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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Thu, 02 Sep 2010The pre-08 Ninja 250 comes with some of the weakest suspension springs I've ever encountered. It feels like a goofy toy bike when I sit on it. I decided that, although it's "against the rules" of the Cheapskate Cup (which I'm never going to win anyway, so no one really cares), I would change out my suspension a bit. I've done it with every other Ninja 250 I've owned, and it was impossible to imagine taking this thing to the track without doing it. The first thing I did was look through the Ninja250.org FAQ section on rear suspension. This is definitely where to start. I liked the look of the 08 rear shock upgrade, so I poked around on Ebay. Within minutes, I'd won a 2008 rear shock for a grand total of $26 shipped to me. Deal. Gotta love all the racers upgrading their new shiny Ninjas. Of course, all was not beer and skittles -- I immediately got an email from the seller, saying they were going to be on vacation for the next week, a fact which was not called out in the auction anywhere. Not pleased about that. However, they did ship it promptly the next week, and despite the shock's best efforts to escape, it was still in the box. (Seriously, people, it's a heavy, linear spike. Don't just throw it in a box with some loosely crumpled newspaper. Every used shock I've bought has arrived with several holes in the box where the shock tried to escape during shipping.) But it did arrive, and in perfectly functional condition. The installation (I'd forgotten) is almost desperately simple: remove two bolts, pull the old shock, put the new one in with the two bolts, done. Takes 10-15 minutes. I set it on the heaviest preload, knowing that it was going to go head to head with a seriously stiff front end. It felt ridiculously firm with the old front springs, but it was clearly a huge improvement, even for me. I started in on the front forks, but discovered after I'd pulled them apart that I didn't have any (so I thought) 20 weight fork oil. Of course, by the time it was time to give up for the night and go to bed, I discovered that I did have some 20 weight fork oil. Ah well, the next day would work. Today being the next day, I got everything reinstalled. I am using .95 kg/mm springs from Sonic, which seems pretty hefty to me (my street bike only has .75 kg/mm springs, but this was what their calculator said I should use for racing). It all went back together pretty easily, and the first time I sat on the bike, it was clear I'd made a huge difference. Someone guessed at one point that the stock front springs in a Ninja 250 are .44 kg/mm. I more than doubled the spring rate, if that's true. It's clear I made a dramatic change. The front springs are slightly but noticeably stronger than the rear spring now. It's not bad, and shouldn't cause any real problems, but I'd like to get them closer together for next year. I'll probably look into either replacing this shock's spring (if that's possible, which is unlikely) or upgrading to a better shock. I strongly suspect that with the resurgence caused by the remodel in 08 (which takes the same specs, shock-wise), there's a wide variety of rear shocks available to choose from now. (Interesting side-note: when I went to look for rear shock information just now, it was amusing to see that most rear-shock knowledge available online is traceable directly back to an article I wrote in 2006.) Anyway, I'm definitely happy with the mods, and I'll probably be all excited about getting a better rear shock in there after I go ride it, mostly for the better spring rate. Posted at 22:54 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 01 Sep 2010I was able to replace the rear engine mounting bolts on my new track-only Ninja 250 last night. I fired it up for its hopefully-last road ride, and was very pleased to find that the vibration that had so worried me was completely gone. Isn't it amazing what properly tightened engine mounting bolts will do? With that problem positively fixed, I brought the bike back to the garage, and started stripping it of road parts in earnest. It was surprisingly easy to take off all the street parts and reduce it to a much more visually spare motorcycle. All those missing pieces only really take off a few pounds, but hey, that's a few pounds, and less stuff to break. Hopefully the number plates will arrive soon, and I can get it all tarted up in racing drag. I've got my belly pan ready to install ($1.99 at Goodwill, but I had to visit four thrift stores before I found a 9x13 brownie pan). Fork springs and brake line are in but not yet installed. I hope to see the rear shock soon (and probably won't do any suspension work at all until I have everything here -- the bike would be horribly unbalanced with only forks updated). Frankly, it's starting to look like a race bike!
Posted at 14:46 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 31 Aug 2010The new Ninja 250 had a number of problems when I got it. The most obvious and worrying was the grinding and general unhappy feeling from the final drive. Obviously, the chain was in a bad way. The front sprocket was a bit hooked, but not excessively so. There was also the camchain slap, but that was pretty much cleared up when I cleaned the camchain adjuster before I bought the bike. So, last weekend, I took the bike apart some to check things out and do some of the work that needs to be done. I flushed out the coolant, and replaced it with water (no coolant allowed on the track, as it's slippery as hell if it spills, and nearly impossible to clean up), also drilling the drain bolts for safety wire as long as I had them out. I shot a bit of video showing the initial state of the bike, but it's pretty low quality, and I don't think I really have enough time to properly document what I'm doing -- it's looking like a tight squeeze to get the work done, much less jockey a camera around. As long as I had the bike apart with the tank off, I decided to check the valve adjustment. About half the valves were too tight, so I adjusted them. In the process, I tried a new method of doing the valve adjustment that I really like: I removed the front engine mounts. The rear bolts are enough to hold the engine up while the front mount is out, and it makes access to the head absolutely amazing. I'm doing it that way every time from now on. In the process of doing that, I had occasion to notice that the big fat bolt that goes through the front engine mount was actually backed out about 3/4 of an inch! That's nowhere near a good thing. When it all went back together, I was liberal with the loctite, and it shouldn't be backing itself out again. I also drained the oil, and drilled the oil bolts for safety wire (all fluid-retaining bolts have to be wired per race regs) today. I considered changing the filter as long as I had it out, but I didn't have any spares handy, and it looked to be in pretty good shape. I'll change it after the race, which is the last of the year. I'll have to winterize the bike anyway, since