chainreaction

Sounds like your having fun now Gerald! Can't wait to hear what happens when you get it to a track!

Here you go with Chainreaction's new motor.
It is still acting like the timing is off about 1 degree! I have been trying to get it adjusted but I keep ending up at the same timing. We're off to the track tomorrow to see what it wants to do. In this clip I had the drive belt off, idle set at about 2,000 and wacking it to 9500+ almost instantly back to idle when I lifted! Should be interesting when we hit it with the nitrous.

gerald m

It seems to me you mentioned the carb about a year ago , I did have it apart again when I installed the enricher kit , but never checked anything else . Will start there and make sure that is good ( it is a double so one side just might be bunged a tad ) good place to start anyway . One thing I left off was the isolator gasket between carb and my air box and just used blue gasket silicone so might as well check that when I take the carb off. The one thing I'm sure off is the spark is adequate to make anything run and have switched plug wires to make sure both coils are strong .

I think you will agree I had the same problem just not as severe with the first dragon so I lean toward the carb . will check for vac leak before the carb comes off just so I know .. thanks bump

gerald m

Yea the clutch worked great , now If I could just remember to put gas in it .. That was embarrassing but not as much as getting towed back home when I blew my clutch all over the road on the second run . When I get it on the turf and hooked up it will even be more funner Thanks for the interest Gerald m.

gerald m

I have a good farmer chum that is going to mow me a grass trac behind his tree rows . His wife said it was just fine so long as she doesn't have to watch . Not everyone that will do that for you.


So has the little car got the 12a that you bought or did you go with the 13b ? get some nice shots for us when you let it rip . No offense to anyone but my guys suck at taking pic and vids but when people are willing to lend a hand you don't complain you just hope the next one will be better . .... Gerald m.

gerald m

Forgot to mention the Dragon weighs in at 620 lbs with rider about 30 lbs of fuel and a 30+ lb.car battery so the bike without me is 470 lbs full of fuel and ready to rip . My mileage as near as I can figure is 1 mile per Canadian gallon or 1.4 km. per ( 4.54 liters ) not bad hey

Pulled the carb nothing wrong there . maybe play with timing just a tad . Hand grips felt a little loose so I make dam sure they don't come off half way down the track . makes them very easy to hold on to .

gerald m

Well its off to Andersonville in the morning to try out the big boys , .. I will try to get some good video footage of the races . Gerald m.

gerald m

Well Andersonville was a total rain out ,. the Dragon is running pretty good after a few more adjustments .wider deeper drive belt it finally seems to take what I give it ,..

Can't seem to get the darn thing to charge ? every thing seems to check out I think maybe the reg is pooched .. I know about as much about alternators as I do about women .

bumpstart

which alt are you running..? wiring for field signal is different between s4 and s5 type alts.. get it wrong and it will trickle out overnight

gerald m

this one

bumpstart

that is an s4 alt.. you need to find the T shaped plug on the back,, and wire the top of the tee to the ignition switch ( on only with key )

the other wire goes to the indication light ( which you dont need )

gerald m

yup I tried that .. One thing with the belt off it spins freely with ign off , when turned on it turns harder and I can feel it is magnetized . The stator seems to test ok although I never desoldered it from the bridge rectifier .brushes are nice , looks good no hot spots that I can see anywhere . I haven't checked the battery volts with it running its so loud I usually just fire it and get out of dodge before the sheriff comes a lookin but when I get back it is always down to 10.5 V or so

gerald m

It seems almost impossible to get a good quality video with the Dragon on the move so I made a clip and strapped the camera to my helmet .
I feel I own everyone that has helped me and watching for the last 2 years at least one video of the bike on the move so I took some time and tried to get some fair footage .. Believe me the bike is a handful and demands my full attention ,..
It is a total surprise that most of the people that have been stopping and having a look and listening to the engine are 70 or 80 years old , lots of younger guys to but the old timers are the ones that really get a kick out of it , Kinda tells me that a lot of the older guys had a dream or two that never got fulfilled , honestly you should see their eyes light up when I hit the key . That alone almost makes all the work worthwhile . This seems to be about the best I can come up with . The marks on the pulleys that I put there are with a felt marker are wore off about 2/3 of the pulley so there is lots left for top end plus I am still just using 4 ports .

gerald m

Well I totally dismantled the alternator checked everything , cleaned , reassembled and the battery reads 13.8 when at 2500 rpm idle so it does charge .. It seems the little engine has the ability to shake the guts out of everything including my batteries ,.. So like you suggested earlier bump I will try a gel battery in the spring since the season is pretty much pooched for the year ,maybe that will work.

