bumpstart

looks great mate,, missed the last update ,, could have told you the twin coil needs a resister to stay alive !! the trailing coils will be plenty hot enough for any NA mixture you can throw at it

gerald m

yea he never got me this year but last year he stung me a few times quite a wack them little coils have . From what I have been reading they stand up well also .

One thing about the mixture control lever when fully open the hole is a good size , I would guess 200 thou. so no problem with fuel delivery after the new fuel pump . It runs great on the low idle jets and the mixture control is just around 50% for best performance with 4th and 5th closed . Haven't played with the ports yet but I figure he will need a tad extra fuel when I do .

No more belt problems since I went to the 13 tooth primary sprocket on the final drive . and a big heavier belt on the primary drive ,I can pin it from a stand still with no slip on the belt . I suppose next thing will be busted jack shafts and chains .. For about 120 bucks I can buy a good quality o ring chain , cheap chain is still 50 bucks so me thinks maybe it will be cheaper to run good chain .

Just getting ready to build a 40 x 30 steel shop so maybe I will be able to work on more than one project at a time . still have the little wagon and want to build a highway bike , still have #1 engine he was solid just had bad vac leak .

gerald m

August 22,23,24 and 25 Hope it doesn't rain again , nice sunny weather brings out some pretty nice scenery


The Dragon is in the 2012 Andersonville north Facebook pics .

gerald m

Tired of that ugly hard old seat and the boys don't like it either , so decided to take the time to make a solo type seat with a little extra padding in the right spots .

Had the bike on some hard pack dirt with no grass or gravel a few days back . The front wheel lifts a tad on launch but the bike handles it fine and once I got my head around it a bit it felt pretty dam good . feels like I should have a little extra seat support as it launches pretty hard with the different drive stuff .After all it does only weighs 470 odd lbs haven't weighed it this year but that is what it was last year and I don't think it put on to much weight last winter .

chainreaction

Hey Gerald, Don't know if you have access to facebook, but I posted a video a few minutes ago that you would appreciate. it is too big to post via Photobucket.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v...type=2&theater

gerald m

Well now you got me squirming and it just tells me it is temporarily unavailable . Not a funny joke Darryl . you need to do better than that .

chainreaction

I put together a crank trigger system for the little 12a powered buggy using the "Adrenaline" trigger, an MSD 6-AL box and an unknown rotary coil pack I had. Lost spark system firing only the lead plugs. I yanked the old dead twin-dizzy out and put it away. First attempt to start it , it fired right up without even turning one revolution. I hauled it to the races this past Sunday only to find I had a bad battery cable.... Last night I replaced that cable, did a bit of rewiring to simplify and clean things up and it now runs sweet! The video I posted was a hot start after fixing things, including some liberal throttle wacking! I am also trying a much smaller aluminum radiator off a street bike to see if it will handle the heat. The car has never run this smooth nor had such smooth throttle response. I now get to wait 2 weeks to try it again.
Yes I know I should have painted the motor before I put it in!

chainreaction

try this, I thought the file was too big for Photobucket! and you can check out the other projects in the background....

gerald m

Good to hear from you Darryl .
It's nice to have stuff painted up but paint don't win many races .
Yea I like that , I know that my ignition breaks up a bit , it seems like its never the same .
I have a chum that has an older msd box so really all I need is the trigger to do that and the trigger could be set up in a number of different places .
Keep me posted on this ignition it looks like a nice clean simple set up .
I also have a meet in a few days ,. gets a little pricey trying to have two of everything . have a good one , hope your meet turns out well .

gerald m

finished up the big fatty seat ,feels pretty nice compared to the old hard one .

Went to start the bike 3- 4- days back , started great ran for 30 seconds and flooded out big time , not float , or any of the things one would check for a flooding situation . Nothing wrong anywhere . started to think my ignition was weak so I checked everything on the ignition side of things everything tested good . I worked on the SOB for 2 days in the sun hotter than the hubs of hell . Finally just after noon today I decided to take the carb apart one more time and again nothing wrong . putting it back together I notice the gasket between the carb base and the first plate where the jets would normally go I noticed the bottom half of the gasket that fits around the jet hole is deteriorated to nothing creating a huge gap the width of the gasket between the two chambers allowing the fuel to be sucked through at a huge rate .
Result of course was deflooding procedure many times engine would start immediately run for maybe 10 seconds and fade out flooded . Built a new gasket ( the one that went bad came with my fuel metering block ) put it together and fired up perfect runs very nice now .

