What are you doing today? Thread

[stoshu]

Like a Gringo, but ‘cooler’ eh.

Guess he's never seen Bob and Doug

[El Camexican]

Guess he's never seen Bob and Doug

Or raised a baby mouse in a stubby beer bottle.

[barnett468]

Perhaps I should get my mind out of the gutter. I think this place has corrupted me.

[barnett468]

Well, another day, another race, and another 1st place, but this time it was in the open class on my YZ465.

My first race was on my 250, and when I went to line up, everyone had a nice clean spot under their bike where the concrete had been swept, but the only space left on the line had a pile of wet mud and there was not a broom in sight, so I said fk it, I'll just play catch up after the start.

Well the gate dropped, and as expected, everyone left except for me cuz my rear tire was spinning on the muddy concrete, so I just patiently let it spin until it finally hooked up around 10 friggen feet past the gate, then I friggen nailed it, and fortunately I still caught up to the pack and past around 7 of them before the first turn. I then followed the guys in front of me staying right on the rear tire of the guy immediately in front of me for the first lap without trying to pass him because they had all ridden the track before and I hadn't, so I wanted to practice for a lap before I rode any faster. After the first lap, I picked up my speed and set the guy up in front of me for a pass, and I went into a slow right hander and my engine locked up as I was leaning over in the apex of the turn, so it threw me on the ground and the crash also broke my brand new friggen brake lever.

Oh well, one bike down but I still had one bike left, so I at least still got to ride some, and my 465 is the one I needed to ride anyway so I could get used to it and see if it needed any suspension changes, which it definitely does. The rear shock has so much compression damping if feels like it has straight 50w engine oil in it, and this was still after I back the damping knob out 7 more clicks, which is near the end of the 24 position adjustment. The steering angle is also so steep that it pushed the tire badly in every turn causing me to crash twice, plus the stiff rear forces the front down in the braking bumps which causes a severe, nearly bar swapping head shake, oh my what fun. So needless to say, both I and the 465 have a ways to go before I can ride it half way decently, but the first thing I may do is lower the forks in the tubes. I may have to send the rear shock out to have the compression damping reduced as well, but I have a few clicks left on the adjuster, so I will reduce the damping all the way and try it again next weekend at the regular vintage races I go to.

As far as the track went, it was friggen dg/sand, and they kept watering it even during the races, so some of the turns were really slippery. This is probably one of the last times I will ever ride there because it is hard on my bikes and I don't need to learn how to ride sand tracks, but at least I got some more jetting done on the 465 which was helpful.

[3 Wheel Drive]

No trophy pic or video this time Barn?

[barnett468]

No trophy pic or video this time Barn?

The "Trophy" is just another boring chunk of aluminum plate similar to most of the others, and I don't want to bore people to death by continuing to post photos of the same thing over and over again. As far as a video goes, nobody was taking any, however, there is supposed to be a video guy at the race this coming weekend who will supposedly take videos of people if they ask him to, so I will do that, and if he is able to take one, I will post it for everyone's entertainment, as I'm quite sure it will be amusing to watch me attempt to stay on my bike, especially if it is a video of me on my 465, which I am actually much slower on than my 250, but if the track is muddy, I may not ride the 465 as it really is far too dangerous, and they just love to friggen over water these tracks here and I hate that. Give me a bone dry, rock hard, blue groove track any day and I am happy.

Other than the radically steep steering head angle on the 465, which I can't do much about unless I reduce the rear wheel travel by having a spacer installed on the rear shock shaft which I may end up doing, the biggest problem is the horridly high compression damping in the rear shock. It causes the rear to kick up extremely badly (Yamahop as it was often referred to back in the day), especially over braking bumps, which often develop just before several corners on a track after a few races. On the 465, these bumps force me to go way slower than just about everyone when approaching a turn, so I am getting passed going into turns on it, and the problem with that is, I am best on the straights and over the braking bumps going into turns if the bike handles well, and this is the main area I make up time on most other riders.

Lowering the rear with a spacer on the shock shaft would reduce front end push in the turns and bar swap over the braking bumps, and it would also lower its center of gravity, plus it would make it easier for me to touch the ground on it, so it would improve it in a few areas. Obviously it would loose some rear wheel travel, which will be around 1", but it may be a good trade off because there aren't any huge jumps on any of these tracks, so I think I can afford to give up a little rear wheel travel to improve the steering and reduce the handle bar swap.


Below are a couple photos from the National I won my class in a few weeks ago.

This is heading into the first turn at the end of the start straight. I came out of the turn in 3rd out of 13 people in that moto. The oldest bike in this race was a 2000 Honda CR250 2 stroke. There was one other 2 stroke and the rest were newer 4 strokes and mostly 450's. Even the 2000 Honda CR250 has way more hp than my bike does and he got the hole shot in this race. The Honda also weighs a whopping 13 lbs less than my bike with both bikes in stock form.




This is one good example of how hard I have to ride my 250 to try and keep up with the newer bikes.





I thought the chart below might be interesting to some. It is a dyno test of a 1978 YZ250 that was done back in 78, but my engine isn't much different so it's a reasonable comparison. The 78 put out 32 hp (corrected hp) at the rear wheel, and my bike is no more than around 36 with the Boyesen ports added. The 2000 Honda CR250 made a monsterous 46 hp at the rear wheel during one magazines test in 2000.

