Track stories 2007

[lecroy]

Man, I posted but it did not stick.... My luck is gone.

I never made it back to the track again. The new MC-4 MSD ignition failed when I went to start the engine last Friday.

Not real happy about the whole thing but I think I can prevent it with a few changes to the bikes harness.

http://www.msdignition.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9876

I got the new ignition in her and finished all the prep work. It looks like a seven second bike. Hope to take her out next week. If it doesn't break up I will turn it up and see if I can finally put this long waited goal to rest.

[Baatfam]

Damn Lecroy....when you take off the leathers and helmet...your pretty darn good lookin'\\/

[rosco15]

Sorry Mark your just not what I had pictured.

Anyway I've just been having trouble with my lights lately. I'm going to pull the clutch apart and make sure nothing is wrong in there. I've had to resort to putting 1.055 into the box just to go green. In the past I've always been around 1.025. The only changes I made were to move the button slightly away from my hand, I had lasik surgery at the end of June, and I do feel like I'm hitting the tree pretty hard. Something has to be going on.

I went out in the second round. Had a 528 light to his 518. Broke out by a couple while he ran almost dead on. I took too much stripe. Up by 3 now. Gotta get this figured out.

[lecroy]

Ryan, I am sorry I took so long with this. For now, this is our local track point's leader. Listen to the video and watch the front tire. I doubt it could slip this much and not damage the plates and it seems to be tied to a timer. He claims that this is all clutch.

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/fd4fc5ac-5bf3-4b26-8d52-998100b82359.htm

Because I am not racing my bike I don't really care about my lights yet. I always try and go off the flicker the same way and roll it in the same amount. I started out this year in the mid 6's. As I kept tweeking the clutch and increasing the power, the R/T started to drop along with the short times. Not even sure what I could do to slow it down at this point except to drop the power.

Ok let's have some frank, open talk about the tree. I am sure this is a taboo topic for most. Add your own tricks to it if you like.

First, I wish we could all use any kind of delay we wanted. IMO, it would just make it more of a level playing field and make the rules more plain. All I am going to say on the matter.

One guy at our track has a switch with a half inch of throw or more to slow him down. The throw can be adjusted. IMO its stupid the things people are doing to try and get around the rules. I would'nt think this switch was legal in IHRA. I assume most are still 3rb bulb racing and not delayed to the point of going off the top bulb. But delay is delay and it's not legal by the IHRA book.


Legal (IHRA)
1) First, practice every day.....(maybe take a class on how to catch a light)
2) LED lights will turn on faster than a filament type and you need to adjust for it.
3) The contrast goes way up in the dark and you will cut better lights in the dark than in the daylight. Wearing sun glasses can help this.
4) Never anticipate. Getting the brain to not look at the other two bulbs can be hard. Adding a shield inside your helmet to block your view may help. Of course you may not be able to see going down the track. Window tint works good to change the contrast.
5) How far you put the bike in will make a huge difference on R/T and E/T. Measure the placement of the bike using your foot. You can use this along with the sun glassed to adjust from daylight to dark.
6) Have someone video tape the bike while your sitting in the stage. Does the bike move? If needed add a line lock.
7) Make sure that the air gap is the same.
8) Make sure you are not putting down more power than the track can handle. It may change over the day and from day to day. IMO, slower is better. (No kidding but on the kids bike we added so much slop in the throttle cable that he could only open the slides about 3/4 of the way and retarded the ign. all the way to slow it down. But it does repeat)
9) If you use a hand clutch make sure that nothing binds in the cable, lever, etc.
10) Pick the right switch (this area is not black and white. See what you can get away with at your track. Sounds so stupid.)
11) Custom gloves with thinner leather in the thumb area.
12) Throttle stop the bike to control the power on the launch.


Not so legal (IHRA)
1) Add an electronic delay. (Add one that's programmable and has crossover....) You may get caught!
2) Add a mechanical delay. (The switch I mentioned may fall into this. One with an air piston with adjustable release would be very cool.)
3) Add some sort of light detector (I wanted to make this. Put it in the helmet with some sort of scope thing you could look thru to align it.)
4) Make some sort of EMP detector (I heard of a guy doing this in our area. LED bulbs would draw less current and may be harder to detect.)
5) Do some sort of traction control (At least I don't think this is legal)
6) Make a better button. (I was going to do one with a bar graph mounted inside the helmet to monitor the thumb pressure, notice how the rule changed as to what a switch is?).
7) Cut a hole in the thumb area of the glove.

[Baatfam]

Well shoot....broke somethin' yesterday. Two weeks ago the bike was running great...
Yesterday we had one time run, due to weather, and it ran great.
Get in the water box for my first round burn out, put it in third, hit the throttle....and hit the rev limiter:? tire never moves.....
Push her back to first and back up to third, try again...nothin'...
Once more and I throw in the towel....don't know.
Feels like its going into gear....
Going to unload her from the trailer this morning and put her up on stands...