So after the engine had flooded a few rimes I noticed my headers have maybe 40 or 50 wet lines in the pipes from 1/2 inch long to 3 inches .

Don't know what happened other than they just get so hot ( and believe me they do get hot ) the right one was so deteriorated i pulled it hard and it just broke off in my hands . so built new ones from heavier 2 1/4 inch instead of aluminized 2 inch .. that is 4.5 inches of very nasty noise . Always wanted big **** anyway

I guess all i'm trying to say here is sometimes this trouble shooting thing is pretty overwhelming ( but I'm better now ). time to change oil after that deal .


Buy the way does anyone what is the minimum amount of 2 stroke oil I can get away with using in the dragon ?? . I swear that stuff takes the burning efficiency away from the fuel . my test was starting a fire the old whiteman way ( with gasoline ) the mixed stuff just kinda lights , but the pure low octane gasoline always lights with a whoof. so does the oil just keep the fuel from vaporizing or what ?

chainreaction

I read on the rotary drag racing forum that the hard corps guys that premix are going 150:1 on the mix. I had been at around 100:1 and when I had one ounce too much for 5 gallons of 112 octane I could tell the difference.
Also I built my headers out of 2 1/2" OD sprinkler pipe. It is a touch thicker than exhaust tubing and also helped to deaden some of the noise. Being a big-block guy I like the tone of the bigger pipes better.

gerald m

An amazing amount of energy in the exhaust . I noticed when I was doing one of my videos , while taking a close up of the exhaust pipes and you can see the pipe move up and down like 3/8 of an inch or more and thought most won't notice the headers are loose and kept filming . later i went to tighten the bolts and they were tight . I couldn't move it that much by pulling up on it . no wonder a turbo works so well with the little engine .

I noticed the same thing with fuel mix , not the same ratio as you were but it sure seems to overwhelm the ignition ability of the gasoline when using to much oil .I was using 1 oz. to 4.5 liters of regular no lead gasoline , I went it to 1.5 oz. to 4.5 liters and the engine felt lazy and hard starting .

I would think in this day and age one could buy something that did the premix thing and increased the octane rating at the same time or is there ?, sometimes my world is pretty small

The msd 6 or 6a isn't that much money . that sounds like a good winter project . what the heck , you never say whoa in the middle of a mud puddle .

gerald m

My neighbor noticed right away it sounded different he didn't know I built bigger pipes but after I told him he said it had a deeper sound and not so crackley . I like them . Leaving tomorrow for Andersonville north light shower forecast for tomorrow , should make the grass slippery for the rest but the dragon will just dig in better , he likes just a little damp . I bought some octane additive for racing gas ( not with the intentions of upping the octane ) just thought maybe a tad will keep the premium fuel where it should be after adding the oil . I know some say it doesn't help the natural engine to use high octane but can't see it hurting anything and it 's not like I buy it more than 20 L at a time

chainreaction

Hope your weekend was more productive than mine was.
Got to the races, started up, pulled up into staging and shut it off till things were ready for time trials. Turned on the nitrous and purged the system. Didn't notice until i went to pull down for my first pass that the gas solenoid for the NOs system had stuck open. Flooded it hard. Changed plugs and got it to re-fire, made a really lame pass (6.1 at 48 mph) and on the return road it bogged down and stalled again. Towed it back to the trailer, stripped the NOs system off and went to refire it only to find it had carbon locked.....

gerald m

The Dragon only had 2 bikes that were any concern , my chums 111 inch s+s harley and an old school stroker . 1 bike blew it's guts out chasing me.
so the Dragon has a perfect record to date won every race it has been entered in and one dead Harley to its credit . not everyone can say that .

They gave me the option to race what ever bikes I wanted so I picked the top 2 in each class beat them all and won the top trophy and not a scratch on me or bike and the nicest blue flames coming out of the exhaust about 2 ft. long both sides , looked like a alcohol burner .

