Trying to squeeze in some rides before hell freezes over

I met up with long bike Matt in Plymouth the other night.  Turbo bike ran great on the way there in 60° air but the ride home was a little to cool for it and I wet out a plug.  The way I have the Bendix carb adjusted is fuckin shit for constant speed. Nice to accelerate and seems to idle OK but anything in between is crap.  I still have that HSR and maybe I will take a day to modify my intake once more to make it fit and see if it will work any better.  If that doesn't work work I'm just going to inject it some how.

Found a Flat slide to try out

I picked this up yesterday from Shawn at 333. Shawn gave me a killer deal under the condition that if I don't use it, I will sell it back to him for what I paid.   Shawn has a nice little tuner shop focused on modern Harley's and is a straight up dude.   This is the perfect hook up for me because after talking to Kevin and the trouble he had with tuning the HSR, I was nearly talked out of it , that and it has been running pretty sweet on the zenith / Bendix adjustable main carb that I have in it.  However I really want the HSR to work and I wont be happy until I play with it for a bit. Shawn offered some dyno time and HSR tuning expertise and I'm sure papa bear has some experience to share as well. 

Nothing really

I have the Mustang power tour taking a tour of my day job today and I hope to get some photos of cool stuff that may take place.   I will post something before the end of the day.
I rode the Turbo bike into work today and it seemed to not run so awesome.  I will go out there and fuck with it on my lunch break. My guess is a piece of poop stuck in the carb again.   When I built the fuel tank I used some fancy new sealer that was supposed to hold up to race fuel and alcohol but I keep seeing tiny flakes in my primary filter and I accidentally broke my secondary in line filter when I was putting it back together.  I'm still thinking of converting it over to E85 and I'm almost positive that my adjustable main jet Bendix that I have will accommodate the extra fuel requirement just by turning the screw.  I need to put a better flowing fuel system on it though. it is questionable as it is now.

Weekend Action

 Spent a bit of time working on a ultraglide and some on the Oily Souls trophies but still made time to:
Help Mini-b finish putting his ironhead back together .
Take the Turbo Honda on a couple of short break in rides.
Fiddle fuck with the charging system on the sprint ( I did manage to squeak a little more juice out of it )

I was so close. Recap in the comments section

So,  I finished putting the Honda back together.  I added another oil cooler, test ran it for a while and I was happy with the results so I let it cool down a bit and I gave it a bath.  I was about to ride it up and put some gas in it when it would not start.  I pulled off the ignition cover and it seems I had a bit of a water leak so I blew out the fancy electronics that I have in there and now only # 2 and 3 are firing.  I parked it for the night and I hope I didn't fuck up my fancy ignition system.  I guess I will find out soon enough.

The engine is assembled, mostly

I just have to install the the header and put the carb back on .  I do want to route some more oil lines to a new cooler that I put in the front.  I hate the new cooler, although it is really not that visible it bothers me and Im really going to hate it when the hoses are on them.

Turbo Bike Gang Bang

 

So, just about everyone I know that is not in Sturgis right now stopped by last night to help do the head stud swap.   I did bust one stud off in the case and after much drilling, grinding and fighting I was able to clean the hole out enough to heli-coil it and install the APE studs.  It ran pretty late so we didn't get it complete but it is close.     I did torque it down to 22 ft lbs vs. the original 15.7 to 16.2 that is called out for in the book so I think it will seal it up.  I also re-installed the cam and timed it late last night.  I just need to adjust the rockers and put the rest of the stuff back on. 

Having friends to help, made this a great way to spend a Sunday.

Thanks to:  Darrin the Kid,  Greg ( papa bear ),  Gaby ( The motorcycle princess) ,  Francesco,   Marcel,  Mini-b and even Jeff.

 

More Trust Worthy

I ordered some molly studs from APE for the turbo bike.  These should keep the head on straight.  They are much thicker than the ones I have in there.
  That's what I get for cheap'n out in the fastener department.
In the mean time I am adding more oil cooler to it to try to keep the temps down.   I am also looking into converting it to E85.  I hear it tunes easier and runs 15% cooler.

