It’s been quite a while since I’ve updated the web site, so I probably ought to get some typing done. At the fall race in “09”, we decided to make a test run on Saturday before the race on Sunday. We’ve been fighting a problem with detonation ever since going to 85% nitro. We’ve tried backing off the timing, and put bigger fuel nozzles in. Also tried were different plugs, going to a standard reach old style top fuel plug. First attempt resulted in a blown-out burst panel from leaving at less than full throttle. OOPS!!! RIDER ERROR, BIG TIME!!!!! This bike has never liked leaving at part throttle. We went back to the pits, replaced the burst panel, and readied for another attempt. After leaving the starting line fairly aggressively, it spun the tire again. Back to the pits, prepping for another pass, we found that we had taken the top ring lands off two pistons. No pistons in the trailer, so load up and watch on Sunday. Several close friends were running personal bests, while we’re cheering them on. What a bummer!!!

In getting ready for “2010” bored to next size, and put in bigger nozzles again. June 6 rolls around for Charlie’s race. We warmed up and got ready to make our first pass of the day. A short burnout, and the bike sounded really good! That seems to be a big red flag on this bike! 60’ wasn’t great, but it seemed to run ok, but didn’t sound right and decided to light the tire again. After staying in the throttle too long, it dropped a cylinder. (Actually two!) I ran it on through. This is where my lack of seat time really messed with my pockets. It didn’t run very well, but we started to do the prep for the next round. About that time one of the guys found a closed up spark plug on # 1 cylinder. After pulling the 2 nd plug on #1, it was apparent that we had a slightly bigger problem. I don’t, like bringing a bike home without finding out what the problems are, so we started pulling things apart. First the head came off. #1 was up, and #4 was down. Pan comes off, and then we had a pretty good look at what happens when a wrist pin decides it isn’t real happy. The pin came out in about fifty or sixty pieces. I have never seen a wrist pin shatter before. EVER! I’ve seen e’m bent, broken, twisted, all manner of foul things, but this was a good one! The rod stayed inside the cylinder, and kept going up and down, but from the center of the rod eye up, well, most of it ended up in the screens and oil pump. The pin worked up and down in the piston until it leveraged both sides off the skirt. Of course, with the piston at tdc, and with the camshaft rotating, the new valves kind of looked a little different than when they were installed. It also didn’t help that I had been dinking around with the cam timing, both intake and exhaust. There just isn’t room in this motor to move the cams more than a couple degrees, and I had rolled them both about 5 toward each other to try to cool the combustion chamber with a little more overlap. Another stupid mistake, but I haven’t been accused of being too smart on at least one or two other occasions! Another weekend over with sitting watching my friends doing battle, and making great runs! Just how Darrel keeps running sixes on that Suzuki is quite amazing. Anyway, ‘nother day in the sun, as they (whoever they are!) say.

This summer has been interesting trying to find all the problems. When we left the track, I thought I knew most of what we needed to get this thing fixed. Through tearing it apart, I started finding a few little things here and there. #1 sleeve was damaged, but we knew that before we left the track. The bearings and crank looked great, in spite of the one connecting rod disassociating itself with parts to the northern regions. New rods, pistons, pins, rings, sleeves, valves, it never seems to end. Austin Coil said a while back that ANY part of a nitro vehicle you pick up is not a matter of “will it break, but when will it break.” Some of the motor is coming back together, but ‘it’s going to take a while longer. The worst of the damage is the head. There are sixteen cracks between the spark plug holes and the valve seats. There is no money in the budget for a new head, so I’ll have to weld it. I talked to Rick Ward, who I bought the casting from, and he told me some things about welding it. It hasn’t been done yet, though. Through doing some of the repairs, I also found a mag drive coupling that had broken, letting the timing wander around. It’s anybodies guess now about how much this contributed to the detonation problem, but it sure couldn’t have helped. The bad part is that I had already built two new mag drives of a totally different design that some of the top fuel cars are using. They didn’t do much good laying on a shelf in the shop, though. I tried my best to make Charlie’s race at Sacramento, but just ran out of time to do all the repairs. About a week or two after the race, I got a call from a friend of mine that was getting their car ready for Bonneville. Harry knows where I buy my fuel injection nozzles from, and he called me about it. He said that I should bring all my nozzles to his shop to put them on the flow bench. (You better bring your pickup truck, too.) That was an interesting comment. WHY? When we started checking nozzles, we found the 77’s flowed more than the 78’ s that I had in the bike. After spending an afternoon finding that every nozzle had a different flow rate, we loaded up the flow bench, and I dragged it back to my shop. A friend and I were discussing the problem a few days later, and he made a suggestion on how to fix the nozzles by honing them with a pipe cleaner and some valve-grinding compound. After getting the things to flow the same, I was telling a friend about the problem and the fix, and mentioned the fact that I now had all 8 nozzles flowing about the same, but had increased the flow to about 2.4 gallons each instead of the variation from 1.7 from one to 2.1 one another in the same set. At which time he asked me how big the pump was. Well, I have a 15-½ gallon pump! There is also another nozzle feeding the blower. Nine nozzles flowing about 2 gallons per minute! Why I had not considered this is totally beyond my comprehension. I have done some really stupid things in the time I’ve been racing, but this has to rank right at the very top of the list! Anyway, there is a set of larger gears sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen awaiting installation in a certain Waterman pump!