Clutch worked great I will need to deal with the secondary clutch as it accelerates another 20 ft. after throttle off . used the same belt from start to finish and still good shape .everything held up great looks like most of the weak spots are worked out ..

That's the good side of the story . I had a lot of flooding like conditions so I will be seriously considering going to fuel injection with some kind of msd maybe 6 or 6a.

the bike is good for 4 maybe 5 runs then needs a half hour cool down or it just floods out and won't start . or quits and won't stsrt then it's good for another go

he made it through this year but needs the fuel problem fixed don't know what to do yet .
They don't order the custom made trophy until after the event but when I get it will post some pics , same with the races as soon as the dude gets everything uploaded I will put up a link to everything .

Good feeling to be king if even for one year and thanks to everyone who helped me get there .

sorry to hear about your problems Darryl hope you get it sorted out .

gerald m

well after having a few days to ponder things over , before I make any drastic moves Me thinks most of my problem is simple vapor lock. symptoms are as follows ..

First three runs everything works perfect ( keeping in mind we are talking between 30 and 34 deg C. ) 4th. run it will either miss when close to finish line or quit shortly after but will restart long enough to return to cool down If I try a 5th. run the engine will quit and not start for some time but will restart when COLD and run perfect for a few more runs . The heat coming off the engine (although it does not overheat ) is huge no matter where front ,rear ,sides .

What I am going to do ?
# 1 is run my vent tube from the fuel body to the outside air as is in photos so if there is any vapor from boiling action coming out of vent tube it will vent to air rather than let it flow down the intake plenum.
#2 is to run a cold can in the system between fuel pump and carb . Luckily my chum has one .
#3 remove my fuel tanks spray i/2 or 1 inch of insulation foam on the fuel tanks and have them a lighter color .
, white should be best .
On cooler days this problem is not evident so that is what seems to be happening .

The Dragon runs so nice with the carb system I really do want to try to remedy the problem rather than change to something I didn't want to start with .
Also come winter I will purchase a nice MSD system with the same idea as Darryl is using on the little sand car .

gerald m

Still waiting for the Andersonville webmaster to finish loading his footage from the races into the site .

found problems with the float assembly on the old 500 Holley so I ordered a new carb not a bad price 365.00 for everything duty, tax and shipping included , the float would stick open enough to create a flood issue and then the darn thing would stick closed and create a lean problem within seconds of each other ( mostly needle and seat but to heck with it I want a new one ) decided not to do any ignition changes until after the fuel problems are fixed . When the fuel problem is dealt with the ignition should be plenty strong for the little engine .

O ring chain for next year also , not really looking for longevity just more strength , it will give me a reason to build a rivet tool for the endless o ring chains . New rad for next year also and one full sizes electric fan . hope everyone has a healthy thanksgiving .

The saints and sinners are a group from Prince Albert Saskatchewan

gerald m

getting bitched out for no video so, just a link to a short video

bumpstart

missed the last few updates,, not sure how.. but im very happy to see the results from the last few posts

the dragon is holding up very well.. and isnt even breathing hard yet .. well done gerald !!

gerald m

Hey big feather in your hat too Bumpstart . the extra mods we did turned out well , Oil pressure is right on about 30 lbs hot idle , and about 80 - 90 at about 5000 RPm's the relief must be working , it doesn't seem to go any higher .

I think the little engine is good , first rotary build and all I was a little concerned it might disintegrate , but thats why we have another engine isn't it . couple drops of oil around the drain plug other than that there are no any oil leaks (Oil leaks kill me )

New carb on the way . as I said along the line . the old 500 had a lot of fuel ran through it , throttle shaft needed bushing job lots of little things and me just tired of fighting it . I'll put the adjustable jet on the new and it should be good .

Fuel pump with adjustable pressure reg .

I think the ignition is fine just clean it up a tad maybe new GM modules there not much . I can't find a accurate way to test them the darn things all give different readings .

New thicker rad , not easy to find something to fit in there .

New O ring chain will be much stronger than the plain # 50 .

