Petrol head thread!!!

[billy rubin]

i remember BOTT. i went to a BOTT race at laguna seca  long time ago and watched the ducatis clear most everybody out. that is genuinely ancient history.

and you know what? i actually have an old KZ750 in the shop.



^^^my son bought this 82 model. it runs but needs minor work on an oil leak. its the early 80s chopster version with extended forks. king/queen seat, and 16-inch drum brake rear wheel. but it could be made better. but i look at it the same way i looked at a friends really nice 1965 right-shift sportster he had for sale a while back: a different design paradigm, a new set of knowledge and a suite of new tooling.

the old british stuff will never be as fast or stop as well as newer machines. but i understand them, and so have a better chance of keeping them running and wo5rking well than were i to focus on things with more potential. i'm not serious about competitive road racing-- to do that means a circuit of races that take more time and money than i have. i'm looking for a weekend track bike that will let me ride on the local race tracks and actually stretch an envelope more than twice a year, which is what LSR offers.   i hadn't considered the KZ750, but i will. i don't think my son is really interested in this machine, and just bought it as a connection to me. it hasn't moved since he went off to college, and now he's out on his own.

Billy I have a Flow Quick that I need like a need like I need a paper ass.  It is in a box in my garage. I don't know if it still works but it might.  It is a poor mans air flow measuring tool. I will give it to you for free if you have any interest in playing with it. It can use its' own, included, computer program to plot all sorts of information.  Nifty little digital readout. Uses PVC pipe to route air flow past the differential measuring point. You drive it with your shop vac.  I will also give you some books about flow in cylinder heads if that is sufficient to occupy your interest instead of killing yourself on a road course like Road Atlanta, Mid Ohio, Laconia,  Daytona, etc.

i am super interested and that is a very kind offer. i know several people that manage little flow benches with shop vacs and i have a huge rooftop belt-drive squirrel cage ventilation fan that i use for circulate air in the shop that i could convert with just a bit of PVC plumbing. how big a box would this ship in?

[Icarus]

The electronic chassis is small...12 x 12 x 8 that includes the instruction book the disks and the magic box.  The second box is for the PVC pipe thing that has the differential pressure gimmick built in.  It is probably 6 x6 x 24.  All shippable by postal service.  Weight is not excessive.  If you want to play with this thing I will investigate shipping cost.  My wife is an E-Bay power seller and she has me building boxes rather frequently.  These toys are not hard to package.

Once again I do not know whether the thing still functions but it did work pretty well when I put it on a shelf in my race shop.  Mostly it is a fun tool and is helpful when learning that all that conventional wisdom about head flow is subject to ....bullshit.  Air flow is not so simple as is commonly believed.  Mostly air does not like to go around sharp corners and mostly maybe polishing the ports is not such a good idea, sometimes it is, and sometimes not so good an idea.  and mostly there is much to observe about the simple parts like the valve seats....and no, three angle seats are not always the solution. All that stuff depends on the shape of the combustion chamber, port inclination, radius of the short turn and where the other valves are, and the shape of the piston dome....on and on and ....whew!   All those mysteries are what makes the whole concept so fascinating.

I think that I  have previously claimed that maximum flow rate at maximum lift is pure advertising.  The mid flow range is far more important because the time that the valve is open at mid ranges is so much longer than at the instantaneous top valve lift.  We are trying to furnish the most oxygen to the combustion process not the most airflow at a tiny time interval. SO alright some cams have a plateau at top lift.  Damned well better hurry to get that valve closed out of the way of the rapidly approaching piston.............OOps, I am in the midst of a lecture here so please ignore all the uninvited outburst.

If you want to play with this gadget, PM me with your mailing address.  It might occupy enough of your interest to keep you out of smoke filled bars or whore houses. Or not.

[billy rubin]

i confezs ive never had much affinity for smokefilled bars and my experience with professional women waz long ago in a galaxy far away.

but making a cylinder head work better is a fascinating exercise. especially when you denigrate the holy of holies, the three angle valve job

and im just curious about the world. thats tge only problem with mortality. you die before you can understand anything

[Icarus]

I completely agree that we die before we understand all that we wished that we could......................but those remarks do not apply to just everyone. They do apply to we who are so compelled to pursue the worldly as well as the cosmic truths of the world.