This has been a long and frustrating year, knowing that I have a great machine, but haven’t gotten a decent time slip. I’ve had some good numbers here and there, (1.03 60’s) but either too much clutch (still taking weight off) or not enough fuel, or some other deal. It’s been frustrating, but we are getting really close to a tune-up. I hear the next race is scheduled for Sacramento on June 6 “11”. I am getting anxious. In the meantime, we took the mini-bike to Sacramento for a test-n-tune in October. We had problems with it all night. Three times in three runs it died in the middle of the track. Starting line guys didn’t see Allen sitting in the middle of the track, and they sent two more bikes down. Allen had a pretty good scare with a bike going past at a buck eighty less than four feet from him. We both had a talk with somebody about that one!

Anyway, at ten o’clock at night, last pass down the track that night, ignition problem found and repaired, the mini-bike ran a best ever pass of 9.843. It slowed a little to 131 mph, (best of 134 and change), but it made that a great evening.

As I sit here writing, I’m thinking that come next season>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

MAY 2009 update:

It seems like forever that we’ve been trying to work out the bugs on this new bike. We’ve had handling issues and been frustrated more than once over the past couple of years. Most of the problem has been a lack of seat time. After the first time I opened the throttle and nearly met the left guard rail about twenty feet out, I got real conservative with the tune-up and with riding. With the front wheel on the ground, these things are nearly impossible to ride. After several attempts, we managed to get the rear wheel alignment just right, and the bike started to go down the track. About the time I started going down the track, other issues came to the front. The bike is a high gear only bike, which affects the tune-up more than a person would realize at first thought. This thing wants a tremendous amount of fuel. The farther down the track I go, the more fuel it needs to stay alive, which is typical for nitro. Fortunately, it hasn’t gone far enough to hurt parts, mostly because of the handling issues. We’re finally getting enough fuel in the motor to start getting a baseline. Other issues have not been quite so simple to fix. When the bike stated to run, we discovered the valve guide clearance was too tight. It worked until it spun the tire hard. When that occurred, the valves decided to weld themselves to the guides. Seven weeks for a new set of valves! The good news? A1.065 60 footer! Too bad it didn’t stay in there, because it ran a seven on two cylinders at 159 mph. I really wanted to make another pass at that point!

Fast forward to May, 09. .

Let’s see; new cams are in the mini-bike courtesy of blowing the fueler up when the head parted a couple of years ago. It doesn’t idle as bad as I thought it would, and it even starts easier. (It’s still electric start.) There was an extra day before the race, so I got a new rack made for the mini to put my leathers on for the return road as that has been as issue in the past. The last time it was raced, it ran 9.902 at 128 mph, forcing Allen to get a license, and that was with stock cams. Allen couldn’t go to the race, and nobody else wanted to ride it, so we’ll have to wait another day for a time slip, but it sure has a lot more power now that the top end work is complete. After riding it, I think it will run a low 9 or high 8, but is getting to be a real handful, and I really think enough is enough!!

Back to the fuel bike. Before leaving for the track, some other miscellaneous adjustments were made. Timing settings were changed for a little more power, a little more fuel volume, and most important, several grams of weight off the clutch. I think I’m going in the right direction, anyway. After warming up and resetting the barrel valve, we towed to the line and fired up. Burn-out was very short, but haven’t gone over procedure to push bike back with crew yet, so I stayed behind the line. Bob Neuman who has been working with Matt Guidera’s team has been the one lining me up the past couple of track sessions, so I know he has me straight. When I leave the starting line, the wheel is up and running pretty straight, but about 150 feet out it spins the tire again and drifts to the left. Throttle back, straighten it out and get back on the throttle. BANG !!! when we get back to the pits, I have two pleasant surprises. The first is that it was only the burst panel that let go. The second was a 1.034 60!!! When I get this thing figured out, it is gonna haul the mail!!!!

Second pass, changed clutch packs (every round), mixed up some more bug juice (still only 75%) and had another go. This time a nice straight run down the middle. Not even a minor correction!!! It still spun and blacktracked but a reasonably nice run. I never see the time slip until we get back to the pits, but when we got there, there must have been 50 people there!!! This is a little different for me, but for once, I had a big smile on my mug which (according to my wife) lasted about three days!!!! (for those of you who don’t know me, VERRRRY unusual)

Third pass was a little out of shape, throttled a little and got it straight, but lost a lot of time. Also had a helmet that was moving just a bit, so I got distracted some and even though the run felt fast, it had slowed down to 176 mph. What a disappointment!

