Round 3 (Saturday)
| Superstreet (Heat 1) | 3rd | -30.426s |
| Novice Middleweight Superbike | DNS | DNS |
| Amateur Middleweight Superbike | 6th | -1 lap |
| Superstreet (Heat 2) | 3rd | -38s |
| Amateur Thunderbike | 4th | -1 lap |
Round 4 (Sunday)
| Superstreet (Heat 1) | 2nd | -34s |
| Amateur Open Superbikee | DNF | -2 laps |
| Novice Open Superbike | 7th | -49s (race stopped due to red flag) |
| Superstreet (Heat 2) | 1st | -38s |
| Amateur Thunderbike | 3rd | -1 lap |
With /actual/ racing as opposed to constant whinging about trying to get a race bike running.
After the fairly successful test and tune a couple of weeks back, I figured the bike was in good enough shape to go to the races. This past weekend (15th-16th) was out local race club’s first ever double-header weekend. The weather was supposed to be cooler (down to the mid-90s!), they’ve ‘patched’ some of the areas on the track, and the southern NM crew from Arroyo Seco were invited up. Looked like a good opportunity to do a track day with some competition as I tried to learn to ride a supersport with GP shift. What could possibly go wrong??
I entered 4 classes on each day. I /meant/ to enter the same 4 classes, just for consistency but my clicking skills are about as good as my racing skills so I didn’t even manage this. The plan was to run Superstreet, where I had a chance to be competitive but no points for the season (having missing the first two races, that didn’t seem a HUGE concern to me), Novice and Amateur middleweight superbike (our 600 class, with Amateur being the experts and novices together), and amateur thunderbike. I managed the first and last, but entered open superbike (novice and amateur) on Sunday. That opens the racing up to the 1000s, and the amateur class was all expert racers except me (and the one guy who goy a mid-season bump on Saturday). I had definitely opened myself up to some competition.
Saturday didn’t start quite as well. Our local tech guy is a really good friend, and his father passed away unexpectedly and suddently on Friday night. I was already going to help with the airfence, but he asked if I could step in and be the tech helper (something I’ve been doing unofficially) as well as assist with crash. This set the stage for a busy weekend, including a fair amount of running around and picking up bikes in full leathers and a set of race boots.
Fun times were about to start…
Quick update: the bike runs, and the problem was fuel. Specifically, throttle bodies or injectors.
After a lot of work and time, it turns out that none of the things that were apparently the problem were. After my almost giving up, we pulled the valve cover and timing chain and timed the cams with a degree wheel (thanks again to Cloner over @ Desert Desmo. When we did that, they were definitely timed right.
We’d previously got to the point where the cams were suspect due to a poor (85 psi — but identical on all cylinders) compression result paired with a really good leakdown. That, combined with the power and way it was delivering it and the fact that there’s assorted race parts in the machine led everyone to suspecting the timing. Once that was verified correct (and not just off the timing marks), Cloner redid the compression test and the numbers turned out to be 145, and within a couple of PSI on all cylinders. Since we’re at 6,000′, that’s a solid number. After all the chasing around on the timing (and, admittedly, finding some wear issues in the cam drives) finding the compression was good was both a relief and a frustration. We were back to fuel or spark.
… not that I especially want to even think about parting, but today managed to be about the most depressing day in my Daytona ownership.
Thanks to a helpful member parting out a bike on the Triumph 675 forum, I scored a new tank as I had mentioned. Installed it, looks good, bike runs, seems rich! That’s a good thing. So back off for a quick Dyno run today
That. Of course. Went poorly. Totally different to what it was doing here, and now making 50hp. To add injury to insult, it was also back to off the charts lean.
It was at this point that I really wanted the movie scene. Bike on fire, walk away slowly. Of course, that just leaves me without a bike so I settled for Bosque Brewery Scotia, which is rather like just setting your brain on fire and walking away. But tastier (or at least I assume so).
After a couple of these, my ‘give a fuck’ was dropping to a better point AND I got good news. Chasing an air leak, and apparently potentially located. The bad news? No time to test it and see if it is fixed before Tuesday.
However, it’s he first clear sign of there is a problem, and we have fixed it. Tuesday will tell.