the water in the cooling system will be a freeze danger if I leave it in over the winter. Fortunately, the new sprocket came in today, and I was able to install it and the new (non-o-ring) chain I picked up last weekend. Most of the grinding went away, but there was still some disconcerting feeling about the engine, as I rode it around a little bit. I had a little brain spasm, and checked tonight (far too late) after getting back from a theater event: sure enough, both rear engine bolts are loose, and their threads munged up pretty badly. Off to Tacoma Screw with me! Two new M10x140 bolts will be mine soon. That should sort out the remaining odd grinding feeling. I knew it was somewhat familiar -- my 2006 Ninja had an engine mount bolt come loose like this (the nut was actually completely gone), and it was a very similar feeling. So, if you're keeping track at home, you will have counted three engine bolts that were loose. If you consult with the manual, you'll find that the Ninja 250's engine is held in with... yes, three bolts. That engine was only loosely held in place. That's a disconcerting thing to think about. I noticed a sticker on this bike (which is a 2005) that said "Made in Thailand." I recall vaguely that Kawasaki switched to the Thai factory (although I recalled it being Taiwan, not Thailand) in 2004, and I guess I'm not surprised to find little things like missing loctite on engine bolts in common between these two non-Japanese made bikes. It's inevitable when you switch factories like that, I guess, although it's disturbing that it should have spanned so many years. Once I get the new mount bolts in place, that should be the last reason I need to ride the bike (to confirm that those bolts nixed the vibration), and then I can start aggressively stripping off street parts. Right now, I have to leave it legal enough to drive for testing. New fork springs arrived today, and I expect to see the new rear shock in the next few days. The new front brake line arrived last week, but hasn't been installed yet. I'm stalling on those changes so I can take care of essential "race requirement" modifications before "wouldn't it be nice" changes. I can tackle the nice mods after the race, but I can't even race it if I don't make the required changes. So hopefully, after this coming weekend, I should have the bike race legal, and then I can ponder nice changes, or I can actually take a few minutes off to not be doing something. That would be nice too. Although I'm excited about the opportunity to race a Ninja 250, the additional time commitment of prepping the bike is a bit overwhelming. Posted at 01:26 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 23 Aug 2010This may be the fastest I've ever acted for something like this. Last week, maybe Thursday (it being Monday as I write this), I got a message from one of my fellow racers: he was looking for help checking out a Ninja 250. I asked why he was all hot for a Ninja 250 all of a sudden, and he pointed me to this thread on the WMRRA forums, which was closely followed by this one. Racing Ninja 250s? Hell yeah! I've always wanted to do that, but never wanted to make the leap after it became clear that the only people who were racing them (I met one, and one only, nearly three years ago) were wannabe big-bike racers with attitudes. Not where I want to hang out. But with people like Bateman and O'Mahoney racing 250s, that starts to sound pretty appealing. So, I set out to look for one, turning to the One True Source for all things of a classified nature: Craigslist. The first one that my eye lit upon was a 2005 listed for $1500 just a half mile south of where I live. I contacted the seller, and we set up a time to check the bike out this weekend. I met him and looked the bike over: it looked to be in pretty good shape, although it had obviously gone boom onto its side a couple of times: the right muffler was pushed in and rubbing on the swingarm a little bit; the upper fairing had a 3 sq-in section broken out of it on the lower edge under the turnsignal stalk; there were scrape marks here and there. Everything seemed to be present, though, and nothing vital was bent or broken. I got the key from him and started it up, only to be horrified at the awful clattering noise coming from the head. It sounded like there was a low-speed grinder rattling around inside the head. Not encouraging. I asked Tom (our seller) about the noise, and he said it'd always sounded like that -- he'd just assumed it was normal. It did basically go away when the engine sped up, so I clambered aboard and took the bike out for a spin. Everything about it was loose and sloppy-feeling, which wasn't really unexpected. It's only a year older than my street 250, and has 4000 fewer miles, but has clearly lived a harder life, with some abuse, and some time spent sitting in the rain outside. There was nothing obvious, but there were little signs: the ignition keyhole cover didn't slide to like it should, and the finish on some of the painted parts was characteristically dulled. There was no rust to speak of, though, and nothing seemed structurally wrong with the bike, which is all I actually care about. I liked it, and told him so, but said I had to come back the next day to finish the test ride. He was very willing to humor me, as I think he'd had no nibbles on the bike in a week of having it up on CL. So I came back the next day, and he agreed that I could take it back to my house, adjust the chain, and try cleaning out the camchain tensioner to see if that would take care of the rattle. Several hours and a trip to the hardware store later, the rattle was gone, and the chain was actually the proper tension again -- when I rode it the first time, I pulled up the bottom run with my toe, and it hit the swingarm without any resistance. Not a good thing, and doubtless a source of some of the loosey-goosey feeling I got from the bike. Riding it with the chain tensioned correctly was definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, it wasn't so loose, but on the other, there was an exciting new grinding feeling when the bike rolled forward. I pulled off the front sprocket cover, and discovered that the front sprocket was moderately hooked (a bad thing), and the chain pulled far enough off the rear sprocket to see a bit over a millimeter of daylight under the link (a bad thing, indicating a new chain is needed). There was an odd thump when the bike rolled over some bumps. The throttle cable needed about 10mm of adjustment to be correctly tightened. I'm hopeful that with a new chain, a lot of the grinding feeling will go away (although some of it is obviously in the transmission too, so I'm equally hopeful that the tranny doesn't need new bearings). As you may have already guessed, I made an offer, and Tom accepted it, and I now have a fourth motorcycle taking up precious space in my little garage. Something's gonna get booted out to tarp-land soon, but I haven't decided what. I really need to get to work on planning for the backyard shed I was just sure I was going to build this year.
