Skorpion Race Report, September 2010
Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2010 11:11 amBrief racing update:
Didn’t manage to get the carb thing sorted out for the August races, so ran with the stocker. Managed a second and a third, the third was by a hair – 0.012 seconds or something like that. I spent all race getting dive-bombed by the dude on the KTM Supermoto. I finally quit trying to block him and concentrated on learning to make a pass I’ve never made before – on the inside going into the decreasing-radius Turn Nine, the last corner on the track, and trying to out-drag him to the stripe. It’s fast, and if you screw it up, you wind up on Pit Road – on the wrong side of the wall.
I stuffed it in there, made the pass, held it through the exit, but I was so excited that I forgot to throw the downshift going in. So he pulled up next to me on the run to the checkers. I consider it a moral victory that I restrained myself from reaching over and hitting his kill switch.
Got the Keihin FCR41 flatslide on the bike for September, and replaced one of the oil tank hoses to eliminate a drip when the bike sits for a long time. The process involved a Rhino 660 Y-adapter and a custom manifold. Getting the manifold made took some time, but it all bolted right up when finished. With no porting or mods other than jetting, it picked up 3.5 horsepower – I’m almost at 47 horses now! Woo-hoo! It was expensive – about a grand total – but it’s a good platform to build on. Now I’ve got a modern carb that works well and is easily tunable. And the best part was that with the stocker, power dropped off rapidly after 6100 rpm. Now, it pulls flat to redline; where the rev limiter kicks in, I’ve got an additional 4.5 ponies.
The September sprints were back-to-back six-lappers. I got off the line poorly, ran down the guy on the KTM quickly, ran a couple laps of very defensive lines to keep him behind me in the twisty bits (If the rider behind you gets close, they start thinking, and you don’t want that happening) and then ran a couple laps as fast as I possibly could. I got to the finish and looked back and he wasn’t even in sight. I was a second quicker than last month (1.5 seconds quicker in morning warmup, but that was before the breeze kicked up) and second place means I’m still in the fight for the title.
I pulled straight to the hot grid and sat there waiting for the next race, just thrilled. A nice old lady came over and asked if I wanted some water. It was funny; other people were trashed after six laps, but I’d run a 37-lap stint in the endurance race the day before, and I wasn’t even sweating.
In the next race, I went out and beat the KTM guy again, and for good measure got one of the Formula 450 bikes, too. Two second places.
Awesome.
I'm buying a bored-out motor from a tuner I know. The head is ported and it's got cams. I can't use the big-bore motor, but I will pop the head on my stocker and see what that does before the October round.
And a question: Anyone know how long the rear shock should be? The swingarm angle on mine is very, very flat ...
Didn’t manage to get the carb thing sorted out for the August races, so ran with the stocker. Managed a second and a third, the third was by a hair – 0.012 seconds or something like that. I spent all race getting dive-bombed by the dude on the KTM Supermoto. I finally quit trying to block him and concentrated on learning to make a pass I’ve never made before – on the inside going into the decreasing-radius Turn Nine, the last corner on the track, and trying to out-drag him to the stripe. It’s fast, and if you screw it up, you wind up on Pit Road – on the wrong side of the wall.
I stuffed it in there, made the pass, held it through the exit, but I was so excited that I forgot to throw the downshift going in. So he pulled up next to me on the run to the checkers. I consider it a moral victory that I restrained myself from reaching over and hitting his kill switch.
Got the Keihin FCR41 flatslide on the bike for September, and replaced one of the oil tank hoses to eliminate a drip when the bike sits for a long time. The process involved a Rhino 660 Y-adapter and a custom manifold. Getting the manifold made took some time, but it all bolted right up when finished. With no porting or mods other than jetting, it picked up 3.5 horsepower – I’m almost at 47 horses now! Woo-hoo! It was expensive – about a grand total – but it’s a good platform to build on. Now I’ve got a modern carb that works well and is easily tunable. And the best part was that with the stocker, power dropped off rapidly after 6100 rpm. Now, it pulls flat to redline; where the rev limiter kicks in, I’ve got an additional 4.5 ponies.
The September sprints were back-to-back six-lappers. I got off the line poorly, ran down the guy on the KTM quickly, ran a couple laps of very defensive lines to keep him behind me in the twisty bits (If the rider behind you gets close, they start thinking, and you don’t want that happening) and then ran a couple laps as fast as I possibly could. I got to the finish and looked back and he wasn’t even in sight. I was a second quicker than last month (1.5 seconds quicker in morning warmup, but that was before the breeze kicked up) and second place means I’m still in the fight for the title.
I pulled straight to the hot grid and sat there waiting for the next race, just thrilled. A nice old lady came over and asked if I wanted some water. It was funny; other people were trashed after six laps, but I’d run a 37-lap stint in the endurance race the day before, and I wasn’t even sweating.
In the next race, I went out and beat the KTM guy again, and for good measure got one of the Formula 450 bikes, too. Two second places.
Awesome.
I'm buying a bored-out motor from a tuner I know. The head is ported and it's got cams. I can't use the big-bore motor, but I will pop the head on my stocker and see what that does before the October round.
And a question: Anyone know how long the rear shock should be? The swingarm angle on mine is very, very flat ...
