ESE's works engine tuner

[TZ350]

I'm glad you guy's find this thread interesting. My heart is with Skunk, but K14 is right, focusing more on the riding would pay off. My next opportunity to race is the 8th Feb; until then I have to entertain myself somehow.

The head thing has been a bit circular but its a shortcoming and I would like to improve it. I reckon I headed of in the same direction as any one would but as my understanding of the issues has grown I have come back to taking another look at the original head.

I am now looking at the posibilites of adding more (any is more than nothing) copper fin area to the original head. With the new fins having their roots as close to the combustion shell as possible.

Hopefully I will have two or three well thought out versions to try at the next meeting. My plan is to swap them during the day and use a go-cart data logger to measure at the spark plug seat the max temp of each during a race. Thats about as scientific as I can get.

Another thing I want to try is adding some fins and a heat insulating barrier under the barrel to isolate the cylinder heat from the crankcase.

In the old days on Dunlop TT900 GP's my bike would sometimes chatter so badly in a corner the foot pegs would break and the handle bars would get bent. I usually stayed on but it realy hurt my back.

With slicks and other changes things in the handling department improved but I would often find myself riding off the edge of the slicks. I have now changed my riding style from the 70's Hailwood upright and become comfortable with carrying my body weight over the side in a corner.

I have not yet got used to the greater corner speed this allows and still get a fright if my knee touches the ground, hence the trainer wheels.

As for my riding, I need to lift my head and look further around the corner and be happy with the foreground only being in my peripheral vision and not be concentrating on it.

This looking further up the road is going to be a conscious try at the next meeting.

.

[koba]

This is a VERY interesting thread!
I also agree on the value of riding better.

[bucketracer]

How important is winning anyway? Is that what its all about?

[Skunk]

How important is winning anyway? Is that what its all about?

Nope. It's all about fun for me. Beating myself (shut up you dirty buggers )

[saxet]

How important is winning anyway? Is that what its all about?

It's the old thing, not every one is gonna win but we still try. On the rare occaisions I do win it's pretty cool but the main goal is to improve my bike in all manners e.g. power output and useability and improve my riding. I like to think most people are doing the same as this is what makes me try harder and, I hope, Makes buckets a great place for young people to come, learn off silly older buggers like myself and then maybe move on to bigger and better things.
P.S. this is a great thread that's been alot of help to me.

[nudemetalz]

I might have to start a "Tuning the Loncin up to radical proportions to beat the 'strokers" thread....

Anyone got a huge supply of inlet and exhaust valves for me to purchase???

[Skunk]

Just come up with a method that does away with them.

Doh! Here we are!

[nudemetalz]

Just come up with a method that does away with them.

Doh! Here we are!

Clever prick !!!

[F5 Dave]

. . .
I could make a head for a air cooled two stroke out of one, but it will cost about $4000 for the material

I was thinking more along the lines of anti detonation squish inserts, but seemingly transfer isn't up to it anyway, I just thought that was what you were angling at, which is why I worded it that way.

[wbks]

Theres some high tech bucketeering going on in this thread hahaha. I'm not going to read through 13 pages, so, sorry if someone's already mentioned this. I was reading this book about racing in the 70's/80's that was made late 80's (so it had Crosby, Mamola, all the guys first getting the knee down with tape for knee sliders haha) in the days of two stroke triples and v4's. It mentioned the use of asbestos (use modern equivalent) wrapping to improve performance. It also mentioned stopping the rapid cooling = cracking of pipes but I'm assuming that is an old days thing because it's never happened to me. -

"You will often see expansion chambers wrapped with asbestos especially over the first part of their length. This can be done for several reasons. One may be an attempt to raise the temperature of the air in the chamber which will in turn raises the speed of the reflected wave. A wave that returns quicker will be effective at higher engine speed and hence wrapping the pipe may move the rev range a few hundred revs higher."