Posted at 11:15 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 09 Jul 2010I had a free day today, and decided to take a little ride before it got too hot. Seattle's been dealing with fairly bipolar weather lately, and a week ago, it was in the 50s and raining. Today it topped 90 with perfectly clear skies. I loaded up Google's map page, and started scrolling around. I found a little road near Carnation, called Griffin Creek Road. It looked delightfully twisty and interesting, and I'd never heard of it before. I figured there was a reasonable chance it was a dirt road, but it was worth a trip to find out. I loaded up the Camelbak with ice and water (a fine idea, and it stayed very cold until my return home several hours later), and headed out on the Ninja 250. My usual route for this kind of trip is to take 520 out to Avondale (520 really just turns into Avondale where it terminates), then turn right on Union Hill Road, and follow that through its twists and turns to Snoqualmie Valley Road, which runs up the west side of the Snoqualmie Valley, and eventually leads to some of the best twisties in the area (although they're brief, and relatively high traffic). This time, I continued out to Carnation, and south a bit to pick up Griffin Creek Road. I got there, and it was indeed a dirt road, but with an internal shrug of the shoulders, I headed up, figuring I'd turn around if it got too uncivilized. I finally stopped a few miles up, where the road suddenly narrowed from a wide single lane to a narrow single lane. I didn't have anything to prove, and paused in a convenient pool of shadow to take off some of my gear and spend a few minutes without earplugs in. It was very pretty, although not particularly picure-worthy -- the picture would have been titled, "Trees." Any follow-on shots would have been titled things like "More trees," or "Bike with trees." I turned around, and on a whim, decided to turn south on Carnation-Fall City Road, and make my way to Snoqualmie Falls. I was most of the way there, so why not? I made my way to the falls, and, sweating in my gear among the tourists, took a couple of quick, "I was really there" photos.
I made my way back to the bike, and back down the hill, the way I'd come. I stopped at the delightfully deceptive "$1.00 sweet cherries" booth ($1 buys you a miniscule amount of cherries, although you can certainly get those few for a dollar). I rolled on. As I was coming back along highway 203, I was reminded of something Jeniffer and I had experienced and discussed in our trip around the North Cascade loop last month: no one knows how to pass any more. So, the way it works is this: on any two-lane road (ie, one lane each direction) where passing is permitted, well, passing is permitted. Generally speaking, to do it legally, the vehicle in front of you should be going less than the speed limit, and you shouldn't exceed 15 MPH over the speed limit in your overtaking maneuver. In Washington, at least, it's illegal for any vehicle to detain 5 or more vehicles behind it, and it's required to pull off the road to let the other guys go past. I suspect other states have similar rules, and it's certainly a common-sense idea. Anyway, it was interesting to me how atrophied the skill is. Everyone who drives on a multi-lane freeway is used to simply having a second lane available for overtaking. Someone in front of you not going fast enough? Pull into the next lane, and overtake them at your leisure. On a two-lane road, it's not that easy, of course. First, you have to determine if it's safe to pass. That is, is there oncoming traffic? Do you have a dashed line? (If there's a solid yellow line in your lane, passing is prohibited, usually for a very good reason.) Is the guy in front of you behaving predictably? Sometimes the best course of action is to back off, or pull over for a few minutes to let them get ahead. If things are safe, turn on your turn signal, gun the motor, and jam past the slowpoke. Signal back into your lane, and slow down to something approximating the speed limit for the benefit of the local constabulary. It's really easy, particularly if you're on a motorcycle. Of course, not all motorcycles are created the same. The Ninja 250, while it embodies many fine attributes, will never be mistaken for a powerhouse in the modern pantheon of motorcycles. With the 250, you have to plan your strategy with a bit more care -- find somewhere with good visibility, a useable gap between cars ahead of you if you can't pass the whole line in one go, etc. It's actually a pretty interesting challenge. On our trip on Highway 20 last month, Jeniffer was riding her BMW F650GS (a confusingly-named 800cc vertical twin), and I was on my Ninja 250 (a rationally-named 250cc vertical twin). Her bike produces something like 80 HP, mine screams along with maybe 28, for a not terribly substantial difference in weight. It was with interest, therefore, that I would pass people, and wait a surprisingly long time for Jeniffer to catch up, despite rolling through some prime passing areas. When I asked her later what was happening, she said she's just not comfortable passing, and deferred to my decade-plus of experience. This is by no means an attempt to rag on Jeniffer or her riding skills, it's just interesting to me that we have such different approaches to it. But similar to both my ride today, and our ride last month, was the fact that very few other drivers showed any inclination to pass. We'd come upon these long trains of cars unhappily guttering along behind a slow vehicle, and I'd pass them in one or two leaps as conditions warranted, and Jeniffer would catch up to me a bit later. Therefore, I'm urging you, fellow drivers, break free of your multi-lane roadway habits, and actually take a chance on your next road trip. If you're driving a modern car, you have so much power available to you in most cases that passing is little more than a trifle, to be accomplished with as much difficulty as most people execute the pouring of a cup of coffee. You can do it. You can break free of the mental chains. And you can get around that slug ahead of you. Posted at 18:22 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 29 Jun 2010Well, here it is months later, and I finally have the dyno chart posted. Here's the chart that shows what happens when you install a well-timed cam in a CL175:
