already.

 

[lecroy]

How was the trip to Norwalk? A few guys were talking about going today. From where I live it is about 5 hours one way and I need to do some house work before I can play again...

It was a double race weekend. This was the first ever. We started early and ended late. Two full races in one day. We pit guys only paid once, but the riders pay twice. Plus we save on gas going to the track. For us this is about $45 total now. Got up at 7:00 and made it to bed at 1:00 next morning.

Our first time trial with the new bike was bad. Once again the auto did not work. I ended up pulling the whole thing out and had dad button it. Just no time to dork around with this electronic stuff. Dad's an old button racer anyway so not a big deal. Two bikes and one sled broke in the trials.

We had two closes races. One was with the kid where the margin was 0.0001 seconds, and dad had one at 0.0004. Everyone is stepping up.

Team Green fell again early and the kid ended up in the finals with his dad. The kid took down the old man to win the first race.

You then get one time trial to set the ladder. We were hot lapping the bikes and we asked what happens if we don't run the trial. They throw you to the bottom of the ladder. So we let the kids bike cool and took the new bike up for one more pass. That was all the clutch could take. Lost some major time as the clutch started to slip.

We took it apart to see the damage. Nothing burned! These Kaws are SO MUCH BETTER THAN SUZUKI when it comes to the clutch. I measure the thickness and the plates wore about 0.005" each. So the gap was 0.050" off! We forgot to put the new plates in the trailor and ended up sorting out all the bad ones to find something to use. I got the gap to 0.016 off.

The kid took a long nap and I think it was his down fall. All that sleep and his reflexs changed and he went RED first pass.

Green went out in the 4th round or so and dad went on to win the whole thing. I think we are still one point off of Green.

 

[rosco15]

If you ever get a chance to go to a national event. just go. it was awesome. They have so much going on both on and off the track. I got to meet a bunch of the racers, got some autographs, shot a ton of video. I want to do a little high lite real, but this is john force warming up his car for now.

Saturday we had a tail wind and I ran 9.49 off the trailer. I went out with a breakout. I just keep taking too much at the stripe. Seems each round the bike picks up .02 after the sun sets. I've been afraid to dial it down that much, but I'm going to start. This breaking out each week is killing me.

http://media.putfile.com/ForceWarmup

Here is the second round of bikes on friday night.
http://media.putfile.com/qualify-28

 

[lecroy]

Strange, I can log into this site from home but not from work....

Great videos!!!!! Thanks!!!! Almost make me wish Winter was on it's way. LOL

Got a box from FBG today. As usual they seem to have done a nice job. They put in billet 2nd and 3rd. Billet shaft and tossed in some forks and checked the shafts. They polished all the parts and did a pro-cut on it. Basically it's the same engine now as Rowdy Red except for the head.

Went ahead and pulled my motor after work and split the cases. It really did not look all that bad. At least I can say I have ran my stock GS with much worse parts in it. Must be that everything needs to be perfect to shift with this much power and my fat butt on it.

Off to the shop to get some parts.