Frame mod complete

I welded and painted the frame mod last night.  I was originally holding the coil pack with a couple of P clamps, this allowed me to make a proper mount for it .   Now I have to actually fix the motor.  I will be on that just as soon as I get some bad ass head studs for it.

Finished making my frame connectors

I still need to weld it all up but you get the point.  I'm pretty happy with the way they fit and after they are welded I plan on making some cross supports that I can mount my coil to etc.   I should have done this in the first place but hind sight is always 20/20. 

Gettin some things done

It has been so fucking hot and humid here that I've been inside rather than in the shop as much as I usually am. I did manage to chop the frame on the Turbo bike and get started on the badge design for Gabby's Guzzi " Pau " as she has named it. I cut out a scale rendering so we can eye fuck it this weekend at the Wauseon classic bike thingy.  Mini-b and I will be there either late today or tomorrow morning, it all depends on the weather. I'm riding the taint splitter and Mini will be on his iron headache stop and say hi.

Super bummed

On Saturday, Mini-b and I took a ride out to Midnight Mass custom culture extravaganza.  I decided to take the Turbo bike since it was running so well.   It was just to hot out to run it down the freeway and I blew the head gasket as we pulled in the lot.  Of coarse this meant that it was going to blow a smokey mess all over once it cooled off witch wouldn't have bothered me as much if was hitting on all four.  At the same time Mini's starter decided to act up and it was down right humiliating on the way out. The show and venue was awesome even though I didn't stick around very long because I was stressing over the results of the cool down.

As far as the head gasket goes, I think I'm going to re torque it a bit first . I'm really surprised that it went, I used the multi layer Viton coated stainless type that is usually indestructible.  However, aluminum moves funny when you get it hot and if the re torque works I will need to find a way to keep it cooler.  Maybe back to the drawing board on the oiling system.... stupid turbo bike.

The other major bummer is; in order to remove the cam cover on these old bastards you have to have the motor out of the frame. I think its in my best interest to make the back bone removable so I can service the motor without wanting to kick a baby in the face.   This mod will probably take less time than yanking the motor out anyway.     I had a feeling that a head gasket was going bad soon, I just thought it was going to be that Land Rover we bought.  Guess this is better than that.

Turbo bike 2013 shakedown complete!

Running nice now.   Had some carb issues that I took care of last night. It seems that I fight this carb and every time its the same piece off poop stuck in the emulsion tube of the adjustable main jet.  That being said , after I cleaned that out it was all good.   After riding the Gixxer around for a while, I am surprised how comfortable this thing is and how well it rides .  Custom bikes are where its at man!

Here is a list of this years mods to the turbo bike:
Engine rebuilt.
Stock bore
Heads are ported and polished.
Valves , swirl polished and lightened
Bee Hive springs with lightened keepers
reshaped combustion chambers. This was a big deal and took a point out of the compression ratio.
Good studs and a super duper gasket kit from cycle x .  nice, stamped stainless and Viton coated head gasket.
High performance internal chains.
 A total redesign of the intake manifold that seems to have helped a bit, I will pull the plugs in a while  to see if the flow is favoring any one cylinder but it helped allot with drivability.
 Added a thunder jet to the carb just because I had one really.
 Put that cool old school holey air filter on it.  Its super low profile and seems to flow plenty for now.
 Put a X-ring chain on her thanks to the Kid for hooking me up with that.
 Took off the 18 tooth K model front sprocket and put the correct 17 tooth super sport sprocket in.
 Polished the tail pipe, I had it roughed in because I thought it looked good like that but I'm happier with the polished stainless look through there like this.
 Remounted the windscreen, moved down about 25 mm and forward about 50. still need a new windshield for it but I would like to take a crack at blow molding one so it can wait.