Can anyone vouch for the effectiveness of this? Works for old two stroke buckets? Sounds like it could help improve the over rev on a few two strokes

[k14]

I was thinking more along the lines of anti detonation squish inserts, but seemingly transfer isn't up to it anyway, I just thought that was what you were angling at, which is why I worded it that way.

Its quite common for 125 heads to have them. If you find a decent machinist it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to get them to do it. Also, as far as I understand it doesn't prevent detonation it just prevents damage to the head from detonation??

[F5 Dave]

Theres some high tech bucketeering going on in this thread hahaha. I'm not going to read through 13 pages, so, sorry if someone's already mentioned this. I was reading this book about racing in the 70's/80's that was made late 80's (so it had Crosby, Mamola, all the guys first getting the knee down with tape for knee sliders haha) in the days of two stroke triples and v4's. It mentioned the use of asbestos (use modern equivalent) wrapping to improve performance. It also mentioned stopping the rapid cooling = cracking of pipes but I'm assuming that is an old days thing because it's never happened to me. -

"You will often see expansion chambers wrapped with asbestos especially over the first part of their length. This can be done for several reasons. One may be an attempt to raise the temperature of the air in the chamber which will in turn raises the speed of the reflected wave. A wave that returns quicker will be effective at higher engine speed and hence wrapping the pipe may move the rev range a few hundred revs higher."

Can anyone vouch for the effectiveness of this? Works for old two stroke buckets? Sounds like it could help improve the over rev on a few two strokes

Well it can work, but there was some controversy over whether you want to be retaining the heat in the charge that is over scavenged & pushed back into the cylinder. However at speed in cold conditions cooling the chamber would make it act like it was longer so higher gears may have a lower rev peak power which may not be the best for top speed. Wrapping the pipes followed but has fallen out of favour for above reason + it rusts the pipes real bad (trust me). Titanium pipes retain heat more anyway so they stopped wrapping them anyway. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Was quite popular in snowmobiles where it was a real problem, hence cracking issues referred to.

[F5 Dave]

Its quite common for 125 heads to have them. If you find a decent machinist it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to get them to do it. Also, as far as I understand it doesn't prevent detonation it just prevents damage to the head from detonation??

Yeah so a hardened copper vs brass might have been the go. Had some idea (probably false) that it did help with prone bikes but I haven't really had any experience with them as haven't had the need. Where do the Japs come up with their Brand names?, sheesh!

[k14]

Pretty sure they use brass. It has only come around since the move to unleaded though. If you are running avgas and getting detonation you have cocked something up along the way (too little squish, too much timing or way way too lean) so its of little value imo. I have never run a head with an insert, that photo is of a kit head that came with my bike when I imported it from Japan.

[wbks]

Well it can work, but there was some controversy over whether you want to be retaining the heat in the charge that is over scavenged & pushed back into the cylinder. However at speed in cold conditions cooling the chamber would make it act like it was longer so higher gears may have a lower rev peak power which may not be the best for top speed. Wrapping the pipes followed but has fallen out of favour for above reason + it rusts the pipes real bad (trust me). Titanium pipes retain heat more anyway so they stopped wrapping them anyway. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Was quite popular in snowmobiles where it was a real problem, hence cracking issues referred to.

Interesting! So you're saying with the extra heated gases being pushed back into the cylinders, it becomes a problem because it would raise the cylinder temp heaps, which would lead to detonation and/or overheating?

So if the heat of the chambers effects power spread and peak power; in theory, for bikes with little room to change the pipe design (which from what I read was a problem in the yamaha square four's) , you could just use different steels to change the power characteristics. Like for instance, you would use a pipe that dissipates heat rapidly for wet weather to make the power less peaky, and then use stainless in dry, fast tracks for max peak power. Cutting edge bucket technology theory lol

And can I ask if you guys have air filters on your buckets? On one hand theres 0.5hp to be made without one, on the other there's a new engine needed if you're un lucky enough to get a nice dirty puff of smoke sucked in when someone ahead runs into the dust off track. I'm not sure if I should adapt a little twin air one off a 50cc dirtbike or something or just leave it