There are lots of little ideas I have to work on for the winter months . maybe should bring in my other little engine and start to get acquainted with the inside . After building the first one a highway Dragon really appeals to me .with fuel injection and electronic ignition . biggest problem is where would I put a 15 gallon fuel tank .

chainreaction

Gerald, just curious, but did you ever get any timed passes at the track?

I never did get to run Chainreaction with the new motor. Found out after weeks of fubbing around that I have a bad igniter on the lead side of the distributor. Have been unable to find a used distributor or igniter at a reasonable price. Looks like I'll be playing with building a DFIS for next year!

gerald m

Darryl = I wondered why I never heard anything about the little car , that sucks I wonder if that is the reason he sploded in the first place ? There should be lots of guys on the forum that have that stuff misterstyx69 for one or maybe Kansas city repo I bought a 1st gen dizzy from him with out igniters it was offered with or without and being as it was for single fire I didn't need them . very nice to deal with and he is really not that far from you as far as shipping goes .
I guess the main reason I went direct fire was I didn't want all the extra parts required to make my 13b run proper with stock equipment . If there is anything I can help you with please ask . With the single fire set up it seems to give the coils extra time to charge and collapse making a stronger longer spark . JMO .

As far as time trials go Saturday races was totally rained out but I did a few practice runs on Friday afternoon before the rain started , there was a wobbly kneed fellow with some kind of gps deal that he gave me to put in my pocket and he mumbled 61 mph don't know time , couldn't tell you how accurate he was or even what it was that he was using , But with the new team clutch and wider deeper belt It will for sure do better now , I can burn it right from a stop to way to fast and even at speeds up around the 80 mph mark I can feel the wheel stop spinning when I take my thumb out of it . ( going to try to get some kind of accurate speedo set up for next spring ) I did burn my belt up on that run though , that by the way was a 50 yard run and I don't know if that is good bad or ugly I've never did this before . All I know is when I fired the Dragon up every one took a few steps back plugged their ears and almost every ones mouth was hanging open . Any time you can get that kind of reaction from a bunch of grizzled well weathered old bikers it's a good day A sight I won't soon forget . Gerald m. Anyone reading this thread that can help Chainreaction (Darryl ) out please chime in .

gerald m

Got the irons and housings cleaned up and they look better than a lot I have seen used , Found another little warranty void if removed tag on one rotor housing . Thought it would be interesting where the little engine was rebuilt .

Ok so if you have templates it's called porting , If you don't have templates it's called cleaning the runners , so I spent 3 days cleaning the runners and cleaning up the inside of the rotor housings and they turned out nice got rid of the diffusers and open up the port just a tad mostly just a bit at the bottom . the center iron I just open up a little with out changing the length as well as the end irons I did open the primaries up just a little the secondaries are untouched

I will not alter the injector ports as I would eventually like to go back to injection with electronic ignition but that will be another time.

Decided to go with side seals , apex seals , corner springs , oil control o rings , Mostly just rotor parts so it is a pretty low key build . Gerald m.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

Darryl, bite the bullet and ditch the leading J109 ignitor, get an MSD and switch it over and no more problems i can almost guarantee. you can run the trailing as stock though. the J109s are difficult to find, are problematic and tend to be weak in the upper RPM range on moderate to higher end builds. i messed with them for a week one time trying to beef them up but we wound up ditching them for leadings altogether.. even the DLIDFIS didn't compare to the MSD.