The YZ only made a lame 12 hp over the first 5000 rpm, after which it made 30 hp more over a 2000 rpm range. This light switch type power "curve" (which is actually a sudden power spike) is very similar to that of a full blown race built 1974 CR125, and this is exactly why my bike is so hard to ride. The 2000 Honda is a water col;ed, power valve engine, and it has a much smoother power delivery and much more power to deliver than mine does.

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Here is a dyno comparison of all of the top 2000 model 250 2 strokes which shows how ridiculously linear the power curves are on all of them. The Honda still made around 43 hp in this test, and all but one of them made over 20 hp at 5000 rpm where mine only makes around 12 , which is why they can easily out accelerate me when exiting most turns and go farther and faster over the jumps that are immediately after a turn, and is why I have to hang it all out on the straights and when entering the turns, which I can assure you is a little hairy to do (at least for me at my age) on any bike, especially on a 38 year old one.

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[barnett468]

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Is it super chunky or extra creamy?

[El Camexican]

It`s creamy so you don`t get chunks stuck in yo pee hole........for maximum viscosity and flow .........make the calculations skippy !

What are you up to these days Glamy? How about posting up some of those sweaters you’ve been knitting when mama gets tired of having her feet rubbed!

[barnett468]

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oh boy....Toe Jam...yum!

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[Shep1970]

Part of my week was building these two little league dugout roofs for my town. This field is used for the younger players and all along I figured they were to keep them dry when it rained. I finished up today and while I spoke to the coaches they said it’s not to keep them dry really but to keep the kids from getting hit by fly balls. I guess the kids aren’t old enough to get out of the way (happens a lot) they said.
Easy job but the post holes were dug by someone else and most were in the wrong spot!


Shep

Here’s a ten second pouring alum video my son took last wk if interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_TbSlsu5os
If I loaded it right....

[DAM shop]

Took in a couple bikes from some people that know we mess around with these things. A 200s needing some brake work and carb work, and this nice little 04 predetotor 90 Polaris, hasn't run in two years because the throttle stuck on it..

[Rob Canadian]

FYI - The battery for a 2009 prius costs me $1900.00 wholesale from the dealer and is around $2100.00 retail and this is for a new one. It may be the same battery yours uses if you end up needing one. You can also get used and rebuilt ones on Ebay. I bought a rebuilt one for a 2009 prius 4 months ago and it cost me $875.00 installed with a 6 month warranty. Extended warranty of 2 years was around $150.00 more.
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Thank you for the info. Shipping would KILL me in Canada. I got $300 into this plus my time. All fixed up and back on the road again. It was a PITA as far as parts. That is what held me up. Car was off the road for 4 weeks. My girlfriends cousin was a ex engineer for GM. He was involved with the Chevy VOLT here in Canada

[barnett468]

And this is one way to straighten a swingarm. This is off my 1980 YZ465 that I am now racing, and I noticed a while back that the rear wheel was crooked, so today I finally got around to removing the arm and checking it to see if it was bent, which I used our kitchen countertop for. The side arms measured around 3/16" out of parallel, which is a fair amount, so I took it to a local fabrication shop that I have do some welding for me and had the fabricator snugly trap the front of it in their 60 ton metal brake, then he tried to bend it with a 3 foot long pry bar.

After the bar was deemed too short and flexy, I went to the nearby metal supply store and bought a 10 foot long piece of solid mild steel bar so we could put it through the axle holes and then pry on it. Unfortunately, the bar started bending, so I had him use his pry bar while I used the 10 foot bar and we eventually got the arms to within 1/32" of parallel to each other, which is about all we were going to get with the bars we had, so after I saw how much the arm flexed while we were trying to straighten it, I figured I would probably add some braces to the arm (made out of 6061 square tube) in the near future, so I decided that the arm was close enough for now and that we could probably make it perfect the next time with the same 2 bars plus by jacking up one arm with a floor jack.

Yamaha made the rear axle 3 mm larger on the 81 465, and after seeing how much the arm flexed while we were prying on it, my guess is that they increased the axle size mainly to reduce swingarm flex instead of axle flex since both the 80 and 81 use the same arm with the exception of the bigger axle slot in the 81 arm to accept the bigger axle.

If I do reinforce the arm, which is most likely, it will then be around as rigid as the swingarm on a 1986 TECATE...The Most Powerful 3 Wheeler In The Universe! and would then be nearly impossible to bend.


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[90nut]

Spending to much $$$ at an auction was Friday Saturday outcome. Now to go make some of it back on so.e concrete demo!

[Shep1970]

Molding up and started casting the small rubber grommets for dash kits I’m putting together. The grommets are still available through Honda but i figured I’d just make a few for the dashes on my own. Also had enough mold material left to do the unavailable 86/87 rear tank grommet too (just removed from the mold) Now I just have to make a few.....
I really will put things in the 3ww store shortly-
The rubber parts themselves are alumilite flex 70 (I like it) very durable

Example pic of the flex 70 in the molded shock flap rubber
Alright, thanks for looking, just ignore the dust
The flaps mold I did for someone else/ they’ll be made by him eventually
Shep