ESE's works engine tuner

[lodgernz]

Two questions :
Has bucket racing resumed since Covid?
Where does Bucket Racing happen in Auckland these days since Mt Wellington was confiscated?

As Dave said, bucket racing has resumed in Wellington, New Plymouth and Christchurch.
The Aucklanders raced at Hampton Downs Club Track last Sunday, and will be at Tokoroa next month.
Those two venues are the closest to Auckland now, and they may use Edgecumbe as well.
Once we are racing electric buckets, we will have the possibility of several other venues that we have lost through noise complaints from people with no lives.

[190mech]

Maybe moving back to parking lots,using electric mobility scooters..WOW!that sounds exciting!!

[Pursang]

Maybe moving back to parking lots,using electric mobility scooters..WOW!that sounds exciting!!

It's already a 'Thing'!
.

[WilDun]

As Dave said, bucket racing has resumed in Wellington, New Plymouth and Christchurch.
The Aucklanders raced at Hampton Downs Club Track last Sunday, and will be at Tokoroa next month.
Those two venues are the closest to Auckland now, and they may use Edgecumbe as well.
Once we are racing electric buckets, we will have the possibility of several other venues that we have lost through noise complaints from people with no lives.

These people are not interested in bikes/buckets ..... or birds having a life either - they are prepared to cut down the trees to silence them! (the birds, not the trees!).
They would also object to the whine of electric motors if still in Auckland!
Hampton Downs / Mercer might suit the guys from Hamilton as well - quite a way out (from both places) but ideal area really for motorsport.
I'm surprised that Pukekohe didn't look ahead (- look at Bathurst!).

PURSANG
I should be doing that "facepalm" thing! - I have just sold two mobility scooters! (which I no longer need) - if you had told me about this earlier, I'd have been in! - (only because I can no longer throw a leg over a bike of course!).

[Flettner]

It's already a 'Thing'!
.

And we already know how this will end. Would almost be worth watching, as the engines ( sorry, motors ) get ever more powerful.

[Muhr]

Hey all hope it's good with everyone in these covid times!
I have started to look at inconel exhaust. we have made 2 systems from the same file one in 0.5 inconel and one in 1mm steel. When we dyno 1mm exhaust, we ended up with an exhaust temp of 645 C. Then switched to the 0.5 system, we passed 690 C after half a pull and then cut the run. Then started tinkering with both jetting and stinger diameter but feel that it takes far too much to bring down the exhaust temperature. My question now is if anyone has encountered something similar and if one can accept a significantly higher exhaust temp (above 700C) without ending up with a hole in the piston, that the temp increase is isolated to exhaust?
Unfortunately, I cant blow up an engine in the next few weeks, in an attempt to find out.

[koenich]

This is only partially related to Inconel IMO. two factors come into play...

main factor for your observation is the thermal mass of your 0,5 mm pipe is lower than the one of the 1 mm variant. it's up to temp much faster and doesn't pull as much energy from the exhaust gas as the thicker variant. the 1 mm pipe on the other hand will need more energy to heat up, therefore the exhaust gas is cooler.

the thermal conductivity of Inconel is very similar to stainless steel (1.4301 for eg), but much lower compared to mild steel. means it doesn't transport as much heat to the environment as an mild steel one also increasing exhaust gas temp.

I'm curious why you used Inconel? The only advantage I see is yield strength at really high temperatures (> 1000 °C), which is not necessary for our application.

[Muhr]

This is only partially related to Inconel IMO. two factors come into play...

main factor for your observation is the thermal mass of your 0,5 mm pipe is lower than the one of the 1 mm variant. it's up to temp much faster and doesn't pull as much energy from the exhaust gas as the thicker variant. the 1 mm pipe on the other hand will need more energy to heat up, therefore the exhaust gas is cooler.

the thermal conductivity of Inconel is very similar to stainless steel (1.4301 for eg), but much lower compared to mild steel. means it doesn't transport as much heat to the environment as an mild steel one also increasing exhaust gas temp.

I'm curious why you used Inconel? The only advantage I see is yield strength at really high temperatures (> 1000 °C), which is not necessary for our application.

Hi thanks koenich the reason is just like you say lower mass which is the hope should be able to lead to a faster recovery in exhaust temp after longer off throttle. What I did not expect, however, was the significantly higher exhaust temperature.

[Frits Overmars]

This is only partially related to Inconel IMO. two factors come into play...

main factor for your observation is the thermal mass of your 0,5 mm pipe is lower than the one of the 1 mm variant. it's up to temp much faster and doesn't pull as much energy from the exhaust gas as the thicker variant. the 1 mm pipe on the other hand will need more energy to heat up, therefore the exhaust gas is cooler.
the thermal conductivity of Inconel is very similar to stainless steel (1.4301 for eg), but much lower compared to mild steel. means it doesn't transport as much heat to the environment as an mild steel one also increasing exhaust gas temp.