Gerald, sounds like she is running well. one thing i might suggest though is better intake filtration. we used to put panty hose over our oiled bike filters on sand and it worked like a charm to keep the bigger stuff from the filter and the filter caught the smaller stuff. we used to get buried with sand but the engines always survived, seen plenty of engines ruined in those circumstances so gives you an idea. not like i suspect you will be behind too many other bikes to be eating dust though.

definitely looks and sounds like a straight line machine, like riding a street bike on dirt with street tires.. lol. i miss riding, haven't been on dirt in at least 10 years.

gerald m

Gerald, sounds like she is running well. one thing i might suggest though is better intake filtration. we used to put panty hose over our oiled bike filters on sand and it worked like a charm to keep the bigger stuff from the filter and the filter caught the smaller stuff. we used to get buried with sand but the engines always survived, seen plenty of engines ruined in those circumstances so gives you an idea. not like i suspect you will be behind too many other bikes to be eating dust though.

definitely looks and sounds like a straight line machine, like riding a street bike on dirt with street tires.. lol. i miss riding, haven't been on dirt in at least 10 years.[/QUOTE]

Panty Hose hey , which part ? The feet or what ? The only other part I can think of is double material and might not let enough air through.

Not a bad idea really that darn sand get in everything . Now that you mention that I noticed when I was playing with the 5-6 ports the rear port seems a little gritty when I turned him by hand . Don't know why, I'm going to put #2 engine in the dragon when it is done and check things out inside #1

Something I was wondering about my ignition , would there be any difference if I went to the stock leading COIL for my L ignition instead of feeding 2 trailing COILS for the L . Then I should only need one GM module to feed the leading stock coil . The reason I ask is the ignition seems lazy at lower RPM maybe because I run rich at lower it doesn't clean it's throat until about 4000 . Anyway the exhaust temp is noticeably cooler on the rear than the front , I can feel the difference of temp of each header on my legs . That said the little engine never displays a flood situation . If I pump the throttle a fair amount While working on linkage or what ever it just starts and blows what ever extra was there out on the ground .

Next year I am going to try to idle in around 1500 and actually use the idle jets and then torque it up to 3400 -3500 for the clutch to tighten up instead of Idling at 3000 or over like I do now , In reality I could run with my 5-6 ports open because that is about where they should start to open anyway . Thoughts !! I know you don't like carbs but that doesn't mean you don't know Gerald m. I don't know why you would but if you ever make it to this part of the country you welcome to take a rip on the Dragon and that's not an offer I make to everyone .

bumpstart

going back to the twin leading coil and one igniter will require you to run the ballast resister to save that igniter and the spark is MUCH weaker,, been there done that
,,, LPG soon tells you when you move backwards with spark quality

your motor is flat under those revs if you have poor carburation or too much or too little timing advance at those revs
you can try moving the base timing ,, you can try altering the spring tension on the advance weights under the top deck of the dizzy

ultimately on engine like yours i lock the 5/6 open and run base timing around 5 BTDC,, and half the mech curve in the dizzy
( by welding a washer on the slots to limit the mechanical travel )

this gives a curve something around 5 - 22 BTDC.. bending the spring posts brings full curve at earlier revs
and this gets through the under 2500 rpm hole made by having effectively a large extendport config with 5/6 wired open

gerald m

Bumpstart / Now that you mention it I guess I been there too , that is how I fried my first set up with one module,man that little dude was smoking hot when I touched it . I thought about changing over to a more modern coil but maybe I should just leave them alone they really are very strong..
I seen that thread about the washer I will check that out . I agree about leaving the vacuum advance out of the picture it just doesn't do things at the proper time for me. I might build some kind of linkage set up for my enricher so it changes with throttle position .. That said I shouldn't need to change position of the enricher because really it is just a adjustable set of jets so where ever high end performance is best that is what it should be at and it's not even half way open if I go to far it just gets a tad lazy, Takes a lot of runs to learn how to tune it where it likes to be . If I change too much at once I don't know what helped and what didn't .
Seems I'm never satisfied with the results ,happy with but not satisfied ,I just feel it can go harder yet without giving problems . So I'm going to rebuild #2 engine with a little port work (cleanup) put it in the dragon and start tuning in the spring . It's like -20 here now so tuning is done for this year time to build ..