So What are we going to do now ?? Your from Australia I know you have a secret or two left up your sleeve to give him a little more , I did put heavier classic apex in . I like the idea of a flywheel or front pulley trigger sensor , just to be different if nothing else ,, any thoughts ?? I guess bottom line is what I have works good , we have a winner , I just want to make it better .

bumpstart

well , there is a lot of curly questions in there when you think about it,, firstly this setup has more in it without costs just in getting the carb consistent

maybe getting both carb bowl vent , the sump vent and the fuel tank vents all to hook up to the aircleaner with 3/16 or 5/16 vent lines and a double skin heatshield between carb and extractors would go a long way towards that

the ignition system itself will be good to go
.. even into reasonable boost if required..

it is a very good ignition system that keeps trailing and cap and button out of the equation for redundancy during heavy vibration
moving to pulley mounted triggers will amount to fully locked timing with no option for a timing curve
with a lot of fab and setup pain .. for only slightly less erratic signal
similarly,, the MSD/ capacitive discharge ignition wont win you much unless you is already blowing this spark out .. and may cost something down low //


i think you have "free" most time to gain in getting the power out of the engine earlier by tweaking the ignition curve in the dizzy
and so up into top ratio the VSD as early as possible

IE.. graphing it as i described earlier ,, feeling out the result and making incremental minute changes to stop position for the centripetal mass till you find the combo that delivers TQ best through to 2500 rpm

it is a time consuming suck and see operation .. ultimately you are trying to tweak the low down TQ to the dynamics of your VSD


the mild 6p engine itself has been proven to get up towards 180 flywheel HP ...when mated to good weber 48 or individual throttle carb setups...

but going this route may mean significant costs for manifold and carbs to deviate form where you have spent money already ..

i see there being 25 HP up top there for the trouble of better carbs

,, but there is also much to be had down low up to 2500 rpm
( if you got a grasp on staging the throttles correctly and tweak the ignition curve )
,, but in practice,, in the short term .. only EFI and stock manifolds will deliver that for you
( at very considerable effort and expense and maybe loss of that valued redundancy and simplicity )

if you wished another 150 + HP
.. with simple , reliable, lazy and low cost in mind..

then ultimately you would be looking at a small to4 or hybrid turbo , some fancy pipework with some steam bends..
and some sort of blow through system ..

of which i would be looking squarely at a conversion to an upside down BBQ
or forklift propane cylinder
and an impco 200 or 225 mixer ,, a model E convertor ( something off a 200 -300 CI 6 or v8 ) .. mount i over a stock TB or one of your carb bases
.. and blowing boost through it ..
( and yes,, your ignition will work fine almost as is )

gerald m

As far as the new carb goes I have another thing going on with an older ford that will end up with the new 500 eventually so there is no concern in going with something else down the line a tad .

As far as the turbo goes I have couple of turbo trucks but have NEVER had anything to do with setting up or working on them ( oh my god I'm a 60 year old turbo virgin please be gentle ), been thinking about that for some time though. I don't know squat about turbo but ,.. Being as my clutch cuts in around the 2800 mark maybe it would get a chance to spool up at the line before launch and yes launch is the proper word or is that a big concern .

If I go any higher than 2800 then I need softer spring and lighter weights and that is not an option .. BUT the team secondary clutch has two Helix on one head so it can be changer to more or less aggressive without buying another helix and I think I could buy another double with different ramp angle for around 80 bucks . My first secondary had rollers on a crappy pin and it just spit them out like spent sunflower seeds ,, only had the two half sheaves left the rest just disintegrated . So the way I understand it , changing helix angle changes how aggressive the primary up-shifts but there is a point where the smoke show happens and thats 80 bucks a crack as once you smoke em they are pooched . I guess one could use a lot of different turbo applications . ???

gerald m

if you wished another 150 + HP
.. with simple , reliable, lazy and low cost in mind..

then ultimately you would be looking at a small to4 or hybrid turbo , some fancy pipework with some steam bends..
and some sort of blow through system ..

of which i would be looking squarely at a conversion to an upside down BBQ
or forklift propane cylinder
and an impco 200 or 225 mixer ,, a model E convertor ( something off a 200 -300 CI 6 or v8 ) .. mount i over a stock TB or one of your carb bases
.. and blowing boost through it ..
( and yes,, your ignition will work fine almost as is )[/QUOTE]

^^^^
I like the turbo idea been thinking about it for a bit , I know next year there will be a little more competition and the next year even more so if I am content with what I have and stay with it I will be sucking the hind tit so I think it is just good planing to try make things better every year until it gets to the point things need to be made better all the way around ( maybe two or three years from now )

So webers are suppose to be good for blow through without much prep work from what I have been reading . room is my main concern , I don't know how far things can be away from the exhaust manifold , what I mean is can the turbos be out and away from the engine or are there basic rules and distances of exhaust flow to follow .

