The reassembly of the red devil has continued. We are in the midst of the spring rush that thanks to the weather is no more. We still have a lot of customer work to finish and they always come first.
One of the customer projects is a 1963 Honda C-110 Land Speed Racer top end for Andy Pickett. This involves a ported head, modified valves, lightened rockers and cutting the seats on the Serdi valve and seat machine. Spending three and a half hours working in ports no bigger around than your middle finger can make you a bit crazy…perfect territory for me. Patrick Zeigle helped with the seat work and reassembly along with assessing the factory racing piston for diameter and ring condition. Who says we only do big stuff?
Assembly seemed to take forever because there are a lot of tubes and wires to contend with. The fuel system, cooling and intake intercooling all demand their share of the space. Luckily it was mostly reassembly, but always with an eye towards improving performance and serviceability. Rerouting a few tubes and changing clamp locations should help with this.
Along with the reassembly, the entries needed to be in Ojai California by May 1. At $560 each, I wanted to be darned sure the bikes and riders were still on board. Having lost three long-term crew members due to expense and timing, I had to be certain. A couple of things were different this time around as I wasn’t the primary rider on the turbo and Nick on the nitro bike. It was then I realized I need the Medical Sheet from Sam Wills, who is slated to be the primary rider on both. He is in Oklahoma City and I am not. Luckily Delvin Clark was there to help with the process and the entries left in what should be plenty of time.
Just three days ago we got to the point of startup. This can be a nerve-wracking process and proper steps need to be followed on the turbo. Oil pressure needs to be verified, not only for the motor but the turbocharger as well. Fuel pressure needs to be 43 psi with no leaks. Cooling has to be filled and bled. Once these initial parameters were met, it was the moment of truth. Cranking over yielded the staring result hoped for (noise). A quick check of all the gauges showed 70 psi at idle of oil pressure, 43 psi of fuel and no leaks, along with the cooling system behaving itself. Other than a misconnected Inlet Air Temp sensor, all was good. A check of the transmission showed six gears and the fans cycled on the radiator. A few other small details and Fred Weege came in to look the Motec ECU and its behavior over. The injectors being sent out to RC Engineering was a great reward in itself as the bike stared better and idled higher and all in all sounded much happier than the last trip to Bonneville in 2017.
Now we have to put the bodywork on it and out to the Slimey Crud Rally we go to show it off.
After that it is a trip to Tulsa OK to help Sam Wills with testing on the Top Fueler and fit him up on both the bikes. This means leave after closing the shop on Thursday Patrick and I drive to Tulsa for Friday testing. We test Friday and if not happy, do it again Saturday. After that, we fit Sam up and if it something he would rather do at his shop in Oklahoma City, we drive there, do the final fit, hop in the truck and head home to be back at work Monday morning. A bit of a run, as the short drive is 13 hours long.
The Bonneville Project 