Track Bike - Plan B

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Off Road
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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#496 Post by Off Road » Mon Sep 17, 2018 9:50 pm

My buddy Reg was kind enough to shoot some video of my Qualifying runs for Race 7, last Sunday.

Q1 Street – I get my ass handed to me by an R1. (This is the guy who could take me out of 4th place in the points.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jdN5c ... pazwbLlqxG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Q1 Hot Twin – Up against a 2017 Harley, and I do OK.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1h3kRs ... 1Z25Ovb2rM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Q2 Street – This is the guy on the Victory that I chasing for 3rd place in Street.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bI2Xo ... DD8O4OePd8_" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Q2 Hot Twin – The same guy on the same Victory that I’m chasing for 2nd place in Hot Twin.


https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kXPGG ... UCHT9D7eon" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#497 Post by kpke » Tue Sep 18, 2018 11:11 am

Steve, your journey here is fantastic. Thanks for posting all this.

Those videos were super cool. Put a huge smile on my face that may last a while on an otherwise grueling workday.

I always wondered if these little bikes will take on a Harley. I think I have my answer. :smt045

Good luck to you!

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#498 Post by hondaror » Tue Sep 25, 2018 1:07 pm

Very cool.
Rory
2 1984 RZ350s
1985 RZ350
9 1986-1990 RZ350s
2000 ST2
2005 749
2005 749 with 999 engine

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#499 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:54 pm

After race 3 in Edmonton, the clutch felt a bit weird, so I took it apart and found 1 broken fiber clutch plate.
Well, I found most of the broken clutch plate; I was missing a piece about 1” long.
Not much I could do about it at the time, so I installed a new set of EBC Banshee clutch plates,
(the EBC Banshee plates have a wider band of friction material than the RZ plates),
put the cover back on, put in some fresh Motul Transoil, and went racing.

After race 4 & 5 in Fort St. John, I pulled the clutch again and sanded off the rough grooves in the clutch basket and clutch boss
When I drained the tranny oil it was pretty dirty. I found some broken clutch fragments and specs of aluminum in it.
Unfortunately, I drained the tranny when the bike was cold, after it had been sitting for a week.
So, a bunch of the contaminants had settled to the bottom of the case, and didn’t drain out with the oil.
Not much I could do about it at the time, so I put the cover back on, put in some fresh Motul Transoil, and went racing.

Race 6 &7 were in Medicine Hat, and the clutch definitely worked better after sanding the basket and boss.
It didn’t drag as much and I could rev it higher at the starting line.
As a result, I had a couple of 60’ times that were under 2.1 seconds.
And my 2 fastest 60’ times (1 Saturday & 1 on Sunday), were the runs that I also had my fastest E.T.’s,

After the Medicine Hat races, I took the bike for a 15 minute ride to get the tranny oil all mixed up and warm.
Took the bike home and immediately drained the oil while it was till hot.
This time the oil wasn’t as black. There was less ground up friction material.
However, there were still a lot of really small Aluminum flecks in the oil.
I’m pretty sure it’s remnants of the missing clutch plate.
Oh well. It is what it is. I put in some fresh Motul Transoil, and went racing.


Race 8 & 9 were held last weekend in Mission.
I haven’t bothered to change the tranny oil again, but I suspect the when I do, it will still have a fair bit of fine Aluminum particles in it. :smt009

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#500 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:54 pm

The altitude in Calgary, where I do most of my riding, is 3500’ above sea level.
The altitude in Rimby, Edmonton, Ft. St. John and Medicine Hat, the cities where they held the first 7 races, is between 2300’ and 2700
The altitude in mission is 73’ above sea level.

To compensate, I replaced the 420 main jets with a pair of 440 mains.
I left the needle on the 4th clip and the pilot air screw at 1.25 turns out.
The MJ and the needle position worked out really good, but I did have a bit of an issue with the air screw.

Normally I fire up the bike in the pits, ride down to the staging area, and leave the bike running.
By the time I’m called onto the track to do a burnout the temperature is usually between 60*C and 70*C.
In Mission I fired up the bike when my class was called, and it idled at around 1800 rpm.
I quickly backed off idle set screws and rode down to the staging area.
When I got there, the idle has increased and I had to drop it a bit more.
I let the bike run while I put on my helmet, gloves and tether line.
When I eventually looked at the temp gauge, it was reading 80*C.
And while I was staring at it, thinking WTF, it goes to 90*C.