Here is a graph in addition to Koenichs explanation, showing the results of three exhaust pipes with identical dimensions, all tested on the same engine with the same settings on the same day in the same atmospheric conditions.

[wobbly]

Having a pipe made in Inconel wouuld have almost identical results as doing it in Titanium ie the wall temp would be significantly higher than one done in Mild Steel.
Add into that you have 1/2 the wall thickness , again increasing the temp of the gas by not removing energy to heat up the material.
If the original pipe was matched perfectly to the engine , then an Inconel or Ti pipe will need redesigning to suit the higher gas temp.
You are reading EGT , that is the temp of the gas in the header pipe - if 650 was fine before , then 700 will be fine now as there is no extra thermal load directly into the piston.
But as I said above , the higher egt number will automatically increase the local wave speed thru the gas molecules in the pipe .
This will either give you a ton of overev power at the expense of front side , maybe a good thing if thats what is needed , but if not then the design needs attention.
Rejetting to lower the egt means you are using fuel to cool the pipe , not using fuel to make Hp , thus compromising the ideal bsfc numbers - doomed to failure.

[marsheng]

I've done a search but not found much on Ignitech faults.

A Suzuki GT250 race bike with a battery, switch, inductive pickup coils, 12 HT coils, nothing else. After 10 or so dyno runs, stopped communication with PC. Ignitech fried.
Replaced with new Ignitech, programmed it, 5 or so runs later, box fried again.

I have done this conversion on another bike some time back with pit bike coils and it worked fine. Changed the 12v coils to pit bike ones, added a few more earth wires, programmed a new unit, 5 or so runs later, box fried again. Turn on the ignition and it sparks (both plugs) at about 800 RPM without the motor even turning.

I'm running out of units and thoughts.

Anyone have an idea on what is wrong ?

[marsheng]

Hey all hope it's good with everyone in these covid times!
I have started to look at inconel exhaust. we have made 2 systems from the same file one in 0.5 inconel and one in 1mm steel. When we dyno 1mm exhaust, we ended up with an exhaust temp of 645 C. Then switched to the 0.5 system, we passed 690 C after half a pull and then cut the run. Then started tinkering with both jetting and stinger diameter but feel that it takes far too much to bring down the exhaust temperature. My question now is if anyone has encountered something similar and if one can accept a significantly higher exhaust temp (above 700C) without ending up with a hole in the piston.

If you are going to ask this question, you need to add, and using a 0.5 mm probe. The piston temp remains the same with 1 and 0.5 mm probes, just the 0.5 reads 45 deg higher.

The next thing is, how long are the runs, short run, the piston doesn't have time to heat and melt, long runs, now you could have a problem.

[koenich]

Hi thanks koenich the reason is just like you say lower mass which is the hope should be able to lead to a faster recovery in exhaust temp after longer off throttle. What I did not expect, however, was the significantly higher exhaust temperature.

makes sense. the transient response of the pipes is very similar as you can see in the inclination of the logged temps, I would have expected the thinner one would react faster. likely the 1 mm variant contains more energy due to the higher thermal mass, which adds energy to the exhaust gas off throttle. transient behavior is always hard to judge up front.

It's important to use the same thicknesses of thermo couples for both tests, a thinner one will react faster and lead to wrong conclusions.

Side note - I do car manifolds/exhausts for a living at a Tier 1 supplier, and have some inside about material choice/properties/behavior. Personally I'd stay away from Inconel, it's only necessary for really high temp applications like supercar manifolds to maintain some sort of strength on full load. If the welding process and penetration are not absolutely perfect you get all kind of funny failures (cold cracks, hardened weld seams,...). Just use some 1.4301, very similar thermal properties and fraction of the price.

[JanBros]

I have done this conversion on another bike some time back with pit bike coils and it worked fine. Changed the 12v coils to pit bike ones

are the pitbike coils from an AC or a DC ignition ? if from AC and you use them in a DC-system like your ignitech, the primary circuit is basicly in short-circuit because the primary resistance is too low.

[wobbly]

The primary resistance of the coils that work best with DC CDI Ignitech should be as low as possible - 0.3Ohm.
The only 3 things that kills Ignitechs are - One ,continuous over voltage condition from the regulator not working properly.There is a voltage crowbar circuit that shuts the box down over 15V
but if you keep on doing it , they fail.
Two , not using a 5K resistor plug , AND a 5K resistor plug cap.This fries the com circuit due to EMI contamination.
Three , same effect really , but if the input wires , that is the trigger or power or PV sense circuit wires are not physically seperated enough from the output ( coil ) wires , both primary and secondary , the EMI
noise contamination runs back up these inputs and fries the ECU computer.
Good luck with sending tham back to be fixed , I sent 4 failed units to them 3 years ago , and even though I had sold over 100 units for them , suddenly they refuse to even acknowledge I exist. Arseholes
of the first order.