What you're looking at is two runs: the first (the more jagged line) being with the stock cam. The second (the smoother line, with the big bump at the start) is with the timed cam, this spring. The line shows power (HP) vs. speed in MPH. Click on the image for the dyno chart page. Basically, the power smoothed out, so I've got a chunk more area under the line (a good thing), but the power didn't go up a couple HP like I was hoping. Progress is a good thing, though. Posted at 10:51 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 21 Jun 2010I took a troll through Motorcycle Daily today, and came across this interesting article. The relevant portion for today's discussion: Imagine my surprise when, after having my ass kissed for several years, I attend a press event where I am scolded, along with several other journalists, by the manufacturer's rep. That's right, most manufacturers want to "make nice" with the media, for obvious reasons. Piaggio's North American president, however, had a different idea. The media wasn't doing a good job of selling motorcycles as transportation in the U.S. The traditional buyer here, of course, is focused on entertainment, not practicality. Piaggio wants that to change (although they still want the occassional buyer to step up for an expensive Italian superbike). To which I say, Cool! The article goes on to explain that of all the bikes available at the Piaggio press event, none of them were of the small-displacement, "transportation" variety Piaggio was worried about. Ok, so, irony aside, this is the kind of thing I want to see. Europe has boasted a robust two-wheeled transportation sector for a long time, in large part because gas has typically been 2.5x what it costs in the US, making even economy cars seem pretty spendy. A 110 MPG scooter looks pretty nice when you're dropping $8 per gallon of fuel. The comments on the article are revealing, although hardly surprising. Small bikes are too small. The US isn't Europe (bigger cities, further distances, etc.). US buyers won't buy based on practicality or transportation value. Where's the Bigger-Better-Faster? That's where I get frustrated. It would take years of work to change the minds of a significant number of Americans as to the transportation value of motorcycles. That's years of advertising dollars, years of editorials, years of advocacy, and years of legislation. None of which, of course, will happen. Why? Because that's not what people want. They want Bigger-Better-Faster. We know. Why? Because we told them that's what they want. Yet here I am, freshly back from a trip around the mountains on my diminutive 250cc motorcycle, where I got a trip average of 64.5 MPG. My riding companion, on her 800cc BMW, got 62 MPG. Despite my small-bike "handicap," I was riding at the pace I wanted (which was more or less the speed limit, occasionally hampered by slow-moving cars, which were passed in short order). Granted, this was a trip more about fun and vacation than transportation, but it breaks a common notion held forth in the Motorcycle Daily comments: "Oh, a 250 is too small for American roads." Bullshit. I just did it, and if I'd needed to do it at an average speed of 80 MPH, the bike would have complied. My "little" 250 was more than a match for I-5, and it was adequate to climbing mountain roads at 4000 feet, and it was able to do all that for less fuel than any car yet produced. That's a bike that's "too small" for American roads? Bzzzt! Try again. My point is really that there are US riders who ride for transportation, and we do it with a wide variety of bikes. I'd be thrilled to see more 250cc-and-smaller bikes in the US market, and see them marketed as daily transportation rather than crap-your-pants adrenaline machines. Well, perhaps my point is too diffuse to really pinpoint, since I've touched on marketing and popular expectations and practicality, but hopefully you can see where I'm headed. We're using too many resources as a nation, and it's really in the public consciousness with the oil catastrophe ravaging the Gulf of Mexico (and soon to ravage the Atlantic, if the spread happens as predicted). Reigning in our transportation choices is one way to reduce our oft-belabored (but otherwise ignored) "dependence on foreign oil." Lose the SUV and pick up something that uses less gas to get around. Consider a motorcycle or a scooter -- imagine what happens to your budget when you're buying gas in 2 gallon doses instead of 20 gallons at a time. Posted at 10:31 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sat, 19 Jun 2010
A moto picture post, for a change
My friend Jeniffer and I just got back from a trip around the North Cascade Loop, and it was a fantastic trip. I took a zillion great pictures, but was playing with (shame on me!) HDR a little bit. It's like crack for photographers, and I had to try it, 'cause who doesn't like an exploded heart? Well, it's a bit safer than crack, I guess. Anyway. I thought you might be interested to see the self-portrait we took at Rainy Pass, in central Washington, on Highway 20. It was, you might say, a freakin' beautiful day, and well worth photographing. This was shortly before we made it to our end point yesterday, in Winthrop.
I'm not really sure which is better, the color or the black and white, so you get both to admire. Posted at 19:48 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 11 May 2010I tried taking the street CL175 for its inaugural break-in ride yesterday (seems like I've done a lot of those rides in the last few months), but was thwarted out of the gate. It would idle, but that's about it. Any more gas than that, and it would have enough power to spin up the motor with no load, but nothing more. When I put it in gear and tried to head out, it just bogged and nearly died until I turned around and gave up for the day. I spent some time pondering the problem. It was doing this odd coughing/backfiring routine whenever I cracked the throttle, and I started entertaining gloomy thoughts of having messed up the cam timing -- something that wouldn't be disasterous, but would mean I'd have to pull the engine out of the bike yet again. I also considered crud in the carbs, water in the gas, and dead sparkplugs. The obvious first step (that's a lot less obvious when faced with these problems, for some reason) is to replace the sparkplugs. Once fouled, it's effectively impossible to get a plug back to a functional state, and these sparkplugs had been through a fair number of first-runs without being replaced. So this morning, I replaced both plugs, carefully retaining the ridiculous double-washer I have to run with my too-large sparkplugs (it's a long story involving miscommunication and Helicoils). Although it hesitated at bit at first, after a few minutes of idling and warming up, the engine came to life, and I was able to ride off for a fairly satisfying first ride. It's so nice when the first and simplest attempt at problem resolution completely solves the problem. There are still a few tiny issues to deal with (timing could probably be adjusted; jetting could probably be adjusted; an indicator light needs to be replace), but it's looking likely that the street CL is finally healthy and back on the street. Posted at 10:13 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 09 May 2010It all started, as they say, much earlier than the actual events. Without getting ridiculous about it, I can safely start with a few weeks ago, when I noticed that my wristwatch's band had broken. I took it off, and eventually brought it to a repair shop, where it's even now awaiting a new band. Thus, when I set off for the track yesterday, I didn't have a watch on. It was a fairly standard departure, made slightly less stardard by the fact that I'd had a theatrical event the night before, which kept me out until 1, and my plan was to be at the track around 7 am. So my alarm was set for 5:30, and I went to bed at 2. Grand. As I pulled the bike off the truck, I noticed that it seemed a bit tough to move, but I put it down to deflated tires, since both tires were low on pressure. I got my pit area set up, and after I'd pumped up the tires, something made me check the bike again -- it was still tough to move. Something wasn't right. So, I spun the rear tire (conveniently suspended above the ground by the bike's stand) -- no problem. I lifted the front of the bike with some effort, and tried to spin the front -- yep, that's not right. The front brake was