good to hear scrambler!
i figured that was my only option to get the motor completed that weekend, and, ignorance is probably bliss, but is the wrist pin length that critical of a tolerance?
the first one i ground to an almost perfect fit, could almost not even feel a little clicking back and forth against the wrist pin clips. a couple others were probably 10-15 thou shorter. counting seconds of a grinder with a flap disc pushed against the wrist pin was some pretty shade tree machining.
#$%*er runs good tho!!
I drove through the night to make it to barber for thursday practice. Rolled the bike right up the hill to the hall brother's dyno with some 145 main jets in it. First we set the ignition timing to 31 degrees total advance, tried to make a pull bit it was so rich it almost couldn't stop bucking and sputtering. dropped to 140 mains, still a lot of sputtering mid throttle but it pulled 78 hp at maybe 8500 rpm with their air fuel reading barely getting over 11.5 to 1.
I took it out late thursday for a shakedown run and the bike wouldnt respond to partial throttle, burped and then pulled like a missile. my afr gauge wasnt even registering, with a value range of 10:1 to as lean as 17:1. i pulled in after the first lap, dropped to 135 mains and tried again. with less hesistation but still a decent amount, this time it could begin to accelerate on partial throttle. afr's in the high 10:1's. back to the pits.
next try was 132 mains in the saturday sportsman 750 race. sadly my main competition for the weekend, brady ingelse of retrospeed, low sided coming out of charlottes web and had damaged his transmission, ending his weekend. he had run a 1:44.5 in practice, beating my personal best by 2.5 seconds.
this pb was faster than my previous 2021 race lap of a 1:49.9. so it was really sad to not get to tail brady and learn his ways.
i took the lead of sportsman at charlottes web of lap 1 and then kept an eye on the air fuel meter while hunting for more bikes in the races in front of us to pass. the air fuel ratios were in the high 11:1 and the bike felt a little boggy part throttle and really strong overall. i ended up passing a bunch of folks in the races in front of us, finally running mid pack with the first race wave, the motoamerica class of the women's royal enfield series. i had a great practice session trading off a few lead changes with mikayla moore, the 2023 season dominator. i definitely had more power than her, she had quite a bit more bravery on the brakes into the museum corner.
saturday night i swapped 132 for 130 main jets, in the sunday formula 750 race i started 18th and finished 5th! haven't ran with that race before, definitely looking forward to more of that group. chasing down jeff hargis (who was having an off day) i ran a 1:45.00. big excitement! that enthusiasm carried forward to the last race i would run for the year, sunday sportsman 750. once again i worked to the lead the first time into charlotte's web, ran down some of the bears bikes in front of me when i lost the rear coming out of charlotte's web a few laps later. im going to point the blame at holding on too tight while the rear spun up, losing traction and whiskey throttling the bike out from underneath myself while hanging off to the inside. this off season will be time to seriously institute some lower body and core work to control the bike more with my legs and less with my hands.
big positive takeaways, the engine is fast! and with improved body control i'm sure there's a decent amount of lap time pace to be improved.
come out and see us! ahrma is likely to come to a state near you.
steve #736
