GS(X)1100E turbo EFI

[rapidray]

GASGACINCH my friends!!! 1 coat on both sides of gasket, block deck, & head surface. Let it DRY!!! Second coat on same parts, let it DRY!!! Assemble & have FUN trying to get it back apart!!! I've never had one leak this way. Not even on a GSXR engine & they are even harder to seal up! Ray.

[ArttuH]

I have NO problems getting copper gaskets to be leak free. Ray.

Yes, that's what half of the people is saying. And another half keeps telling that it will leak sooner or later no matter what you do

Ok, seriously, I believe it's possible to get a copper gasket leak free. I have heard that hint about Gasgacinch from several sources and apparently VHT copper spray is another good choice.

But for now I keep hoping that this MLS gasket holds and I don't need to open the top end during winter.

[ArttuH]

I had a quite interesting dyno session last Wednesday, with some ups and lows. I needed some dyno pulls to verify if the head gasket leak is really gone after re-torque and I also wanted to get a "second opinion" for power figures. So I booked time for a dyno shop located some 100 miles away from my home. That dyno is quite popular among local bike nutters so there are plenty of results for comparison.

In the beginning all went smoothly, bike on the dyno, setting everything up, warming up the engine and one full throttle pull. Everything looked fine, engine run fine and no signs of head gasket leak. So while the engine cooled down I changed boost control settings for some more boost and added a bit fuel for top end. But when the engine was started again the oil light refused to go off! After few quick checks it was clear that there really wasn't any oil pressure.

So we took the bike off the dyno and I started to open the clutch side to see the oil pump. I was almost sure that the circlip holding the pump gear has jumped off but when I got the clutch basket off I found out something else. The pump drive gear behind the clutch was looking like this. Can you spot something missing?


The dogs that take drive from the clutch gear were broken off and were laying on the bottom of the clutch casing! So I had a slight problem, I was 100 miles away from home with broken bike. After quick thinking I called a friend living nearby and and for my relief I heard that he probably had some pump gears in his treasure collection. He generously delivered the gears to the dyno shop and I was able to put the engine back together. After that the oil pressure was all right again and the engine sounded still healthy so I was able to ride back to home. By this far I haven't noticed any signs of damages so apparently I was really lucky with this accident!

Despite these difficulties overall outcome of this dyno session was positive. The had gasket was holding fine AND that one pull produced quite nice numbers, 264hp / 232Nm on the wheel with 15 psi boost


It seems that calibration of my friend's dyno was rather conservative. Especially since this later dyno isn't too optimistic either, stock gen1 busa usually gives about 150hp and gen2 slightly below 170hp. Now I'm pretty happy with these numbers, pretty much what I planned when I started this engine build!

[gs1150streetracer]

WOw those are numbers...And you have an Angel on ur shoulder by the looks of the oil pump gears,would love to see a vid of this thing ripping threw the gears..WHAT A BEAST!!

[Mysuzyq]

WOw those are numbers...And you have an Angel on ur shoulder by the looks of the oil pump gears,would love to see a vid of this thing ripping threw the gears..WHAT A BEAST!!

+1, mind boggling numbers.....front wheel is probably airborne quite a bit, on the boost!
gs1150streetracer, the bike in your own footnote looks pretty interesting as well...have you posted any pics here?

[ArttuH]

Thanks!

Yes, I really had luck with the oil pump. Fortunately these engines aren't too sensitive for short lubrication breaks. I'm still a bit worried about the cams since they are probably the first ones to suffer. But I will see that later when I adjust the valves next time.

The front wheel feels pretty light indeed. Actually the bike wheelies on first three gears so easily that it isn't really fun any more. And those lower wheelies on fourth gear are slightly scary too but I will learn to live with that Seriously, longer swingarm will be the number one thing for next winter.

I will try to get some riding videos too in the future. The problem is that I don't want to publish videos containing any illegal activity on public roads. It can bring bad karma around here.

[gmansyz]

Interesting

Hello Arttu
Sounds like a lot of fun with all the one wheel rides. Why not retard the ignition timing a little in the lower gears to slow the rising wheel some?
And for the drive lugs breaking off the gear, you are not the first one to have it happen. I still wonder why it happens but did you grind the radius a little larger where the lugs meets the gear? Maybe that was a small factor? Otherwise, the old V&H gears are much the same except for the chamfer. Now the Air/Oil GSXR gears are completely splined. Must help a lot there.
Take Care!
G

[ArttuH]

Hi Greg,

Yes, some gear dependent boost or ignition timing control would be handy. So probably I will do that a bit later when I have time for such finer details.

Interesting to hear that I'm not the first one to break those pump gear drive lugs. Yes, I ground the lugs slightly narrower. The straight cut clutch gear had narrower slots so some grinding was needed to make parts fit.

I guess that I have pushed the oil pressure too high which adds load to the gears. I will enlarge the restrictor orifice to get the pressure on more reasonable level.

[cavehamster]

Hi Arttu,

Thanks again for your details about your ignition control. Now that drag racing season is almost over, I'm about to get busy on making EFI happen on my machine.

I note that the MS guys now have a v3 daughtercard that includes logging to a SD card, which is most interesting, but they are also refusing to publish the schematics to the board as I guess they are tired of people making clones. Seems silly to me, if you have the hardware you can reverse engineer it..

