catastrophic clutch failure

Catastrophic clutch failure

         Well I have had an interesting time in the garage the last 8 nights and days sorting out a potential catastrophic clutch failure.

The clutch in my bike has only been running on the dyno a little track time and the clutch is ready to explode.    When I say the clutch,  it is the lockup devise I made of the wrong materials as there are signs of fatigue cracks in the lockup clutch part.

I telephoned a friend in the U.K.  to advise me on the problem and this man is fantastic on what metal is best for the job.

So we now have two new clutches, one for the race engine and one for the spare engine. This will not explode at the side of your leg under all that power being created.

shiny new 'fit for purpose' clutch part.

bike section showing intercooler pump

This photo shows the  intercooler pump at the base of the bike. This pump pumps iced water through the intercooler and also through a fuel cooler and all this cooling keeps the air and fuel for the engine a lot more dense to give a better charge in the cylinders in the Bonneville heat.

some of the team

This week I have installed the turbo waste gate actuator and then I started to hybrid the Turbo on the lathe. A considerable incise on the intake side to get as much air in as possible.

The air will be thin at Bonneville as we will be at 4500 Ft. the turbo is all ready to fit to the spear Engine.

We have a good team of men to cover all potential problems.

Dr Pete Moran will sow on any arms or legs if one should come off in a crash.

Ralf Mitchell embalmer will stuff me if shit hits the fan

John Boyed funeral services will dispose of the rest

So what is there to worry about on the salt at 225mph      

                                                Turbo waste gate actuator

Tonight I adapted the turbo waste gate actuator to the exhaust system.

Another job fitting it in to the space available by extending the arm with a left and right hand threaded 8mm stainless steel bar and rose joint for a better action.

It is a pain in the bum all this stainless steel but the corrosion from the salt will be bad and if we can eliminate some it can only help on our return from Bonneville.      

 Three good friends testing Ralf Mitchell’s methanol Royal Enfield 250

The test went very well with a strong pulling Engine just a bit too strong for the clutch. But with a bit of adjustment at Ron’s house we will be up and running again.

             Ralf will have 2 Engines at Bonneville a methanol  and a turbo gas.   

swing arm

          Hi this is my swing arm from the Suzuki Hayabusa . This swing arm is not what it looks like it is full of lead and the total weight is 68KG I weigh 71KG just to put it in perspective. The purpose of all the lead is for traction on the salt. The salt has 40% les grip than tarmac and the wheel will spin in top gear no problem. In 2012 when my crew chief Richard Barks was on the salt breaking 2 land speed records the rear wheel was spinning at 180mph. have a look at you tube Richard barks Bonneville 2012 and listen to the revving engine indicating wheel spin also look at the track to see how ruff it is it’s not a smooth surface by any means. Any way back to the swing arm drill 2 holes under the back end of the arm tip it on end get an old copper kettle fill it full of lead, melt it very carefully as this is extremely dangerous,     and pour it in through the 2 holes,   this will take all day but at the end of the day you should have a 68KG arm.    Last thing is to look for cracks and heat distortion issues.    

Right side of Bike

                                                       Right side of the Bike to date

exhaust

This is 4 photos of my first exhaust as you can see it is a constant battle with room for all the parts.It is constructed from stainless steel 304 tig welded pre formed elbows sea
on eBay you can purchase 45 and 90 degree bends that mack the gob so much better.
all the pipe is 38mm for the headers and 75mm for the tail pipe with alloy flanges.
the bottom picture shows the thermal sensors and the Turbo tucked in tight against the oil filter and engine

This is the first exhaust I made,    not that easy as the exhaust gas must spiral up into the turbocharger so the pipes must be in the fireing order 1243 plus it all has to fit in between the engine and the radiator.

Exhaust manifold and Turbo . . .
Today I started on my second exhaust manifold for the 2nd engine. first I had to fit the Turbocharger to the Engine with a 20mm adaptor plate. This was a bit of hard work cutting milling and filing to get the right shape.
anyway it all fits now and the reason for a 20mm plate is the waste gate pivot that I will put in when I am  shore of the right place.

This photo is of the Turbo to intercooler tube installed on the bike with the dump valve mounted  and the sensor is tucked away on the inside out of the wind drag

This tube is from the Turbocharger to the Ice intercooler. I had to solder 2 tubes into the main tube one for the air temp sensor and the other to the dump valve. All this work had been finished and then I realized that the air temp sensor would create a lot of drag in the original position so today it was moved to the inner side of the tube

Just to give you a look at the Bike Hayabusa rolling chassis with a Yamaha 600cc thundercat Engine

This photo is of the 6th gear light that will reminded me that I am in 6th. it could be so easy to go flat out in 5th by mistake what you need to remember is there is nothing to judge your speed to get a idea
what it will be like the turbocharged Engine screaming your hear down and the view you will  see imagine if you sat on the beech looking out to sea absolutely nothing in your way just marker flags every 1/4 mile 

this light is activated through the Motec ECU and the gear position sensor this sensor is one we adapt from a standard  Yamaha neutral switch  and it will indicate to the ECU all 6 gears

the light consists of 3 neon lights 1 stainless steel tube a plug and some wire

you will have to excuse my spelling it can be bad but I hope you can work around this

finished Throttlebodies.

  As you will see from the photograph below the throttlebodies for the spare engine are now finished.  If you look at them in fine detail you may wonder why some of the bolts are protruding out,   I always leave bolts a little longer than necessary on my Bonneville bike because if you had a bit of bad luck and the bolt was to become loose, it may just give you time to spot the fault and rectify it before the bolt fell out completely.   

  On the RC injectors where the fuel pipe fits I had to do a little modification to the end of the injector to allow the fuel pipe to go further on for a more secure fit.  Also, the original Kawasaki retainers had to be cut down by one millimeter for the best fit possible.  
I had to devise a method of cutting down the air-intake rubbers from the air box to the throttlebodies and I came up with this idea of sliding the rubber hose over a plastic tube then inserting a steel bar into the plastic tube, then clamping the plastic tube into the lathe, the steel bar preventing the plastic from crushing  and with the lathe spinning, applying a Stanley knife onto the rubber gave a lovely straight cut pipe.

Throttlebodies

This week I have been working on my throttlebodies for the spare engine of my Bonneville bike.
Although my machine is a 600cc Yamaha Thundercat we use Kawasaki GPZ throttlebodies with RC fuel injectors.    The main task this week has been altering the throttlebodies to fit the injectors and I have had to spend hours on the milling machine to achieve the accuracy of fit required for the injectors.   The bodies were machined down 6.5mm each side to give more space for the air box and iced intercooler,   it's a constant battle trying to fit a quart of machinery  into a pint pot bike.
On my original throttlebodies for the race engine I made a totally new tick-over mechanism but after fabricating my iced intercooler, I realized I could just reach the original tick-over mechanism without too much difficulty.  

throttlebodies in progress

chris's journey to bonneville in 2016

 . . . my name is Chris and I am part of the Lonan Gentlemens' Fellowship motocycle team.

In 2014 the Team went to Bonneville with two bikes to find that the salt flats were flooded and that the Speed Week event was cancelled.   Due to my reservations about going back too soon after the flooding issue I will be returning in 2016 with friends for another attempt.  Other team members are returning to compete in 2015 and I wish them the very best of luck !

It is a long journey spent mainly in the garage and workshop where many hours, weeks and months of preparation are required to make a machine fit for the purpose of a tangible World Record attempt.    Nothing can be left to chance in terms of performance opportunity, bike reliability and quality of components used.   It all adds up to the short few days spent on the salt flats in searing heat and humidity amongst the fantastic machines which arrive from all around the World.