sticking. I messed around with it a bit, and discovered that the rear of the two brake levers was actually sticking in the engaged position, and then as soon as the tire was rolled backwards any amount, it would snap to the disengaged position. Seeing that we had nearly an hour until our practice session (the only time we'd be on the track that day), I decided to pull apart the front wheel and grease up the various bits and pieces, something I'd never done before (so it was probably long overdue). Sure enough, the actuating shafts were bone-dry, as were all the other moving parts inside the brake. I applied careful smears of grease in the appropriate spots, and put it back together. Of course, what I'd forgotten to factor in was the "not at home" time multiplier. Any time you try to do anything like this at home, it takes X amount of time. Any time you try to do it away from home, ie without all the normal setup and tools and work areas, it takes longer because of that change. I think it was about 1.5x on this job, which isn't bad, but of course ate into that hour I'd thought I had. Added onto this (I realized part-way through the job that the time factor was hitting me), I didn't have a watch, and I'd forgotten to bring the little battery clock I usually have hanging from the shelter. So the only way I had to check the time was to check my cell phone (which I didn't want to smear with my greasy gloves), or call out, "What time is it? Anyone?" I had no idea how fast or slow time was progressing. So I started to panic a bit. Naturally, when you start to panic a bit, things do not get better. But I didn't want to miss this practice. If I did, then it was a huge mistake to even come down for Saturday, when we only had one practice instead of the normal two. I'd considered, very late Friday night, just not coming down for Saturday, but figured I should probably make it if I could. Now, I was up to my elbows in disassembled front brake. Not a thing you want to have go missing while railing into turn 2. So I was under double pressure to do it quickly, but do it well. As it happens, I did manage to get it done, and in enough time to head out for practice with everyone else, but the story doesn't end there. As we were sitting at the mouth of the track entrance, I realized that I'd forgotten to safety-wire my belly pan bolt, a bolt which will vibrate itself out within a minute or two of riding. Indeed, I leaned over to check it, and it was halfway backed out. I reluctantly turned my bike up onto the gravel return road and went back to my pit to hurriedly wire the bolt and get back out. Thus, I was able to get into the practice having only wasted a couple minutes of track time. But, of course, it doesn't end there, either. I have this routine I go through before a track session. I think everyone has a variation on this. I put on my suit about 30 minutes before we're supposed to start. I check the gas. I check the tire pressure. I look over the bike to see if there's anything I've missed. And so on, but the key fact here is that it starts about 45 minutes before we ride. What was I doing 45 minutes before we were to start? Well, the same thing I was doing 20 minutes before we were to start -- putting my front brake together. Even with all that, I didn't manage to get it adjusted correctly, so that it was both dragging and working at about half power. So, about 2 laps in, I finally remembered: I'd pumped up my tires with too much pressure (like I always do), preparatory to using the tire gauge to carefully set them. Tire pressure is terribly important, and too much or too little can cause serious problems, including crashing. And here I was, running with way more pressure than I wanted to. Afterward, after the tires had cooled down, I measured 27 PSI front and 35 PSI rear. I normally run 23 and 29. One pound of difference is the usual increment of change when you're tuning tire pressure. Needless to say, I backed off a bit, and had a generally unsatisfying practice, firm in the knowledge that if I pushed it, my tires would probably slide, potentially dumping me off in the process. So, although I did actually get out on the track, and nothing really bad happened, it was a completely unsatisfying time, and the rush-rush-rush pressure I'd felt before riding left me fairly exhausted and unhappy. The consolation prize for this story is that, because we didn't have any more events in the day, I was able to take a much more leisurely approach to rectifying the remaining front brake issues, and I was able to come away from the day with a much more calm and zen feeling than what the morning had produced. Posted at 20:39 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sat, 01 May 2010Although it's been over a relatively long period of time, I've had some interesting developments in the Land of the Bikes (aka, my garage). The big one is the CL175 street bike. I think I've had that damn motor out of the bike about 5 times in the last 6 months, most of those occurring in the last month or two. Last year, in the fall, I took it apart to track down an odd clattering noise in the head. I found absolutely nothing in the head that should be causing a clattering noise, but in the process, I had so thoroughly cleaned and burnished the head that it seemed a real shame to put it back on the awful, oily rest of the engine. So I proceeded taking it apart, until I had the whole thing all the way apart, down to the transmission being out of the case. It cleaned up beautifully. I only really found one problem in doing all that -- there are these little flat pieces of metal under the crankshaft, which I think serve as oil baffles, and they're held in by spring tension against a pin. It's not clear to me exactly why they're there, but they are, and one of them was loose. So I bent it a couple of degrees, and now it's not loose any more. There's more than that, of course. As long as I had the engine apart, I figured, I might as well replace all the oil seals, and the piston rings. These are things that just wear out and get old, so it was worth replacing them. So I did. When I was putting the new rings in, though, they didn't match the diagram in the manual, so I kind of guessed at the order they should go in. It happens that I guessed wrong. I put the engine back together after a very long period of being in pieces on the bench (from November last year to something like early March of this year). I did a little break-in process. After all that, it was still smoking like Groucho Marx on a bad day, so I took it apart to swap the rings around (having figured out that I'd done it wrong the first time). So that was cool and all, but it didn't actually solve the problem. Still blowing a ton of smoke, and it was around here that I busted out the leakdown tester, a tool that can help you isolate where leaks are happening. I quickly determined that there was a comparative torrent of a leak around the piston rings in the left cylinder. Apart it all came again, and I checked things out. Thing is, everything looked good. I did careful measurements, I checked ring end-gap; everything I could figure out how to check, I did. Eventually (and about three more engine dismantlings later), I threw up my hands and took the cylinders in to Autosport Seattle to be bored (Autosport did the same service on my racebike engine, and I've been very happy with the results). The cylinders will probably be