Shane - Superlite (#43)

So Thursday night I cruised around to Brent's place so that we could continue putting Trini back together.

I shot home from work, having bailed from the buildings Christmas bbq before I got snotted (it was hot and the beer was free and there's some cute chicks that work in this building). I just grabbed some long pants, socks etc because it'd get cold later on and I always end up being a smorgasboard for the local Mosquitos. Left there and shot around to pick up the oil that was waiting for me. I picked up a 4 litre of Mobil 1 + 500mm of Brake Fluid for $65.00, that's friggin cheap. But not only did I get a great deal I ended up walking out with a bunch of the coolest Mobil 1 stickers out (they're chromed badges and look so cool), a pair of tyres warmers and a 1 piece racing suit to try out!!

The evening was off to a great start so I headed straight to the wholesalers and picked up some beers. After all, it's rude to turn up without a drink. Dinner was uncertain so I stopped at that Scottish restaurant and ordered 3x Grand Angus combos. Personally, the Mighty Angus just doesn't taste as nice even though it's got bacon on it and the Grand Angus has salad in it. How the hell does that work?!?!

We pulled up just in time to see Brent wheeling bikes out of the shed. That's a good start but we had hot food, I'd had a couple of beers at the buildings bbq and it was the end of a long day so sitting down was a priority. We went and parked up on the picnic table and got into the burgers. I probably shouldn't have gotten a combo, or should've gotten something like a Fillet of Fish Combo instead because I'd had a couple of sausages in bread at the bbq. Didn't really want to move after that, but Brent decided I looked far too comfortable so we wandered off to the shed.

My goals for the night were to figure out how to let the dead cylinder breath without soaking up lots of horsepower. I also wanted to get the right side foot peg etc reassembled and take a look at the brakes. Brent just wanted to get the head back together and ready to put back on the block. So we both ripped into our intended tasks .... after I grabbed another beer.

Because I had 2 complete heads with throttle bodies etc we'd come up with 2 plans of attack for letting the cylinder breath. Plan #1 was to remove one of the throttle bodies and shuffle throttle body #4 in one. Because #4 has the throttle position sensor mounted on it that one has to stay. Likewise, #1 has the throttle cable assembly attached to it so that one had to stay. So I pulled #3 out and moved #4 into it's place. This left us with 3 throttle bodies and the fuel rail mounted on the bottom throttle body bracket so it isn't possible to cut the bracket down to make room for a breather. So it's going to be a bit tricky to get something in there to let it breath but I'll have a shop around and see what I can find.

Plan #2 is to remove the butterfly valve from #4 throttle body on the other set and then cut a hole in the top of the airbox and poke a tube of some kind in there so that the air from the dead cylinder passes straight through the airbox without disturbing the air flow. The reasons this is plan #2 are a) I don't want to cut up things if we can help it yet b) losing that volume in the airbox means losing potential breathing capacity for the 3 remaining cylinders c) I have no idea what we'd be able to use to pass the air through the airbox or how to seal it. It definitely can't be hooked up as is so that the air goes back to the airbox because the constant suck/blow motion will cause turbulance and also and exhaust gases that get past through from the exhaust will upset the oxygen sensor and also pass them back into the good cylinders, losing power.

The other problem with this set up there will still be 4 fuel injectors. We debated for quite a while if we can just leave the injector in place and disconnect the electrics for the solenoid and in the end we decided that's probably the best way to go for now. The main worry is if it leaks, but as long as it isn't a constant stream it should be ok for now. Eventually we'll need to get a plug machined so that I can remove the injector altogether but still have something there to support the fuel rail.

Brent had come across something interesting that probably explained a whole lot of stuff. When he pulled the head he marked the inlet cam and exhaust cam so he knew which was which. After reading the manual he found that the inlet cam shaft was clearly marked with a groove so it wasn't possible to mix them up. However, when we looked at the 2 camshafts the one that was marked with an E had the groove and the one marked with an I didn't have the groove. Hopefully the bike hadn't been run with camshafts around the wrong way. If it had it would've run like a bag shit. That's if it ran at all.

Meantime, I reassembled the foot peg bracket etc and cleaned up the rear brake piston. Contact Cleaner is your friend when it comes to brakes because I left the Brake Klean at home and Brent didn't have any left. So a hanky + contact cleaner and the gunge on the piston was all cleaned up.

About that time we both gave up before we broke something so we packed up, brought all the bikes in and went inside for another beer. Ended up getting to bed about 12:30am because we hung around and talked quite a while then got home and did the regular stuff, ie make sure kb hadn't blown up, clear the large pile of pm's/emails etc etc.

At the moment Brent reckons it probably won't be ready to go for the track day on Thursday, but if it idles on the weekend I'm riding it on the Thursday. As long as the throttle response isn't measured in seconds I want to get out there and just get back to riding. It'll also be a good shake down for the bike so I can get a good idea of what we need to do to it. I figure the first 3 or 4 track days are going to be bug hunting sessions and then after that we can start looking for lost horses. That should keep us busy for a good couple of months.