bumpstart

sometimes you can get a low down flat spot if you have the carb idling partly on the progression.. basically idle jet settings are too lean and you bandaid up onto the progression
this has implications for the throttle pump shot timing
and it makes the vehicle very flat as it comes off the line,, almost needs to have some clutch slip to assist the engine up .. and things may feel like the throttle pump shot is too small

that engine you have should idle as low as 750 rpm.. 5/6 shut // and maybe 900/1000 rpm with them open
if it doesnt then you have too lean an idle jet or something is wrong with the comp on one or both rotors,, and comes good with rpm

i get the feeling you have it up on the progression and that makes things very flat down low..
have you done a poor mans comp test on the current dragon engine? basically a pulse count with shrader valve held in ( bypassing )
and then allow it to pump up to max compression ( trailing hole ) with shrader in normal test position

gerald m

I haven't done a comp test since last spring then they were pretty close to 90 and seemed to be regular on both but I know nothing about the engine I never opened it up after buying it but the housings from what I could see were very nice in both certainly uses no oil , it seems solid but will check compression again before I remove it from the bike . IDK maybe it don;t need any work inside rebuilding and using #2 I will with any luck never need #1 for the Dragon so I was thinking about building a street legal rotor bike but the years are blowing by fast so I need to focus on this one first .

It must have a little guts I noticed looking at the big flange mount bearings that the jack shaft run on 5/8 bolts and just to the inside of the bolt hole one of the ears are busted off and they are big blocks . maybe needs a tin spacer under one side.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

well the bikes don't breathe nearly as much as a 1.3L rotary can so their plastic inside cages wouldn't work but an oiled filter like you would do on a 2 stroke dirt bike is ideal for those dirty situations. a metal cage could be made so the filter doesn't get sucked into the engine and you can run a replaceable filter over the cage which you can clean and re-oil with air filter oil found at motorcycle shops. over that just cut the end off the panty hose so it fits over the filter in a single layer rather tightly.

the panty hose filter the sand, the oiled filter catches the dust. no matter how well we cleaned the filters the sand was always in there, so we took that tip and it worked well. (most car air filters just don't work worth a rat's *** in dusty situations, even K+N reusable filters. because you can't clean them very well and filtration sucks)

i don't really have much experience with the HEI ignitors, though many people have used them and say they work much better than the J109 and are easy to get replacements for. but i would still run it as a dual leading coil system so that you get the most spark energy you can get, single coils work ok for stock engines but the 13B is already taxing the single coil setup with the amount of fuel and air it can push, versus a corked 12A.

for the setup i also would just leave the auxiliary ports open, it shouldn't affect idle quality that much. dialing in the idle can be a pain. which carb are you running again? holley double pumper? if so they need to be dropped quite a few jet sizes for anything over a 600CFM carb.

i appreciate the offer and if i am ever out there i would definitely like to check it out in person. we used to be pretty big on hillclimbing but we never ran specialized bikes for it, it was more challenging that way... lol.

gerald m

It's a reworked 500 with manual choke . there are no jets in it at all , Power valve blocked off .

I use the old 4 prong GM HEI you can use the 7 prong also but I don't think they are any smarter than the 4 prong in the ignition area anyway they just run more things like fuel injection . Don't even need to spin them to get spark just line the star and pickup straight and touch it with a screwdriver and it will dump the coil ,, easy way to check for spark .. never had a backfire yet with the engine running

..So is there any special kind of rebuild parts I should be thinking about or just anything that serves the purpose ??

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

atkins offers some aftermarket gasket kits with OEM coolant seals, their apex seals work just fine for n/a applications also and viton oil seals are durable enough to be reused for many years. rotary aviation has more durable apex seals but i am not a huge fan of their rebuild kits.

will check out the rest when i have the time.