ready early next week, and I'll be able to update you as to whether the haunted left cylinder is finally working right. Hopefully, that's the last time I have to pull that engine for a while. It'd be nice to actually be able to ride the damn bike instead of looking at it forlornly sitting, denuded of tank and engine, like a sopping wet kitten who's suddenly half the size you thought it was. The race bike also received some love lately. I had the first race of the season a few weeks ago, and managed to get what I was hoping would be significant work done before that point -- I degreed the cam. This is a terrifying-sounding but surprisingly easy process that brings the engine into a theoretically better state of tune. I finished it in plenty of time for the first race, but not in enough time to get it back on the dyno before the race. At the same time, I swapped cylinder heads between the race bike and the street bike (I really like this "having two of the same bike" thing), to get the race bike back to a closer-to-stock condition. With all these changes, it was worth getting the bike to a dyno, which I finally did last week. I have results ready to set up, but haven't had a time to actually get them generated yet. The short story on the race bike is that I was hoping for a couple of HP from the degreed cam, and I would have been satisfied with one. I got .5, so that all felt like kind of a failure. However, we cleaned up the power curve a lot, and actually made a quite noticeable difference as far as area-under-the-curve, and that's actually pretty important. I also discovered that with the new head and degreed cam, the engine was running noticeably lean, so in went the 100 jets (I was on 98s before). We saw a peak of 14.9 HP, with the aforementioned increase in area-under-curve. So, I'll have to see how that works out. Hopefully it'll make a little bit of difference in times around a lap, although I'm pretty sure I'll notice no difference whatsoever in how the bike feels. There's also been news on the pedal-powered bikey front. The big news is two-fold: first, I got the new headlight from Supernova, and while it's not the night-into-day HID terror I'd been secretly hoping for, it's much better than the old one with its shaped beam and massive hotspot right in front of the front tire. The second bit of news, which impinges a bit more on my daily riding, is that I finally broke down and got myself a rear rack and a set of panniers. I'm not 100% convinced on this as a change, but it's pretty cool to not have the weight on my back (and therefore on my butt). The obvious negative is that I'm now putting that stress much more directly onto the rear subframe, particularly as I normally only run one bag. Asymmetrical loads bother my engineer's mind, and I can definitely feel that the bike is a bit wonkier over bumps now. The Ninja 250 and the Xtracycle don't really have any exciting news to impart (as much as news about an inanimate object can be considered exciting). The Ninja just keeps on keepin' on, and the Xtracycle hasn't been out much lately, particularly with the panniers on the commuter bike. Still, no news is good news, so I'll take it. Posted at 17:31 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 13 Apr 2010Tom Parker spent some time wandering around the track with a video camera last year, talking to racers, filming bikes, filming races, and generally making a delightful nuisance of himself. He was producing a documentary on Vintage 160 racing. The documentary is finally done, and he's presented his video to the world: The Fowler Formula from Tom Parker on Vimeo. Posted at 11:49 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 30 Mar 2010Somewhat frustratingly, after putting in all the work over the weekend, I was unable to actually start the bike up and see if it ran on Sunday. Some crazy garbage about disturbing neighbors or whatever. Anyway, tonight I was able to fire up the bike, and I am extremely pleased to report that it started as easily as it ever has. Once I got it warmed up a bit, I took a few experimental first-gear rides down the shoulder of my street (the bike not being street-legal), and I was impressed with how much power it seemed to have. I'm really looking forward to getting it onto the track, and see how it does in the real world. I was hoping to get it onto the dyno before this weekend's race, but it looks like I waited too long to call Ducati Seattle -- there's no time available when I'm free. Well, that's not entirely true, I'm to call on Thursday to see if they can slip me in just before closing, but that will require that I drive the bike to work, and I'm not sure I'm that committed to the project. I can always put it on the dyno after the race. Also, as a side note, I took a glance into the left cylinder of the street engine, and was pleased to see no obvious gouges on the cylinder walls, so it's unlikely I broke any rings there. That lends more credence to my theory that I may have left some crud in one of the ring cutouts, leading to the ring binding in the piston rather than pushing against the cylinder wall like it should. Stupid mistake on my part, but a very easily remedied one. Posted at 23:10 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 28 Mar 2010This has definitely been the Weekend of Motorcycles. The first race of the season is coming up next weekend, and the race bike had been essentially ignored all winter. I'd put it away with vows to do a bunch of stuff "over the winter," and of course, nothing came of that. Well, that's not entirely true, but nothing happened until this weekend, which makes a pretty poor showing of "over the winter." As I've mentioned before, I made up an adjustable camshaft last fall, and then left the project to sit for about 6 months as other bits of life intruded. Finally, a month or so ago, that camshaft made it into the street CL175, and I've been riding it around. However, piston ring problems have plagued me, and so I don't really know if it made all that much difference. Well, I'd reserved time in my schedule this weekend to work on the race bike. The main thing I wanted to do was to put new tires on, which I accomplished in a surprisingly short period of time on Friday evening. Faced with the remainder of the weekend, it occurred to me that I actually had time to swap that camshaft from the street bike to the race bike. Heck, I needed to take the street engine apart again anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone? The point of the cool new camshaft was to put it into the race engine anyway. So, out came one engine, then the other. I'm getting really good at pulling engines from CL175s, I must say. Lots of practice. The head came off the street engine this morning, and I went through the procedure of degreeing the cam on the race engine -- it's potentially different for every engine, so you have to check. As it happened, the cam as set was working out to 104.5° or 104.75°, which is so close to perfect (in theory you want it a tiny bit advanced for race use) that it wasn't worth changing anything. Of course, it wasn't as simple as all that. In the process of pulling things apart, I discovered problems that had to be solved, notably a dent in the cylinder head that was right on the border of the right combustion chamber. There were actually scorch marks on the head where hot combustion gasses had escaped, and I'd found soot outside