Fourth run. WE’RE GONNA DO IT!! Starting line, wheel up, sixty foot, then spins AGAIN. Throttle and get back in. Then it made another big bang. Burst panel again. That was the final run of the day for the race, but not the end of the work. After packing up the trailer, I told the guys “WELL DONE”. The bike made it down the track two out of the four passes even though it spun every pass. We ran a 7.688 at 193 on the second pass, and as far as I know, didn’t hurt more than two burst panels. I’ll find out for sure when I get the bike checked over. Yes, there was a fuel system glitch between 3 rd and 4 th rounds, and it’s possible that’s why it’s taking out burst panels (maybe not). We’re still not where we need to be, but are making huge progress. I need to pick up at least 30 mph, and another second and a half. There is a six year old tire on the bike and is really holding us back at this point. I’m slowly going up in nitro percentage, but am only at 75% right now, so there is a lot more just by changing the tune-up.

We had a really good day, and before we could get out of the track, Charlie (the race promoter) had ordered in a bunch of pizza so we didn’t even have to drive to the eatery.

This was the most enjoyable weekend I’ve had at the track for a long, long time. There are new parts ordered for the bike and some minor changes made to balance the bike a little better from side to side, but I’m really looking forward to going on another Sunday afternoon ride!!!!!

Oct 2008

Since the last time out, the gear ratio has been changed slightly and the fuel percentage has been upped to 80% along with a change in fuel nozzle sizes because of a lean condition. In an attempt to get it down the track we’ve also taken some more timing out of the mags. I have a new magnet for one of the mags to give it a little bit more energy, but haven’t got that installed yet.

I’m tired of getting hit with broken parts. Yeah, I wear a vest, too, but it doesn’t help when the parts hit the arms coming out so a new titanium explosion plate was fabricated between the motor/supercharger and rider, but it fractured while being bent. I have the welding rod to fix it, but need a box to submerge the part in argon while welding it, so that isn’t quite finished either. At least most of it is in place, so maybe it will do some good protectionwise.

It seems like every thing just takes about 10 times longer than I think it should, so it’s a good thing that I’m not quoting to do the work on this thing, or paying someone else to do it for me. I’ve got SOOOOO many hours in this bike that I quit counting several years ago!!!!!! That’s what you do when you don’t have the cash to buy: you build everything yourself. I like it better that way anyhow. That’s what I enjoy the best, making new parts and trying different ideas. Well, I guess that kind of summarizes what's been happening with the fueler. By the way, has anyone got any change to get some nitro? Let’s go racing!!!!!!!!

         Fall 2008 Update    

Here we are at the end of September 08 already. This year seems almost like it hasn’t even happened because it has gone by so fast! The top fuel bike has been to the track a couple of times this year, and we are planning on running it this weekend at Sacramento. So far, the bike has decided that it would rather go to the left than down the track. It only seems to do it when the engine is running. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to give me much trouble. Anyway, we seem to be starting to get it figured out. The bike was 16 pounds heavier on the left side than the right, so a new weight box was added to the right motor plate. Even so, the beast wanted to go left. Get out the welder. Put in a couple more cross braces under the seat. Left again! Now what? Get the videos out from the runs again! Why is Ron sitting on the left side of the bike? After looking for just about everything we could think of, Ron sat down on the bike and the crew started looking for reasons why. Because the engine is 18 inches wide, and there is a 4 and a quarter inch belt, etc. hanging off the left side, there is a sharp corner sticking right into the left knee when sitting on the bike. Ron has been moving to the left and not even realizing he’s doing it! SO! THIS TIME I’M GOING TO CHECK TO SEE I’M SITTING STRAIGHT! So far this year, the bike is starting to respond to adjustments we are making. We’ve been tweaking on the fuel system and it seems to like what we’re doing. There were some issues with the barrel valve spool so that when I got off the throttle and back on too quick, the bike would backfire and break parts -- heads, intake manifolds, etc. It appears the secondary bypass hole was about an 1/8 inch from where it should have been, and would bleed off too much pressure when I pedaled it. A new spool was built, and the last time I pedaled it, it seemed to work all right. Only time will tell if that fixed the problem. The biggest problem seems to be the rider, though I seem to be getting a little more comfortable on this thing as I make more passes. I’ve shut this thing down for at least part of every run so far. Since I’ve still got a steep learning curve learning to ride a 14 inch tire, I’ve been running 75% in the tank until I can get it all the way down with the wick cranked on. This thing makes gobs of power, and has every sign of being able to run big numbers when I get my riding sorted out.

         Fall 2006 Update                       

  It’s been a while since our web site has been updated.  This is the end of ’06 already!  Where did all the time go?  It’s been a real busy and exciting year.  After 6 years, the top fuel bike has been painted.  James Dean at Rebel Designs did a great job on it as the pictures show!  Actually the pictures don’t do the bike justice!

  The day we picked up the body work, the bike went on display at the Lodi Grape Festival, where it was a big hit.  There were more than 50 bikes on display there, and the top fuel bike got it’s share of attention, and then some.  Parked next to it were the injected nitro bike, and the world’s fastest mini-bike. (more about that later)