About this time I realize that I should have turned in the pilot air screw, but it was too late to do anything because they were waiving me onto the track.
Once I was on the track, running the bike at WOT, the temperature came back down to a normal 80*C.
Before the next round of qualifying I turned the air screw in ¼ turn, and the temperature was fine after that. :smt003

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#501 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:55 pm

For the Rimby races, I was runing 30 psi of air pressure in the rear tire. The same pressure that I use when riding on the street.
Questo gave me a number of great suggestions and recommended a tire pressure of 15 psi.
Hmmm. I was a bit skeptical, That seemed pretty low. I’ve ridden bikes with low tire pressure and they don’t handle the best.
I’d hate to have the bike start wobbling around at 100 mph, so I decided to drop the rear tire pressure in increments.
For the Edmonton race, I dropped it to 25 psi.
In Ft. St. John, I ran 20 psi.
In Medicine Hat I ran 17.5 psi.
Last weekend in Mission I ran 15 psi, and it worked really good. Gave me lots of bite coming off the line, and no noticeable wobble at high speed.
Thanks questo, I wish I’d have listened earlier.

Questo also recommended using a 15 tooth front sprocket, and again I didn’t listen.

I started out running a 17T front sprocket and a 40T rear.
The bike would either bog (rpm too low) or pull a sky wheelie (rpm too high)
On the top end of the track, at the finish line, I would be at redline in 5th gear, or just shifting into 6th gear.

I changed out the 17T for a 16T front sprocket, and it definitely helped with my launch.
However, on the top end of the track, I am shifting into 6th gear about 50’ or 60’ before the finish line.
This is Not Good. The rpm drops to 7500 or 8000 when I shift, and I’m not making maximum HP at the finish line.

On the Saturday in Medicine Hat we had a pretty strong tailwind.
On all my runs that day, I was hitting redline in 6th gear, just as I crossed the finish line.
And those were my fastest runs (ET & mph) all year.

So, I’m thinking that I need to try a 15T sprocket, so that I’m making max power at the finish line.
I need to go on the Gearing commander to see how the sprocket change will affect mph at redline. :smt017

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#502 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:55 pm

Mission Raceway is 600 miles from my house, so it’s a 10 or 11 hour drive across a couple of mountain ranges.
I didn’t think that my old truck was up to the trip, so I had my buddy take my bike in his trailer, and I rented a car using my Air Miles.
Got me a Lincoln MKX. A pretty nice luxury SUV with a lot of features and a ton of electronics.

So, the wife and I drove out to Mission on Friday, and the last half of the drive was in the rain.
By the time we got to Mission, it was a raging down-poor.
Saturday morning when we got up and headed to the track, there was a very fine drizzle, more like a mist or heavy fog.

The ruling at the track was that we were going to wait and see what the weather did.
If it cleared we’d race, if it didn’t then the event would be cancelled.
So we waited.

About 2 pm they said that we should have a good 5 hours of dry weather, so they anounced that they had a new plan for the weekend.
We were going to do the qualifying for race 8 while we had the dry weather.
Then we were going to hold the eliminations for race 8 on the Sunday.
And the scheduled Sunday race (race 9), would be canceled.

Now there was a mad scramble for everyone to get signed in, pay their fees and get their bikes through the tech inspection.

The track officials were having a problem getting the run-off area dry.
They had no problem on the race portion of the track, but had water seeping up through some cracks in the pavement on the top end.
They didn't want to bring out the jet dryer again, because it costs $1500.00 for 45 minutes.
Instead they wanted anyone with a vehicle with street tires to go out and run up and down the run off area.
So, I got in the passenger’s seat of the rental car, and had the wife get behind the wheel and we did about 30 or 40 laps of the top end of the track.
She was pretty cautious to begin with, but after a few laps she began to relax, and started to see just how fast a rental car would go. :smt003

Eventually the track was dry and they got the show underway.
I made my first qualifying runs at 5:00 pm that day.
My second round of qualifying was at 6:30.
And my last round of qualifying was at 8:30.

At this time of year in Canada, the sun sets at about 7:30 pm, which means that it had been dark for an hour when I made my last qualifying runs.



The battery on my bike was not fully charged and I didn’t want it dying at the track,
so before I left home, I removed the headlight fuse to reduce the drain on the battery, and I forgot to put it back in when is got dark.
Headlight fuse also controls the gauge lights, so I couldn’t see the tach. Oops.
I had no problem on the track, because they had a good lighting system.
However, there were no lights on the return road, and that was a bit scary, because I couldn’t see a damn thing.

Earlier in the year, I made myself an incredibly bright shift light and then mounted it at eye level, about 1 foot in front of my helmet.
It works great. It is easily seen on really bright sunny days, even when I’m not looking directly at it.