the engine right there earlier. That required about an hour of patiently swirling the cylinder head on top of a piece of sandpaper on the granite surface plate I picked up over the winter for exactly this purpose. Life got a lot better once I figured out how to tape the sandpaper down so I wasn't trying to hold it with one hand while grinding the head with the other. As long as I was at it, I also removed the brittle, ancient gaskets from the cam-end bearings, a process that took way longer than I had hoped. However, this will hopefully cure that head of its oil leaks without resorting to sealant goo like I did last time. The sealant goo was perfectly effective, but I was worried that it might be clogging vital oil passages. Earlier, on Saturday, I'd actually pulled the head off a spare engine to swap it on to the race engine, and reworked its valve seats. Then, of course, I discovered that one of its sparkplug threads might be stripped, which would have complicated things unnecessarily. The reason for all this head swappery was that my original race head, due to a communication error with a machinist a couple years ago, has the wrong size sparkplug holes. This rendered one of the special tools I made useless, so that I couldn't set up the fancy new cam. Anyway, today was spent almost entirely standing in the garage, making slow but steady progress. The new race head (which was formerly the head from the street bike) has been beautifully reworked: it's newly very flat on its sealing surface, it has newly cut valve seats and new valves, and the cam-end bearings have new gaskets. This combined with the known-good rings of the race engine should make for a respectable engine. I hope I can get it out to the dyno before the race, just to see what changes I made (I took it to the dyno last fall to get a baseline). I wrapped up my work this evening around 8:45, and decided judiciously that although technically still legal, firing up my mega noise machine late on a Sunday night was probably not the best way to keep my neighbors happy. Still, it was nice to get the race bike completely back together this weekend, and know that I don't really have anything outstanding I need to do. There are surely things that it still needs, but at least it's back together, and I don't have any more work ahead of me than I did before the weekend started, and the bike is at least theoretically in better shape. It was a good weekend, although I'm ready to not stand for a while. Posted at 22:56 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 04 Mar 2010Well, taking the engine out of the bike and getting the top end off goes a lot quicker when you have some motivation. My findings so far: the piston rings were in fact in the wrong order (the correct order is square profile first, then stepped profile, then thicker oil scraper; I had the square and stepped rings swapped); the combustion chambers were positively swimming in oil, far more than I had expected to be there; the oil didn't seem to be coming from the valves, or at least not much; still nothing that should be making that clunking, rattling sound at idle; oil all over the engine is from the points cover gasket not sealing. It was nice, at least, to get the engine torn down enough to confirm that I'd done the rings wrong. I can probably get it corrected, cleaned up, and back together this weekend, assuming nothing goes wrong. Hopefully, that's not a big assumption. I have discovered (well, more confirmed, I guess) that Orbital is excellent engine tear-down music. I'm sure you were dying to know that. Posted at 23:03 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 03 Mar 2010I did several more CL175 break-in runs tonight, and it's very likely I've done something wrong in my reassembly. The engine is coated with a thin film of oil, and the exhaust is a perpetual blue haze. The crankcase breather is dripping an unhappy looking mixture of water and oil, and has been blown half off its attachment point. The best guess I've got is that I messed up installing the piston rings, and got the top two swapped. That would mean that oil is not effectively removed from the cylinder walls and is getting into the combustion chamber, and combustion pressure is not adequately sealing the top ring against the wall. That would lead to positive pressure in the crankcase, which might be responsible for, oh, I don't know, oil seeping from every gasket. I guess I'll be taking the engine apart again to check on the piston rings. Not an auspicious beginning. But maybe my new valves will come in while I've got it apart, and I can send the head off to the shop. There's a reasonable chance that the valve guides are worn out, which could lead to some smoking, but not as much as I'm seeing (and especially not considering that the engine didn't smoke before). It is highly suspicious to me that only the left side sparkplug was oiled, and the left side is where I bent that intake valve. Hopefully I don't have multiple problems cascading upon each other! Back to the workbench, I guess. At least I'm not facing anything mysterious -- tearing down the engine is almost something I can do in my sleep at this point, and either the rings are in the right order, or they aren't. Of course, one mystery does remain: that clunking in the head is still there, exactly like before, and I still have no idea what's making it. Hooray for progress? Posted at 22:22 permanent link category: /motorcycle I took this picture of the CL175 today, and thought it was pretty cool. Figured I'd share.
Posted at 16:48 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 02 Mar 2010As I mentioned in the previous post, I made myself an adjustable CL175 camshaft last fall. That must have been around October. In order to do that, I pulled the camshaft from a spare engine I had, and did the modifications, cutting down the sprocket and pressing on an adapter flange. Around the same time, I realized that my street CL175 (as opposed to the race CL175) was making these odd, and somewhat disturbing clanking noises at idle. It sounded like a loose cam chain, or loose valves, or something. I adjusted the valves, and adjusted the cam chain, but all to no avail. I knew I wanted to test the adjustable camshaft I'd just made on the street bike, so this seemed like a perfect confluence of events: tear down the street engine to look for the rattle, and reassemble it with the new camshaft installed.
That way, I could make mistakes on the street engine without imperilling the race engine. I have another street bike, so it was no hardship to do without the street CL175. I don't have another race bike, and if I messed up that engine, I would be unhappy. It turned out to be a good choice, as I ended up bending one of the valves as I was working on the street engine; the street engine has old valves, while the race engine has new valves. I would have been annoyed indeed to make that mistake on the race bike. The problem, of course, is that life (in the form of holidays and theater) got in the way. I found that between Thanksgiving and the end of this last run of shows a few weeks ago, I just didn't have time to work on the project. What little free time I did have was dedicated to things like sitting still for a few minutes, or going to bed before midnight, or occasionally collecting the terrifying dustbunnies around the house and introducing them to their new home in the circular file.