What did you base your MS board off of? Did you put in the MS CPU into your design, or do you just plug a MS-II or whatnot into a socket like the MS guys do? I am thinking of doing my own design that is pin compatible so I can go with the v3 daughter card.

I'm glad the season is pretty much done, the stock wiring on the bike is about to give out... I've got almost 2.5 volts of loss in it now, sheeesh.

[ArttuH]

Yes, the MS3 looks quite interesting but I think it's still in quite early development phase though it apparently already works. So if you just want working engine management I would still stay away of the MS3 for a while. A friend of mine just bought a MS3 for his drag bike project, interesting to see how it will work.

I could say some things about business strategy of MS developers but maybe it's better to leave that elsewhere

My board has a socket for the processor, just like original MS boards. Here is a picture of the board:

http://www.iki.fi/arttuh/MSextra/levy2.jpg

And the schematics just in case if you are interested:

http://www.iki.fi/arttuh/MSextra/MS_extra_10.pdf

[cavehamster]

I contacted the MS folks today to see what they had to say about me building my own baseboard to host a MS-III card, and they were OK with it, but made a big deal about not being allowed to publish my schematics or gerbers as they have patents and copyrights and dont want to dilute the community with random one offs and etc... I understand their point of view, and I guess I was just seeing it as more of a open hardware/source thing and it's not that at all.

Anyway, I think I am going to push forward with a design kinda like yours. I have a complete MS-II right now, it's just too big and not waterproof enough to imagine it being used on a bike (or really, anywhere. DB-37? really?)

Thanks for the link to the schematics, it'll be nice to have something to refer to that is 'known to work' as it were I'm rather looking forward to debugging some hardware now.

[ArttuH]

I think that if you are going to build a board for your own use you don't need permissions from anybody. And I guess that even if you would like to make a MS compatible board and sell it MS developers couldn't do much for it, unless your board is a direct copy of their board. But if you try to sell something with their software it's completely different case. Of course I'm not expert with US patent legislation so don't take this granted. But generally it's very difficult to patent any electronics hardware successfully, pretty much everything has been done before. And there is very little anything unique in MS hardware.

I have to give full respect to the MS developers (Bowling & Grippo and others leading software development). They have done great work for all hobbyists that are interested about engine management systems. But I think that they are kind of trying to keep the cake and eat it with that open source aspect.

[cavehamster]

Yeah, I gotta say they have done well with the hardware and built a big userbase.. my only real beef is it feels like they are taking that momentum and turning it into a pay-for sort of thing. They can, of course, do what they want with it and make money with it, but I'm more interested in the academic understanding of how it works and being able to design parts of it myself.

They apparently have patents on parts of the system, and their license for the software specifies it is only allowed to be run legally on their hardware.. they have not yet gone after anyone for violating that, but who knows.

Right now, it looks like I'll probably get the EFI working with a MS-II system I have on hand, and slowly convert it to a FreeEMS system as that system matures and, well... actually works on a real engine. They at least are an actual open source hardware/software, and I've already ordered a devel board to help in hacking on it. Should be interesting

[gmansyz]

Oil Temp?

Hello Arttu
Was the oil up to operating temperature before the dyno runs? 220+ degree's Fahrenheit? If so, then that would really explain the nubs shearing off. Also, check to see if the oil filter has collapsed. Usually, when oil is cold and you rev it too hish, the filter will not flow enough oil and collapse. But, If it were only the high pressure, my old GS863/750 managed to crack the oil filter cover from too much pressure when I shimmed the oil pressure relief valve. Yes, it cracked but never sheared the drive nubs off. I have heard of that before along with the special, hardened pin shearing on the oil pump itself. Oh, have you even checked the pressure in a few places?
When cold, you can actually get more than 30psi. But think, in the plain bearing engine, you have high pressure and the gear doesn't give any trouble. Maybe too much sudden acceleration? Or perhaps the relieving was the culprit?
As to the MS, maybe money has become important now. But also, if clones don't work properly, they would also be given a bad name and reputation. Maybe better to be ceratin it all works completely first?
Laters.
Greg

[ArttuH]

Hi Greg,
Yes, the oil was up to proper temperature, maybe some 190-200°F.

But then something else. Requested on-board video material

I thought to push my luck a bit further for this season so I attended to a track day event for some roundy-roundy riding. Not so surprisingly I found out the bike wasn't the fastest possible tool for that sport. There was way too little ground clearance for serious cornering. Especially a corner of the downpipe was touching the ground very easily so had to take all right turns very carefully. On the left side there was a bit more clearance before the air filter started to drag on the surface. In addition it was quite challenging to concentrate on optimal lines, it was too easy to blast all straights full on and then just struggle through the corners However, it was great fun and I managed to not drop the bike. Also the engine did well so only damage was slightly re-shaped downpipe.


I also tried some ad-hoc video recording. Meaning that I mounted a cheap video camera on the tank with suction cup mount. Surprisingly the result was pretty good. Beforehand I thought that the camera will shake too much for any usable picture. So there is some on-board material:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcSSl3G8x5w

And please don't tell me that I'm riding like a granny. I know that already