I'm willing to give things a go If we can keep the budget below one ice cream pail full of money and can figure out where things will go and without moving my position on the bike . I have very good control and cannot compromise that .

I have been doing some reading on the subject but as usual no direct answers .

gerald m

quote -Bumpstart

if you wished another 150 + HP
.. with simple , reliable, lazy and low cost in mind..

then ultimately you would be looking at a small to4 or hybrid turbo , some fancy pipework with some steam bends..
and some sort of blow through system ..

of which i would be looking squarely at a conversion to an upside down BBQ
or forklift propane cylinder
and an impco 200 or 225 mixer ,, a model E convertor ( something off a 200 -300 CI 6 or v8 ) .. mount i over a stock TB or one of your carb bases
.. and blowing boost through it ..
( and yes,, your ignition will work fine almost as is )[/QUOTE

I do have this set up laying around , It's a big old brute though don't know if it acceptable or not it came from my Towmotor fork lift , flat head 6 , it did work but I use it outside and lpg can be a pain refilling so I changed it back to gasoline , but me thinks that stuff is not hard to get . the fourth pic says max pressure 375# ( just the way it is stamped ) what ever that means .

A t3-t4 hybrid is relatively inexpensive , couple hundred bucks or so depending on set ups . but I really don't understand the propane set up is that like a pressure controller and relief ?? It will need something , if I read things right there is like 20+ pounds boost involved here .

Don't think there is enough room to mount the turbo right at the exhaust ports . I will need to build two into one pipe out the left hand side unless it is possible to run 2 smaller turbos one for each header pipe into a common chamber ?? but from what I read the turbo works better on both pulses ,All I know is what I have been reading, Can I use my Holley with success or do I need a new carb

bumpstart

you can blow into anything and make it work.. how well though is up to debate.. both weber and holley can be made to work with an airbox around the carb , a rising rate reg ..and tricks like solid floats , etc

however,, they are hugely hit and miss as to the result ,, with risk on the engine when you get things wrong


propane on the other hand is much more forgiving in lean mixtures,, and has extra octane and will run on this engine up to moderate boost with no or minimal need for ignition retard
( ie.. keep you dizzy system, or at worst fit the 12at dizzy )


the propane setup is much simpler ,, the "convertor" is in effect also a pressure regulator , and its a simple matter to route boost and vacuum pressure to the reg and make it react proportionally to the boost rise

propane also simplifies the fuel system setup.. as it negates the pump and uses the pressure in the tank to keep the regulator fed with liquid propane fuel

the system in mind is in effect a scaled up version of that forklift impco 125 mixer system ,.. a 200 mixer is nearly identical.. only larger.. and you can see it has its own air hat built on
( 225 uses same parts as the 200 but is a bulkier centre hat design )

the impco 200/225 series needs to use the holley base as a throttle body,, or an optional single throttle as shown in your pics

the model E convertor/ vapourizer/ regulator is good for 325 engine bhp and so is the "pump" to suit ( similarly the "L" is also rated around here and may be a better option as this one is designed to mount vertically )

the system comprises of tank, excessive flow lockoff , hardlines, safety lockoff ( ignition switched ) , convertor and mixer ( and safety lockoff switch controller )

all this can be made much more compact and simpler than the equiv EFI or even blow throw petrol carb ..//

turbo wise,, something to4b ish,, whilst old .. will do the job wonderfully as they provide the best efficiency at relatively low boosts compared to more modern turbos
you will trip over them everywhere.. t04b with U or V trim is enough for you to push the single convertor to its 325 bhp limits

( to be truthful the convertor will supply a little more but cant keep it up long and will slowly freeze up and run leaner and leaner )

essentially my system is the stuff below

IMPCO Propane Conversion Kit for Any Engine w 3" Air System Forklift Fork Lift | eBay