Finally, though, all the shows ended, and I've been able to pick up the project where I left off. The last few days have been full of engine work. This morning, I was mysteriously awake two and a half hours earlier than normal, so I decided to seize the opportunity and work on the bike. I was close to done, and it was just possible I could finish it this morning. As I continued work on the project, I realized that I just had two major tasks left: reconnecting the exhaust, and reinstalling the gas tank. Both of these things are fairly simple to do, and by around 8:45, I had the bike completely reassembled, adjusted, oiled, gassed up, and ready to go. I kicked the motor over a few times to get the oil system primed and pumping. Then, it was the work of mere moments to flip on the choke and press the go button.
Lo and behold, after a few cranks, it fired up, and ran as if nothing had happened! It's just as finicky about starting as it was before the teardown, but I can't say I'm entirely surprised by that. I ran it through the initial 10 minute "Do nothing but idle" phase of Duke's break in method from the Ninja250 board. I'll have to modify it for the CL175, in terms of target RPM, but that's the basic method I'll be following to break in the new rings. It was a glorious feeling to finally have this long-stalled project going, and working again. I can't wait to go home tonight and start riding it again. I'm sure there's more work to be done to get everything set just right, but the correctly aligned camshaft promises noticeable improvements in power and economy.
(Man, you can really tell the difference between the real camera and cellphone camera pics, can't you.) Update: It's been pointed out to me that I left my handful of readers hanging! Did I find the rattle? Well, maybe. As I tore the engine down, I was discouraged to find that there really wasn't anything that should be causing the rattle. It sounded like it was coming from the head, which is why I was thinking valves or cam chain. It all looked about right as I took it apart. When I reassembled the bottom end, I did discover that one of the oil baffles under the crankshaft (which are held in place with spring tension) was loose. I bent it a little bit so it'd exert some pressure against its retaining pin, but that was the only thing I found that was a likely source of rattling inside the engine. As I was reassembling the whole thing today, I ended up inverting the muffler a couple of times, and noticed a very loud clanking coming from it -- apparently one of the internal baffles has come loose. That's even less likely to be the source of the rattle, but it was pretty loud as I handled the muffler, and I suppose anything is possible. I'd love to ditch the stock muffler (which is heavy and makes taking off the exhaust pipes a serious pain), but that's more fabrication than I'm ready for right at the moment. So, the answer is a solid maybe. When I started the engine this morning, it didn't rattle, though. I'll take it. Posted at 11:00 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 24 Feb 2010So, last fall, I made myself an improved camshaft for the CL175 streetbike. (Seriously, if you're not into engines and tuning, you can completely skip this entry.) Then, life got in the way, and I've only been able to get back to it in the last few weeks. Finally, a couple days ago, I got all the bits and pieces put back together, clean, beautiful, new oil seals, the works. I had stalled enough. Time to degree the cam. Degreeing the cam is not, in concept, hard to understand. The camshaft is locked to the crankshaft with a chain. The tensioner makes sure there's a minimum of slop in the chain. As the crankshaft moves the pistons up and down, the camshaft controls the opening and closing of the valves. Easy enough. If a valve opens too early in, say, the power stroke, then some of the expanding gas gets blown out the open valve instead of powering the crankshaft. If that same valve opens too late, then the exhaust stroke isn't as effective, wasting some power on compressing the exhaust against a closed valve. Likewise a bunch of similar scenarios -- the cam has to open and close the valves at exactly the right time, if you want to make the most power. Degreeing the cam is just the act of making sure the cam is lined up exactly where it should be in relationship to the crankshaft, so that the valves open and close as the manufacturer intended. Honda, at least with the 60s and 70s era 160/175 motor, wasn't always super precise when pressing the cam sprocket onto the camshaft, as far as how everything lined up. It could be off. It could be off by a lot. According to Mr. Bateman's article on cam degreeing, even 1 degree of cam timing is pretty significant. That's what made my degreeing experience so interesting. After first bending a valve and cursing a great deal, and then remembering that I had a couple spare valves from the race engine (note to future cam degreers: no really, don't stick the piston stop pin in the cylinder with the valves adjusted to .002"! Really!), I got my shiny new adjustable cam degreed. What should I find, upon degreeing the cam as I'd pressed it back on (admittedly without any precision at all)? 98°. The 175 is supposed to be at 105°. Yeah, that'll never work. I did the math real quick, and decided I had to move the cam 3.5° thataway (the cam rotates at 1/2 rotation per crankshaft rotation). I did, and was almost blown away by how easy it was. Turn the crank around a couple of times, loosen the three bolts, and give 'em a quick tap with a drift and hammer. Done. Without the adjustable adapter, you have to take the head halfway apart, pull the cam out, press the sprocket off, and press it back on to do the same thing. I'd taken a ~30 minute operation and performed it in about 3 seconds. I had marked 5° increments on my adapter (you can see a few more pictures of this stuff here), and moved the pointer what looked like about 3.5 degrees, more or less. I re-tested, and found I was at 103°, so I'd gone the right direction, and adjusted it just a tiny bit further. The numbers worked out to 105° on the nose. Hot! So now, the engine awaits final assembly, and I can finally put it all back together, and see if it works! I really hope the old cam was actually at 98° (but don't expect it was, I'm not sure it'd run at all in that condition) -- the performance increase from re-setting the cam at 105° would be huge! And the best thing is that the increased performance would come along with improved fuel economy. I've got my fingers crossed. Posted at 11:40 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 09 Nov 2009Just in case you've always wanted to know how much power a well set up (but largely unmodified) 1972 Honda CL175 makes, have I got a treat for you! I took my racebike to the dyno at Ducati Seattle this weekend, and did a few pulls on the dyno. I wanted to get a snapshot of how the engine is behaving before I go tearing into it this winter to clean a few things up. Specifically, the cam is getting timed, and the head/cylinder interface at least is getting cleaned up, if not actually decked a few thousandths. I'm undecided on decking the head, because that will involve a whole bunch more work vs. just timing the cam. Fortunately, I have the CL175 streetbike (which is even now getting a teardown and rebuild) as a test-bed for engine changes. I'm looking forward to some fun this winter. Posted at 14:41 permanent link category: /motorcycle Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
