ESE's works engine tuner

[Grumph]

anybody run their engine on methanol ? looking for setup and tuning advice if i add a splash of nitro in with it

right now im using 100% methanol. pingel fuel valve, 48mm lectron with 2 powerjets, mikuni 65L/hour pump

80/20 Methanol/Toluene was a very good base mix back in the day - on 4 strokes, you could run 20% Nitro,80% meth/tol base and get very good running characteristics - and good fuel life too. Bonus was approx 20% better fuel economy over straight Methanol - Not when adding Nitro obviously....

When varying the mix for 2 strokes, we found that using the meth/tol mix as a base, dissolve the oil - synthetic castor - in benzole of a quantity such to give a final mixture 80% base (meth/tol) and 20% benzole/oil. takes a bit of calculation but it is a very nice mix which starts easily and tunes readily. Never ran nitro in the 2 strokes sorry....

[richban]

Its not all about horse power.

Attachment 299295

Ran a bike up on the dyno today and the conversation got onto tyre warmers and whether they should be banned from Bucket racing to keep the costs down and the playing field level and less daunting for people wanting to get involved in the sport.

At Mt Wellington, before gridding up the bikes are left to circulate for quite a few laps so that hopefully everything is properly up to working temperature.

Typically the tyres are run under inflated here (usually 16-18 psi cold) to get heat into them and the colder the day the more under inflated they are and I guess this practice is much the same on all the smaller tracks.

Anyway the Dyno conversation got onto tyre warmers because both tyres of the current lap record holder were showing an unusual wear pattern and the owner had emailed this picture of the rear tyre to the supplier to find out why.

Attachment 299296

Yeah warmers are a good thing for sure. But! With bucket bikes especially its the spring rate that messes up your rubber. I have killed a rather good tyre in 10 laps on a hot day. The rear spring was way out. The one time I ran my bike at Mt wellington the cold tyre pressures were 26 front -27 rear. No issues with grip. Bridgstone's that is. Dunlop's don't seam to be as fussy and can be run quite low. When I ran the Bridgstones with low pressure they felt spongy on max lean.

It is so hard to get any real heat into the tyre as they are never really worked enough to get hot. If you ran warmers at 80c on a bucket bike running on a Kart track, I reckon they would come in 20 to 30 deg cooler. But you might win the warm up lap.

[F5 Dave]

Power is a bit of an issue at most tracks we use. Groan, people running generators. Nah, let's not go there.

[peewee]

Never ran nitro in the 2 strokes sorry....

ive only found 1 person to try nitro in a full size 2t engine but he couldnt get it to run well so he gave up. must be a secret to it

[koba]

When I ran the Bridgstones with low pressure they felt spongy on max lean.

I noticed that too, pretty sure the Dunnie's are stiffer.

You and Fish are the only people down our way that I have noticed a bad tyre wear issue.
Both of you guys made rear suspension changes with good results.

I'm yet to see any tangible scientific evidence of an improvement from using warmers, when I've raced in classes that used them I have gone without and still done most of my passing in turn one!

Power is a bit of an issue at most tracks we use. Groan, people running generators. Nah, let's not go there.

I'm totally keen to keep warmers out, keen enough to consider a rule submission...

TZ, are those things actually plugged in?
Or is that just a wind up?

[Henk]

I'm totally keen to keep warmers out, keen enough to consider a rule submission...

TZ, are those things actually plugged in?
Or is that just a wind up?

Plugged in with a generator around the corner.
Keen to have none of this carry on, noisy enough at the track as it is.

[Gigglebutton]

I think if it makes the tires work as they should do, it cant be a bad thing, for the guys at the front of A grade. It would possibly make things a bit safer for them to have a more predictable tire.
You should get longer use from your slick as well, as they would only go through one heat cycle in a days racing if kept warm. This could make for cheaper racing.
Why ban them, when the guys that are using them are not wasting the whole field.

[Sketchy_Racer]

Yep flag warmers, generators are the biggest pain in the ass at a track.

If you're tearing up tires on a bucket then you have something really really wrong. So either fix that (whether it be spring rate or geometry) or do the lazy fix and put some medium compound tires on.

