Maxton 2009

[Racer x]

Next weekend is the last race meet of the 2009 season.It is the 24Th and 25Th of October. The 250 cc class is highly contested. The production record was just raised in September by a rookie . The other classes are all being pushed up every month. I have set several records this year and hope to get into the record book next weekend.
If anyone is in the North Carolina area you should come on over to Maxton/Laurenburg airport and watch the cars and bike go. Fast bikes are hitting 250 mph
WWW.ECTA-LSR.COM

This is an old video. But it is what it is all about

Link to original page on YouTube.

[kkim]

Good luck, Eric!

Do the 250R crowd proud!

[Racer x]

Thanks . weather permitting.

[nate-bama]

Cool so what class do you run .. modified?

[Racer x]

I run in the Modified partial streamlined category .I have the 350 fuel and 350 blown fuel records . I am going for the 250 gas record.and the 250 blown fuel and the 250 blown gas records. Last year I finished 10 place in championship points . This year I am in 27Th because I had to take off half the season.

[nate-bama]

right on, looks fun

[Racer x]

Well the 2009 season is in the books. October was not a good meet. Rain wind and tragedy marred the event . Saturday started raining with a tail wind It cleared up around noon then we dried out the track and the ambulance arrived around 2:00. I got to run because the track was good enough for bikes and cars to go under 150 mph . I wanted to feel out the new set up and since it was my first pass I did not want to brake the engine..I think it has enough power and the valve piston clearance is tight so missing a gear or over revving is not a good idea. I went 109.98mph My best speed ever was 110.3 so I was very happy since I did not go hard at all.

After I ran the sun cleared up the track enough for the fast bikes to go . soon after that a man named Guy Lombardi on a Hayabusa made a good run at 191 . His first run at Maxton . After clearing the finish line he got crossed up in shut down and left the track. The bike tumbled and he was killed

My heart and prayers go out to his family . RIP

Sunday was a 20 mph head wind and gusts to 23. My bike got blown around so bad I felt there was no use running any more and called it a year.
So That is it
very sad

[kkim]

very sad news, indeed.

[ztrack157]

sounds like the record is in reach for next year. Sucks that Guy died but is a risk going for LSR's. I'm guessing the runs on saturday as a result?

[Racer x]

I do feel the bike can do 112 or better. I never go full till boogie on the first pass. And with new pistons and the same timing map as before .Even with Rocket 100 I was listening for ping in the lower gears. SO I just ran out of track at 109.It was still pulling. I registered over 110 on my speedo after the trap. But that is racing.Everyone wishes we all got to run some more. Some people did not get to run Saturday at all. So I feel lucky in that respect.And there IS always next year. Last year 108 was the top record.and I went faster than last time. And finished 23rd out of 140 bikes in the points Championship so I am happy.

[Greg_E]

Is it limited to carbs or could you go EFI? If you went EFI you could more easily go with a ram air intake to get a little "passive" boost going too. You could still do it with crabs, but would need to pressurize the fuel tank as well as wrap the pressurized air around the outside of the carb to make sure you are getting the pressure differences. It's not really a turbo, so it's not really a supercharged engine. Might give you that extra couple horses to really make a run at 120. Of course it could break the rules too.

[Racer x]

You can do what ever you want . If you buy gas at the track you are in the "GAS" class.
If you run you own fuel or Nitrous then you are in the "Fuel" class. But as far as carb ram air EFI whatever you want is OK. Optional superchargers and turbo chargers are in the "Blown class. and that can be" blown fuel "or" blown gas" .

[Greg_E]

Well to stay in the gas and normally aspirated class, you might want to think about ram air as the next step, may get you one or two horses once you get up to speed.

[Racer x]

Every little bit helps that is for sure.

[ztrack157]

Hows that diet coming? Thats the easiest way to cut weight

[Greg_E]

Someone did some dyno tests where they rigged a way to blow air into the intakes of several ram air bikes and found that it really did make a difference.

[Racer x]

The Dyno I use has a leaf blower with 150 mph air flow hooked up to the front above the cooling fan. They use it with ram air bikes. It would help But as you said Fuel injection is needed to tune it and some sort of data acquisition would be needed to get a consistent power increase. The best way to use ram air is to pressurise an air box and feed the intake pressurized air after the filter. It is a good idea.That is why so many bikes have it . My problem is 1 the ninja is carbed 2 making the hole in the front of the bike will add aerodynamic drag.

[Greg_E]

Actually since you are taking air from a high pressure zone you should actually be improving the drag. You should be able to take high pressure air and duct it out the back where you have a low pressure vortex pulling on you. The headlight area makes a great scoop since it is one of the highest pressure areas.

DIY EFI = Microsquirt with full computer and self tuning (suggest wideband O2 for self tuning). The hardest parts would be coming up with the throttle body. You could go with the EU spec throttles and manifolds, but then you would need to deal with two throttles for the ram air. Might be better to go with a larger single throttle and a split runner, take a look at the Buell XB series throttle bodies and manifolds, might be able to adapt all that stuff nicely and they are rated to over 80 horses at around 50psi fuel pressure (I could pull the exact specs from my manual if you want them).