I like the seekers of knowledge more than the less inquisitive.  Expressions like; "it is what it is" do not set well with true seekers.  SO yes, we live, we die, and we take our knowledge with us. It was fun while it lasted.

[Randy]

I completely agree that we die before we understand all that we wished that we could......................but those remarks do not apply to just everyone. They do apply to we who are so compelled to pursue the worldly as well as the cosmic truths of the world.

I like the seekers of knowledge more than the less inquisitive.  Expressions like; "it is what it is" do not set well with true seekers.  SO yes, we live, we die, and we take our knowledge with us. It was fun while it lasted.

"It is what it is" always seemed like a cop out. I've never liked phrases like that.

[billy rubin]

tid' apah

[billy rubin]

put a roller together now for the trackbike project

made mostly out of junk left over from the LSR build



if i can turn all th epiles of parts in my shop into motorcycles it will be easier for my wife to sell everything when i die

[Icarus]

^ Good thinking Billy.  On the other hand, unless she is keenly aware of the market value of all those old crocks,,,,,No use making them functional. But then ......................

I am the executor for a dear, life long, friend.  He is younger but not nearly as healthy as me.  He has a whole bunch of Bikes. Like BSA , Triumph, Mustang, and  one or m0re  of every Japanese brand, some of them collectors items.   It would be a huge undertaking to dispose of these bikes for collector market value. In your case their are heirs. In my and my friends age there are no heirs and so why does it matter if that old Triumph TT500 goes to the landfill?   

I urge you not to croak before you make some smart decisions about the fate of all those delightful antiques. ..............Greenbacks are far more portable and far more useful at places like the grocery store.

[billy rubin]

well, i consider it polite to try not to cause stress in people. and some of this junk i have, while in the end is just that, would be useful to somebody else who isn't quite as dead.

i'm organizing stuff into labelled boxes associated with each machine, so whoever pulls out the 69 BSA 441 victor, for example, will have a box with the parts that came off it, the factory tools needed to work on it, and the bits and pieces that go with it. there's also a few people who live not so many hours away who would be able to look at something and tell her how and to who to dispose it with.

[billy rubin]

uh oh

went and saw something ive never seen before

flat track/TT races 90 miles from the house. about six events a year, other races as close.

they've got  class for old farts, and i'm wondering now:



there's a slide school that comes by here once a year or so, US$250 for four hours on a royal enfield himalayan.

wondering.

[Icarus]

Billy if you can find an XR100 Honda in your treasure trove of bikes, get it running.  It is the best little bike for dirt track practice.  It is the chosen bike for learners at the old Kenny Roberts schools.  (Does Roberts, the master racer with the initials KR, mean anything to you?)

An Enfield dirt tracker?  Naaaw!  Maybe you can find a thumper of 500cc or less somewhere in that pile of bikes.  The little Honda is the clear choice however.  I had more fun on that one than almost any other bike that I have had. 

[billy rubin]

woo

i know exactly who kenny roberts is. i remember when he took the americans to europe and destroyed the conventional wisdom.

and laguna seca, was it? when he went from dead last to sixth place in the first lap. running at 110 percent, which he never usually had to do . .

he was the rival in every way to mike hailwood, absent the comeback.

and he ran a TZ750 in flat track when he was s around 16 years old.

the himalayans are a completelty new machine from the old RE works in india. id never heard of it.  google picturez



^^^these are for real

ill investigate the 100s. but the advantage of the triumph 650 is that i already have most of a short track bike already and i know how they work

but im just thinking at the moment.

the future is always wide open. just not as much of it.

[Icarus]

That ain't the RE that I once knew Billy.  It looks like a real purpose built machine. 

[billy rubin]

i didn't believe it either when i was told about it. for years RE has been just churning out new versions of the old 350 bullet from the 1950s.

johnny lewis uses these things in his flat track slide school. this is him on something else

i cannot watch this without wanting to be out there

royal enfield has just come out with a 650 vertical twin, recreating the interceptor of the 1960s