I've had to resort to putting 1.055 into the box just to go green. In the past I've always been around 1.025.

Is it the change that's bothering you? 1.055 isn't bad. I had 1.065 yesterday and went .006 red in our one time run. Put 1.075 in for first round, (before I broke)....
My bike has always moved out fast. Gave me fits when I was bottom bulbing....
But this year I'm either top bulbing or Pro400 racing....works good\\/

Bob

[rosco15]

Everything in the clutch looks great. Stack height is right where it's supposed to be. Nothing loose nothing broken.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who is running a big number. Second year with the box and I've never had to run such a big number. At least now I know it's just me and not the bike. I'm either seeing the light that much quicker or I'm flinching off the button.

If we ever go back to bottom bulb racing I'm going to have fits. I would be in the 450 range. probably have to stop using the button and try snapping the throttle open.

[RacingJake]

I've had to resort to putting 1.055 into the box just to go green. In the past I've always been around 1.025. The only changes I made were to move the button slightly away from my hand, I had lasik surgery at the end of June, and I do feel like I'm hitting the tree pretty hard.

I run with 1.070 in the box. Since you moved the switch you might be releasing it faster. Or maybe your bike is hooking up better which require's more time.

I think if you have to remove time then something is going on, but if you have to add time then your just getting faster.

[Baatfam]

Well, I sheared off the bolts that hold on the slider hat....
Not sure how that happened....I guess they could have loosened up...



Not sure how I'm going to get the broken pieces out of the basket.



Bob T.

[Baatfam]

New hat on order....$235:? ..should be here Friday...

Basket looks OK and broken bolt stubs are out....

Just need to clean the oil pan out and replace the filter....

Ah Racing.....Gotta Love It!\\/

[lecroy]

A friend passed this link to me.

http://www.mac-pac.org/temp/motivation.html

Time to head to the track. Hope to see some hard work pay off for a change.

[RacingJake]

I finally went back to the track tonight and it took sometime to get my MoJo back. Best of the night was a 6.26 and 109 mph, 60ft sucked still, they were in the 1.40 range. I was using the lightest springs 41 pounders so I'll put the 46's in the clutch tomorrow and see if that helps.

Did run the quick class and went out in the first round. I had a .16 head start and could hear him all the way down the track, so I didn't backoff and broke out. I don't know where it came from but somewhere I drop another tenth.

Since I swapped over to a 530 chain I've have'nt had any mis-shifts. With the 630 stuff I'd always have a few each time. Also I ran over what looked like a piece of 2x4 in the shut down area. Was doing about 100 saw it at the last second and the next thing it's flying up in the air, whats funny is I didn't feel it at all. Checked the tires and they both look OK.

I did blow up my mech advance as I just cross the line, started back firing and all that good stuff, so I put my back up one on and was good to go. From what I could tell is the stop broke off allowing the weighted arm to fly out too far hitting the case then snap in two.

So I got my baseline and now it time to put the other cams in and go from there.

[rosco15]

Thompson had an NSCA (National Street Car Association) race this weekend. Not as many fast cars as there were last year, but it was still pretty cool. Just about everything there was running nitrous or some kind of turbo/blower. Several cars down in the 6 second to low 7 second range. I put together some of the video I shot.

http://media.putfile.com/NSCA2007

[RacingJake]

Hey Ryan can you post some timeslips of your 1166 motor, 60ft, 330, et and mph. I need to see if i'm going in the right direction.

This is my best package this year with 1166 motor and 750 head.
60ft- 1.40
330- 4.00
1/8- 6.26
mph- 108.23

I just got the 340/320 cams installed and had to retard the intake and advance the exhaust alittle to get more than 75 thou clearance on both. Still had about 250 cranking compression. Still leaves me alittle room for fine tuning.

[rosco15]

Man I just got rid of my old books. I went back thru some of my old posts. I don't have a good break down. I think with the 1166 with 1150 head and cams it went
1.39
3.96
6.15
8.04
9.77 @132

1.36
3.97
6.16
8.04
9.75@134
As best as I can recall the 60' was in the 1.38-high 1.40's

Before that was 1166 kit, 1100 head with +1 ss valves no porting, stock cams. I went 10.11 @ 128 with a 1.39 60'. Not sure of the 1/8th mile.

I did find this old ticket online still. 60's is bad due to the slipping clutch. This was a hot lapped lightning round. Pretty sure this was when I first switched to the 1166 kit. The mph at the 1/8th is doubled for some reason.

http://rccracing.com/sign.jpg

Pretty sure the 1260 kit put me into the low 1.30 60' and the mid 9.50 range.

Sorry I can't help more.

[RacingJake]

Thanks Ryan that helps alot.

Last year my hard drive crashed and I lost all my old timeslips too.