But, at night, when everything is black, and the shift light come on, it’s like looking into a laser. Holy crap is it ever bright.
Even when I shift gears, and it goes out, I still see bright red spots.
And just as my eyes are able to focus again, I hit redline and the light comes back on.
Sure made for a fun ride. :smt107

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#503 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:55 pm

I got in 6 qualifying runs on the Saturday. Three for Hot Twin and three for Street.

Q1 Street – 12.999 sec. @ 103.11 mph
Q1 Hot Twin – 13.230 sec. @ 101.29 mph

Q2 Street – 13.332 sec. @ 102.20 mph
Q2 Hot Twin – 13.374 sec. @ 102.43 mph

Q3 Street – 13.116 sec. @ 101.63 mph
Q3 Hot Twin – 13.145 sec. @ 103.75 mph


Shortly after we had finished qualifying, it started to rain.
It rained off and on for the rest of the night.
Sunday morning it was still raining.
We hung out at the track and waited.
About noon, it stopped raining.
Around 1 pm, they made an announcement and said that the track was to wet and it was too cold, so the race was cancelled.

And that was it. The 2018 CMDRA race series was over.
Everybody packed up their bikes.
The majority of us started drinking.
Let the party begin. :smt030 :smt033

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#504 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 01, 2018 5:56 pm

One of the guys at the track on Saturday had a camera with a telephoto lens that was as long as your arm.
He takes pictures and posts them on his website so that people can purchase copies.

If any of you guys are having a hard time trying to decide what to buy me for my birthday,
I would suggest that you get me a large one of theses. :smt003


https://www.fatkidphotography.ca/p863483212#hb7f406d2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#505 Post by JonW » Mon Oct 01, 2018 7:47 pm

Great photo Steve, how could you not buy that!
80 XT500 Supermoto!
81 RD350LC Resto
82 RD421LC Hybrid
82 RD350LC decapitation project
82 RD250LC JDM '251LC' YPVS
83 RZ350 Resto
84 RZ500 Resto
85 RZ350 F1 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Resto
86 RZ350 F2 Hybrid

Like Watches? www.PloProf.com & www.DeskDivers.com

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#506 Post by rzrej » Wed Oct 03, 2018 1:49 am

Sorry to hear about the rain out Steve, a lot of effort for it not to happen. Guess you can't win them all. I truly enjoyed watching you race at the two events, was a blast. Great crowd of racers, nice guys and some amazing machinery. You can certainly be proud of the lil RZ, so, so, so satisfying to see you run a faster ET than both Victorys at Medicine Hat. And you all had the same wind advantage.........excellent.

Did you win rookie of the year? Should of.

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#507 Post by hondaror » Mon Oct 08, 2018 4:04 pm

A little bird told me, that Steve did in fact win CMDRA Rookie of the Year.
Rory
2 1984 RZ350s
1985 RZ350
9 1986-1990 RZ350s
2000 ST2
2005 749
2005 749 with 999 engine

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#508 Post by Off Road » Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:43 am

Overall, I think the season was pretty successful.
I gained some experience, I learned quite a bit about launching the bike, I gained some insight in setting up the RZ for drag racing, and I Had Fun.


My last pass down the track in Mission was the 3rd round of qualifying in the Hot Twin class.
In that round, I was paired up against the Victory, being ridden by Bruce, who is the 2018 points champion, in the Hot Twin class.

This was a fairly important match-up.
I needed to do well, because the higher you qualify, the more points you get, and I needed all the points I could get.
Bruce wanted to out qualify me, to keep my points down, because the guy I’m trying to catch in the points standings, is his team mate.

Before you place your bets on the outcome, hears a couple of stats on the bikes and riders.

My bike has 60 hp and 34 ft/lbs of torque.
His bike has 110 hp and 130 ft/lbs of torque.

Fortunately, I’m a flyweight. Me, and my gear, and the bike, probably only weigh 500 lbs.
Bruce in not a flyweight, he says that him and the bike weigh at least 950 lbs.


We lined up, the lights turned green, and we were off.

60’ time
Me – 2.157 sec.
Him – 2.113 sec.

330’ time
Me – 5.606 sec.
Him – 5.652 sec.

1/8 mile time
Me – 8.467 sec. @ 86.83 mph
Him – 8.571 sec. @ 83.25 mph

¼ mile time
Me – 13.145 sec. @ 103.75 mph
Him – 13.315 sec. @ 102.84 mph


OK, I know it was only a qualifying run, but when you line up at the lights next to a friendly rival, trust me, it’s a race.
And it was one of the best races that I ran all year.
He got me at the lights because the Victory has massive torque.
I was at redline in 3rd gear before I caught him.

