Flash III PhaseII: Tuning MadDog's Worst (Again!) Setup

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

The gear swap was delayed a vital half-hour. It seems my smarty-pants scheme to pre-install the 8.4s on a used axle shaft (thanks again, Jon!)
Had one critical flaw: at some point Honda-san made a running change in a critical dimension!

The plain-bearing left end of my '01 axle rides in a socket cast into the case cover. It measures 16mm or so. The used SA/16 axle I received has a 15mm bearing surface. I'm not sure what year the change occurred. I'm just lucky I checked.

A quick 30-minute trip to Deepinnaharta Honda later the 8 gear was on my original shaft. This was 5 minutes to 6 - quitting time for the Service department. No charge!
I owe them more pizzas!

The good news was that my cover popped right off without gasket damage. I will remember always to grease it in the future.

Despite my long 248.006 belt idea, it lost about a second in 0 to 35 MPH time. The long Polini belt also seems to be limiting top-end to 52 so back to stock. Too late to test more tonight. Roller swaps and fine-tuning the jetting remains to be done.

[Rob]

the change was made in 99 through 01 are the same and 94 through 98 are the same hope this helps u

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

Yes thanks, that e'splains the bearing size discrepancy. Sorry I have no pic of the '01 because it's now residing in Flash. The spec in the parts manual says "17mm" but I suspect the bearing diameter is 16 or 16.5. Definitely too loose to run.


Ready to ride... The Deepinnaharta Gendarme who passed me on the right seemed fascinated by my setup.
Came in from a test ride last night, checked out my GPS Max Speed:

Ooops! Musta forgot to reset after commute with the Noble Family Truckster again.

Swapped back to stock belt setup for now - Needle points East again almost as fast as with 9:1s.
Opening a thread in Tech Help for variator tuning with odd belts, in case I haven't already beaten this to death.

[Wheelman-111]

Greetings:

RPMs riding home this afternoon at WOT were from 8000 to 8200 on the variator. I suspect this is a bit shy of the Nikasil/V8/Mikuni power peak. Dropping rollers from 6.3 to 5.6 next.

The Mikuni came with a 130 main/15 Pilot. I thought it was great, but the plug kept coming back with that funky 2-tone suggesting at least half of it was running hot/lean. I swapped for a 135 and raised the jet needle, to see temps drop a bit but not enough below 350 for complete peace. Still that Harlequin plug...

This evening I dropped the 140, put the needle back in middle position (of 5) and ran it around the parking lot in the rain. I still haven't heard it 4-stroke, though it wasn't completely warmed up. Power didn't seem any softer. More testing to come.