Featured Land Speed Racing 2023

i dont have a detonation problem with the four spark plugs, eve n with 11.75 compression. is there another advantage to water? it might put me in the "fuel" class, which is for people running something other th a n straight gasoline.

those carbs look high tech, but the designis some 40 ? years old now. excellent instruments and easy to tune. way more jets than i understand-- both fuel and air jets on the same circuits. the accellerator pums makes up for inexact low speed tuning

 

i dont pretend to understand the various effects on fuel. high humidity requires leaner jetting because a charge of the same mass (and therefore the same effect on the jet in the venturi) has fewer fuel molecules.

but evaporating water will cool the charge. thats how alcohol works, so even though alcohol has fewer kilocalories than gasoline, you can run hotter timing and compression because of the added cooling.

they used to sell water injection kits for carburetted engines. i thought about trying them, but never did. one advantage of water in the combustion chamber is that it cleans out all the carbon, so the chamber is shiny clean. that alone might aid swirl and tumble.

ive also thought about making my fuel tanks like a klein bottle, with an internal chamber separate from the fuel and filled with dry ice to cool the fuel and get a denser mixture that way. ive even though about just dropping dry ice into the fuel tank and letting it bubble, but i imagine the safety people would find something wrong with that.

the car guys run a coil of tubing through a tank filled with ice cubes in their car, before it reaches the injectors. everybody does that. i just try to cover my tanks up if im standing in the sun.

way more to think about than ill ever be able to handle.

 

heres a discussion

https://www.holley.com/blog/post/th...ing a 50/50 mix,gain of roughly 60 horsepower.

active water injection mightrun me into the class fuel limits, which prohibit any fuel additives. but if it isnt added to the fuel, is it an additive? they might tell me that if i introduce it to the intake manifolds, then its a fuel.

so ill have to think.

im right up at the edge of what i can get out of 649 ccs, right now. i suspect my best gains are going to be coming from aerodynamics, but im a fat old fart and im way over the 186 pounds i achived my first year doing this.

but i have an 18 year old son who weighs 120 pounds. hes's running the ninja in a week but hes lots thinner than me. if i can persuade him to ride the thing he might do better than i can.

 

bike is together.

now its just carefully assembling the tools, fluids, and lubricants needed to keep it running for four days.

im at a runway as far north in th eunited states as you can get, but the warehouse of british cycle supply is a mile away.

mark owns that business, and twice he's dropped by my tent in the pits and pointed out nuts and bolts that were coming loose. his business gets a sticker on my bike.

 

today the sons worked on the little ninja.

its a 250 twin they run in the pure production class. they have the records at around 108/109 for that little motor. they might have had a bit more because i could jet the carbs a bit richer if i had time to do it.but just getting the carbs out to where i can change the mains, pilots, and shim the needle requires me to disassemble the entire middle of the motorcycle.

not happening.

on my T120, i can have the carb in my lap with the bowl off in literally one minute. not so the EX250.

anyway, at this moment the number two son has brought the bike back from the carwash and is removing the mirrors, rear foot pegs, and chain guard per the rules.

no, i just looked. he sneaked out before i could tel him to take the turn signals off.

 

what will i forget?

 

we're done. ill mke the sons get up at 0500, and then well se about doing about 500 miles, maybe? its 460 from eastern ohio to the new york tappenzee bridge, and the otal trip is 1183 miles.

we'll stop somewhere in expensive new england and then show up in maine around midnight.

set up the pits on wednesday!

the lovely wife isnt coming this time. we have a juvenile raccoon shes caring for on the kitchen porch, and then she has to heklp the daughter ove because of the bats in her apartment.


so its a male bonding thing with me and my young adutlt boys.

 

today drove from 0600 to 1700. 539 miles. halfway there. we ll get thrre tomorrow about 1700 and conk out.

weather is supposed to be good, 64F in the morning and maxing out at 83F, not hot at all

a friend of mine is bringing his BSA, so well see how it runs

 

we re here. 539 miiles yesterday, something like that today.

got to the motel and met up with mike, a crazy man who races a ZX14 to 200 or something in the mile. he has health problems, so he;s living as much of his life life as he can.

another friend of mine races another zx14 to 218 . mike told me that he wont be here this year because his father has had brain surgery. next year maybe.

right now we re in themotel. we ve bought food for the days, ive made arrangements to buy four tires for the tow truck while we re here, and tomorrow we go and set up the pits.

we ve been doing this for seven years, i think, so i know the drill.

in those seven years we ve brought the triumph from about 120 mph to 135.

my major competitor at 134 died of esophogeal cancer two months ago. a very nice guy. in fact, hes the reason im here.

but time moves on, and hes no longer in the running.

there will be two nortons, at least one BSA, a B50, maybe, my T120, and maybe something else.

its a small groupt of competitors these days.

 

got to maine. first day was 539 miles. second day was somthing like 550. crashed att he motel. this morning got up and went and signed in. went to the morning riders meeting, did safety/tech inspection on the bikes.

we're known faces here, so the first question i got was, did you bring the kids?

the kids hold records in the production classes with the 250 ninja. and i have brought two. the daughters are out living their lives. one is an apprentice electrician in a city across the state, and the other is flying around oregon in helicopters putting out forest fires. but the boys are both hewre.

the number two son ran three times, 100, 104, and 106 mph. there wss a lot of waiting, and twechinica glitches with the timing, so thats all we got. ill be doing something tomorrow in the morning in the cool air, and then we ll get the other son out on the ninja.


later in the week, if things are going well, ill see if either one is interested in the triumph.

the triumph is a bit different. with a production bike, you just sit in the ordinary position and climb through the gears until the end. bend over and hug the tank. on the triumph, the shift into first is by hand, then subsequent shifts are GP style, down for upshift, 2, 3, 4. there is no seat, just a flat piece of aluminum bolted to the frame for your butt, purposely slick so that you can move around as you go faster.

during the run, once youre in 4th gear, you hang out over the left side and put your head down alongside the fuel tanks, looking at the tach through the hole between the left fork leg and the steering head. sometimes the vibration is so hard that i run with one eye closed, because otherwise i get two images of the track to my brain. other times i hold my head competely sideways under thwe handlebars. whatever works. elbows and toes in.

then if theres time, when im going as fast as i can, i stand up on the pegs, squeeze the frame between my kness, and try to let the wind through to the back between my legs.

so the boys may not be as fast. but neither was i when i started.




and then about 1600, it rained and it was all over

 

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