The MicroSquirt or larger Megasquirt will handle dual maps so you could go with two throttle bodies and two O2 sensors, but I would suggest going with the single throttle and single wideband O2 where the pipes merge. This lets you use the second MAP sensor to measure ambient pressure all the time (real time) which makes for a much better mountain trails bike since the elevation changes would change the mixture by a lot.

Most people run the 'squirts with just TPS and MAP with maybe O2 for a final check and adjustment. You can run them without the MAP too if you really want, and this might work for a non-blown race machine (works OK on the Buells but not perfect).

[Racer x]

Thank you for the interest and Ideas . I have think about it some more . The duct work is a bit tricky since there is very little room as it is . But not impossible. The Injection part is more difficult . Money wise I cant do anything right now . But I have some plans

FI is a must because I only want to use this for Maxton. And that is one mile of constant acceleration . So there is never a stable air flow to the front of the bike . Tail wind head wind plus the fact that I am always in a state of acceleration make tuning a difficult proposition. But thanks for the input I do appreciate it .

[Greg_E]

I am working towards an Microsquirt conversion on my Buell. There is a guy on the MicroSquirt or MegaSquirt forums that is doing a ninja 250 conversion with the parts from an EU machine, I think it is a pre-gen version that is getting the conversion. The liquid cooled engines have a distinct advantage in that the temp is far more regular and easier to monitor which gives more stable results. My suggestions would be as sort of outlined above, plus and intake air temp sensor.

And since you only need a little gas at a time in that bike, how about a custom fuel cell? Run the air hoses from the front, around the forks, into the tank cover and then exhaust out under the seat. That should be good for a couple MPH right there since you will be punching a smaller hole in the air. No matter how fast the tail wind is, you still need to punch a hole in front of you. Stuff like this was made illegal in most auto racing classes for the reason that it works far too well, especially when you can direct to the places that make the best use of the extra flow. Envisioning where the air needs to be filled in may be difficult. Once I had a book on doing this sort of testing with no wind tunnel. Lots of little pieces of bright colored yarn taped to the surface and then drive and have someone follow and look at the yarn to see where they were not straight or even lifting off the surface from the poor flow areas. Wish I could remember everything in that book for you, or even the title but that was too long ago. I would expect that if you run the high pressure air back out right in back of the seat to fill in that area would be a really good place to start.

But keep in mind that this is cheating, even if the rules don't restrict it, they probably also don't allow it. That's why the Ram Air would probably be a better option for that high pressure air.

Also last week and tonight for the repeat, Mythbusters took a car and put large golf ball dimples all over the surface and it seems like it actually smoothed out the airflow and made the car more efficient, not sure if there is a way to apply this in the real world, but it might be something to think about. Again if you can get 1 more MPH out of it there would be value.

[Racer x]

1 mph is a lot . Last year I missed a record by .005mph. That hurts . I like the idea of running a tube from the high pressure in front to the low pressure out back . I even thought of running the exhaust out the back to fill the vacuum behind the bike. there is VERY little room under the tank . I cut 6 inches off the top to get lower and flatter. For modified class I need a 5 liter or 1.32 gallon fuel tank .otherwise I would be an altered .I don't want to run this bike as a altered.

[Greg_E]

Is the frame perimeter or down the center of the tank? No one says you can't run 2.5 liters on each side. Sorry I can't be more specific but since I don't have a Ninjette i can only guess.

What about a Buell XB frame with a 250cc engine? You'd have a huge amount of room over the top of the engine for all this stuff since the fuel is in the frame.

What if you cut two big round holes in the tank and ran the hoses down through those. Picture kind of like the XBRR cycle. I bet you could still retain the capacity you need and do this.

Got some pictures with the tank and plastics off? You are probably going to need about two 2 inch diameter hoses to even make a dent in the airflow. 2.5 or 3 would be better. You might need to flatten the hoses to pass through some areas but you need to make sure to keep the area the same or you will get pressure/velocity changes.

You might also be able to pick up some air from the sides and duct that up to where it will fill in behind you. Know anyone that works at a wind tunnel or could sample you and your bike into a computer to do flow analysis? Scale model and a flow tank with water?

[Racer x]

The frame goes over the top of the engine . I have the stock tank cut all the way to the frame . It is like two saddle tanks .

The engine and frame manufacture must be the same or it is an altered . I could use an old Kawasaki 600 frame . It would fit me better than a 250 dose and already had ram air . And plenty of room to work with . Problem is it wont be a 250 ninja .
I cant run hose that large through the tank . I already have my chin on the frame .

I don't know anyone with a wind tunnel . I wish I did.

[Greg_E]

How much can you lose on the inside of the tank saddles? Or are you already close to the lower limit? Do you have enough capacity to run with only one side of the saddle for fuel? Then you could run ducting down the other side.

Might be starting to run into the realm of some really specialized custom parts. Taking the air from the sides and moving it to come out behind the seat might be the only way to do this. You might be able to direct the air from the headlight down into the lower fairing, past the engine, and then up behind the seat and do it all with no duct work. It would leak in a lot of place but it might be worth looking into to get rid of the low pressure area behind you.