Then I shifted to 4th gear and he pulled ahead of me again.
When I shift, the revs drop from 9500 rpm to about 8000 rpm.
(That’s my best guess, hard to tell because my tach is pretty slow to respond)
By the time that the engine wound out to 9500 rpm again, I was right beside him. Wheel to Wheel.

Then I shifted into 5th and dropped back again.
Not much. He’d only pull ahead by about the length of the front wheel.
But, I had to catch him again.
I pulled back up right even with him and then the bright red shift light came on again.
But, we were only 100’ from the finish line and I didn’t want to shift, because I knew what would happen, so I held the throttle WFO.
It didn’t help. At 9600 or 9700 rpm, I could feel the power start to drop, so I had no choice, I had to shift into 6th gear, when I was about 60’ from the finish line.
And as expected he pulled ahead by about a foot.
At the end of the ¼ mile, it was literally a photo finish.
Neither one of us knew who crossed the line first.
We had to go back to the tower and pickup our time slips before we knew who won.

He did. But it was really close.


And the reason he crossed the finish line first is because he had a way better reaction time
Me – 0.256 sec.
Him – 0.053 sec.



When you look at the race and consider both the ET and the reaction time, then the race went like this.
Because of my poor reaction time, I basically gave him a 0.2 second head start.

Due to the Victory’s massive torque, he stretched that lead to 0.227 seconds at the 60’ mark.

But, I got the bike wound out in 2nd,, (maybe into 3rd), by the time we hit the 330’ line.
By then I was only 0.157 seconds behind.

At the 1/8 mile, I’d have been at redline in 4th gear, and the bike was pulling hard.
At that point, I was only 0.099 seconds behind, but I was going 3.5 mph faster.

At the finish, I was 0.033 seconds behind. So, I lost the race. But damn, did I have fun.


IMO, the reason he beat me is because I have an idiot for a crew chief.
The gearing on the bike was not optimal, so the engine revs were too low at the finish line.
I should have been running a 1 tooth larger front sprocket, so that when the bike was crossing the finish line, the engine would be at redline in 5th gear,
Or, I should have had a 1 tooth smaller front sprocket, so the engine would be at redline in 6th gear at the finish.

Really wish we had some more races this year so that I could test this theory.
Last edited by Off Road on Mon Oct 29, 2018 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#509 Post by rzrej » Sat Oct 13, 2018 4:51 pm

Thanks Steve for the analysis/breakdown......your threads are always fun to read as you add a lot of detail about all the small things that are important but take a lot of typing to add to the thread.
If I hear you correctly you might be racing next year? Check out your theory about the gearing and so on? We have a number of months to wait so no rush I guess.
Stopped in at The Bike Shoppe in Edmonton to visit with the guys there, couldn't resist taking a pic of this old school drag bike. Old 550/4 Honda with a big bore kit (592 I guess) and a turbo. Was probably fast back in the day, hasn't run for a few years.
Imagehonda 550 dragbike by reg, on Flickr

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Re: Track Bike - Plan B

#510 Post by Off Road » Mon Oct 29, 2018 6:30 pm

The last 2 races of the year (race 8 and 9), were to be held at Mission raceway, but they were pretty much rained out.
We did get in the Qualifying rounds for race 8 on Saturday, so points were awarded for that.
Sunday’s race 9 was cancelled.
Everybody packed up, started drinking, and got ready for that night’s Year End Banquet / Awards Ceremony.

At the awards, 1st and 2nd place points leaders, in each class, got a trophy and a cheque.
The person who finished 3rd in the points got a plaque, but no cheque.

Points were to be calculated from your best 7 races out of the 9 race season.
After 7 races, I was 3rd in the Hot Twin class, 100 points ahead of guy named Trevor, who was in 4th place.
After qualifying for race 8, I was still in 3rd place, 45 points ahead of Trevor, or so I thought.

That night at the awards banquet, they gave the 3rd place trophy to Trevor. What the hell?

Since race 9 was cancelled, the season consisted of 8 races.
Therefore, the points awarded were from your best 6 races out of 8.
Trevor had only been to 5 of the races, so he gained 55 points for qualifying in race 8.
I had 55 points removed from my total, because it was the total of the first 7 races.

Long story short, Tevor was 10 points ahead of me, so I ended up in 4th place in the Hot Twin Class.
Same thing happened in the Street Class, I ended up finishing in 5th place.

However, the night wasn't a total bust, I did manage to pick up a bit more hardware.
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