Turbo Bike Intake Construction

One of the things that was causing me grief was the design of the intake manifold.  What I had built before was based on high rpm and was great if you could get it there but the air flow was so turbulent that it was knocking my fuel out of suspension until it was boosting.  So I went the opposite direction and made this little guy.   I'm much happier with the way it packages in there.

Also got it fired up over the weekend in spite of being on my death bed from a killer cold the ole lady gave me.    No test ride yet but it sounds pretty good and as soon as I get my sprocket and put on the chain that The Kid gave me, I should be ready for a test scoot, nothing crazy though, I am breaking in the motor.  I also need to find a master link for a 530 O-ring chain, the one he gave me has a rivet on one and I'm not sure if you can press those out and re-rivet them or not.

This came out sweet!

I wanted to pull a mold off of the stretched super sport tank from the Turbo Honda so I can make a cool fuel cell and stash spot or oil tank setup and have the shell as a cover.  I've never pulled a mold off of a complete, show painted part like this so it was a bit of a gamble and I have to say, it turned out fucking bitchin!  you can see witness of the smallest imperfections of the tank even the RASMOTO sticker shows that it was flat compared to all the gloss. all that without any damage to the original tank.  OK, back to the turbo manifold now.

Meanwhile, in Michigan....

Over the weekend ( while everyone is at Born Free 5 )  I worked on the Honda for a bit and when Darin " the kid " ( sorry buddy but the name has stuck ) came by to pick up his tins, he helped me  swap the motor out in the Honda.

While I was at it, I decided to make a mold of the stretched super sport tank.  I waxed up the tank, taped off the bottom and sprayed the whole thing with PVA.  Depending on the weather tonight, I might blow on some gel coat and start laying glass on it.   I don't know if I'm going to make a shell from the mold just yet but this will let me do it at my leisure.

The bottom picture is the fresh motor in place and before I finished dressing it.

 I'm redesigning the intake manifold next and hope to get this thing back on the road in a couple of weeks. 

Started the CB750 motor swap last night

Went pretty quick really.  Pulled the bike in at about 530 and motor is ready to come out by 9.  This includes swapping over hot rod parts that were on it, like clutch, ignition, all the polished stuff and other little do-dads.  I'm going to need some help to get the thing out of the frame though ( fuckin heavy ass boat anchor Honda motor) . 

cant wait to get turbo cb going again.

With the fresh motor that I built for it and some other stuff I need to do I will be lucky to get on it this season.    Besides the basic engine swap, I am planning on making a new intake manifold and do some finer finish work to the details on the mechanics.  I also would like to make a mold of the fuel tank so I can make a composite fuel tank shell that will go over top of a fuel cell to lighten the bike up.  I put so much lead in that tank when I stretched it that it should have never been used on a real motorcycle.   I would also like to lower the fairing and headlamp assembly although it is in the perfect position to streamline the bike to its abnormally round rider ( Me ) I cant get over the awkwardness of it. 

I plan on rolling it into the shop as soon as I finish the XRTT project and I' m getting pretty excited  

Bee Hive

I took a few minutes and finished building the head for the CB750F Turbo motor the other night.
I did a bit of chamber reshaping and porting a while back and I received the springs and seals from Cycle X last week so I lapped the valves and stuck them in.  Amazing how much lighter these are and I have high hopes for a more angry red line without all the coughing and inconsistencies that the boat anchor motor that's in the bike now has. 

Holey Trans Case Batman!

I was cleaning up the spare engine that I have for the Turbo CB750 over the weekend when I found a little aluminum patch JB Welded over a fuckin giant hole near the sprocket.   It appears that either the chain broke and gathered or something fell in there while rolling down the road. After looking through the rest of the motor, in spite of the giant hole it looked pretty good inside so I decided to weld it up. Maybe just freshen this one up with some valve seals, rings and gaskets and toss it in there while I do the performance rebuild to the motor that I have in the bike now.   Welding it really sucks, The die casting is so porous ( at least on the bottom half that I welded last night ) that it was like welding foam that had been soaked in oil.  Not as pretty as I imagined it in my head but very functional and once its in the chassis it will never be seen again.