Back to 2t tuning. I've recently had to make some replacement head inserts for an air cooled. The original plan for the head was to get it welded then machined back to a modern combustion chamber but the welding went bad so the bloke before me made inserts for the head, great apart from the thermal issues.

Now the interesting this was that the inserts had over a 75% squish area and a 4.2cc head on a 124.9cc cylinder.... I dont know how or why but just wow!

So i've had to stick to the inserts but now it has a 50% squish area and a 10.3cc volume. I have machined a taper for them to pull up on to try and maximise the contact pressure to aid with thermal transfer. I will also be using some thermal transfer paste that is good to 400*c so hoping to recover as much as possible.

Here's hoping!!

[TZ350]

TZ, are those things actually plugged in? Or is that just a wind up?

Plugged into a generator, seen warmers on Buckets at Taupo recently too, so a few people are starting to use them.

[TZ350]

Got my 50 going tonight, as F5Dave predicted the angle was to steep for the Mikuni carb so I fitted the old pumper that I used on the Beast. It works a treat.



Well 7hp so not much of a threat to the front runners or anybody else really.

Still it gives me my own bike to ride in F5.

[husaberg]

Yep flag warmers, generators are the biggest pain in the ass at a track.

If you're tearing up tires on a bucket then you have something really really wrong. So either fix that (whether it be spring rate or geometry) or do the lazy fix and put some medium compound tires on.

Back to 2t tuning. I've recently had to make some replacement head inserts for an air cooled. The original plan for the head was to get it welded then machined back to a modern combustion chamber but the welding went bad so the bloke before me made inserts for the head, great apart from the thermal issues.

Now the interesting this was that the inserts had over a 75% squish area and a 4.2cc head on a 124.9cc cylinder.... I dont know how or why but just wow!

So i've had to stick to the inserts but now it has a 50% squish area and a 10.3cc volume. I have machined a taper for them to pull up on to try and maximise the contact pressure to aid with thermal transfer. I will also be using some thermal transfer paste that is good to 400*c so hoping to recover as much as possible.

Here's hoping!!

Seen this the other day I am not sure where............

[Grumph]

Yeah warmers are a good thing for sure. But! With bucket bikes especially its the spring rate that messes up your rubber. I have killed a rather good tyre in 10 laps on a hot day. The rear spring was way out. The one time I ran my bike at Mt wellington the cold tyre pressures were 26 front -27 rear. No issues with grip. Bridgstone's that is. Dunlop's don't seam to be as fussy and can be run quite low. When I ran the Bridgstones with low pressure they felt spongy on max lean.

It is so hard to get any real heat into the tyre as they are never really worked enough to get hot. If you ran warmers at 80c on a bucket bike running on a Kart track, I reckon they would come in 20 to 30 deg cooler. But you might win the warm up lap.

Slightly different on the big tracks, Rich. Warmers in the winter series - and at Levels up to Xmas.... make sense to extend tyre life.
I hate the bloody generators too but pretty well all the big track meetings are shared with classes who use them so it's noisy anyway.

Those of you coming down for the BoB and going to greymouth should know that tyre warmers have been seen in use on riders at greymouth.....cold and usually bloody wet too.

[husaberg]

Slightly different on the big tracks, Rich. Warmers in the winter series - and at Levels up to Xmas.... make sense to extend tyre life.
I hate the bloody generators too but pretty well all the big track meetings are shared with classes who use them so it's noisy anyway.

Those of you coming down for the BoB and going to greymouth should know that tyre warmers have been seen in use on riders at greymouth.....cold and usually bloody wet too.

Tyre warmers are kind of useful in Greymouth as it only has one left hand corner.
I call BS on the Rain Grumph its only like rained all day 4 times or so in 20 years.....

[Frits Overmars]

..the inserts had over a 75% squish area and a 4.2cc head on a 124.9cc cylinder.... I dont know how or why but just wow!

Wow indeed. (124.9 + 4.2) / 4.2 = a compression ratio of 30.7. Ever considered diesel fuel?

[wobbly]

That air cooled would have blown to pieces even on Methanol with that sort of com - insane.
I mentioned awhile ago a project I was doing for the Webco type RD series of heads, 250,350,400
The prototype has just been cut on the CNC, so I could be able to supply blanks, or a special design with precut toroidal chamber, quite soon.