My LS Bike Build Part 2

[isiahstites]

All of the welding on the gas tank is finished and I made brackets to hold the tank on the backbone. I still need to pressure test the tank and I found out that my guesstimation of how much gas the tank would hold was wrong, it holds a gallon and a half.






I finished making the battery box this weekend and still have to make something to hold the bottom of the box to the top.









I am almost all done with all of the fabrication portion of the build so things should start to move quickly in the next couple of weeks. I still need to make fairing brackets to hold and support the body work as well making mounts for the fuel pump and regulator.

Also found out today that the original record of 184 mph that was going to take quite a great pass to beat is incorrect, the record is actually 178.170, still difficult however not as hard as 184.


Scott

[John Noonan]

Scott,

Your continued work looks great, I hope the best for you..

The 1.5 Gallon tank will be enough.

J

[Stainless1]

Scott, I would suggest a forward lower rear fender between the tire and battery.  While it won't make a difference at EM, the salt is conductive and may short your battery if it gets piled in there.
Looks great, nice work, see ya on the salt.... 

[mike mendoza]

I picked up my fairings today and I am very pleased to have a set of new fairings I can fit to my bike. I have a lot of cutting and trimming to do to make the fairings fit the bike so they can be mounted properly and be easy to take on and off of the bike quickly.

As you can see the nose is sitting up high, I will need to trim the inside of the fairing or widen it to allow the whole fairing to sit down on the bike. I will also have a lot of work to do to the rear fairing to make it conform to the rules and to fit a chassis that was never designed for a tail section such as this one.Looks sweet  when and what class?   great luck  mike

Scott





 

[isiahstites]

Scott, I would suggest a forward lower rear fender between the tire and battery.  While it won't make a difference at EM, the salt is conductive and may short your battery if it gets piled in there.
Looks great, nice work, see ya on the salt.... 

I was considering that just to keep dirt off of and out of the motor, never gave any thought to the salt be conductive?? And I work with electric all day long.....who knew!! Something that I will add before Bonnevill, thanks for the heads up.

Scott

[Rchop]

Scott, I would suggest a forward lower rear fender between the tire and battery.  While it won't make a difference at EM, the salt is conductive and may short your battery if it gets piled in there.
Looks great, nice work, see ya on the salt.... 

That's a good idea Scott, just make sure you build it so it can be cleaned out easily. The salt packs in so tight in front of my rear tire, it actually fills in the space all the way to the tire. I have to clean it out after every run. I just pulled out about a cup of salt left over from last year that I couldn't get to before!

[isiahstites]

Good news! Even though I bought and expected to use the fuel pump and regulator it turns out I do not need to the bottom of the tank is about an inch higher than the highest point on the float bowl!



I picked up a set of 25 Dzus fasteners, springs and grommets for $16 off of ebay.



I finished the mounting bracket for the battery box to keep the top and bottom together.






I ordered and received my Zero Gravity windshield for my fairing. $99, not bad for a custom windshield.



I cut some material from the from fairing to make it sit down on the bike. Hopefully this weekend I can get the fairing mounted and in there final resting place.

[Sumner]

Good news! Even though I bought and expected to use the fuel pump and regulator it turns out I do not need to the bottom of the tank is about an inch higher than the highest point on the float bowl!
.............

Something to think about.  I don't know if this could be something to worry about, but the less fuel pressure on the needle valve in the float bowl the lower the fuel level and the leaner it will be.  At least that is the way it can work on a car carb.  I run a regulator on my truck that under high vacuum, going down the road under constant throttle, the regulator reduces the pressure between the pump and carb and helps to run a little leaner (better gas mileage).  I don't know if you could get into the same situation if the fuel level in the tank dropped much on a long run at b'ville, since your fuel pressure that the float/needle valve is going to see is going to go down as the head in the tank goes down.  The higher the bottom of the tank is above the float bowl the less effect this would have.

Might want to run it past Kent or someone and see if it is a big deal or not.  Maybe not.

It's looking good Scott,

Sum

[isiahstites]

Good news! Even though I bought and expected to use the fuel pump and regulator it turns out I do not need to the bottom of the tank is about an inch higher than the highest point on the float bowl!
.............

Something to think about.  I don't know if this could be something to worry about, but the less fuel pressure on the needle valve in the float bowl the lower the fuel level and the leaner it will be.  At least that is the way it can work on a car carb.  I run a regulator on my truck that under high vacuum, going down the road under constant throttle, the regulator reduces the pressure between the pump and carb and helps to run a little leaner (better gas mileage).  I don't know if you could get into the same situation if the fuel level in the tank dropped much on a long run at b'ville, since your fuel pressure that the float/needle valve is going to see is going to go down as the head in the tank goes down.  The higher the bottom of the tank is above the float bowl the less effect this would have.

Might want to run it past Kent or someone and see if it is a big deal or not.  Maybe not.

It's looking good Scott,

Sum

Sumner,

              It makes sense what you are saying. I spoke with a few people about this last night and basically to ensure this doesn't happen I will just have to make sure and not let the tank get that low. I prefer not to run the pump and regulator because it is two more things that could fail and if either of those fail or start to fail they could create a lean condition as well and potentially hurt the motor.

Scott

[Sumner]

...................It makes sense what you are saying. I spoke with a few people about this last night and basically to ensure this doesn't happen I will just have to make sure and not let the tank get that low. I prefer not to run the pump and regulator because it is two more things that could fail and if either of those fail or start to fail they could create a lean condition as well and potentially hurt the motor...............Scott

Scott with that fairing aren't you planning on running to the 5??  Sounds like you have it covered.  One thing is since you are data logging the air/fuel with the LM-1 you should see if this is a problem.  If it is you might want to make sure the air/fuel is good from a 1/2 tank down and then you would be just a little rich above that, not a bad thing.

One thing that I would like to bring up, not just to you, but in general is about sizing a fuel cell. I've tried to make mine large enough that I can make at least a couple runs.  If you are running gas and think you have a chance at a record it has to be sealed and it can be a pain to go by the fuel truck every run and get in that line to have gas put in and the tank sealed.  They let us put gas in a fuel bottle and have it sealed if we are in impound and bring it to the car and they watch as all the seals are broken on the tank and bottle and the tank is filled.  Then they put on new seals.  If you aren't in impound I don't know or not if they will let you stop by there with a sealed bottle and let you do all of that procedure or not?  Dan?

Now if you are tuning or just running and know you won't be in danger of breaking any records, like in my case this year, just put whatever you want in the tank whenever you want.  This is also true if you are running a "fuel" class, no seals or inspections just run anything you want.

c ya,

Sum

[isiahstites]

Scott with that fairing aren't you planning on running to the 5??  Sounds like you have it covered.  One thing is since you are data logging the air/fuel with the LM-1 you should see if this is a problem.  If it is you might want to make sure the air/fuel is good from a 1/2 tank down and then you would be just a little rich above that, not a bad thing.

If the bike will go that fast! The record is 176 mph so I guess I could run the 5.

One thing that I would like to bring up, not just to you, but in general is about sizing a fuel cell. I've tried to make mine large enough that I can make at least a couple runs.  If you are running gas and think you have a chance at a record it has to be sealed and it can be a pain to go by the fuel truck every run and get in that line to have gas put in and the tank sealed.  They let us put gas in a fuel bottle and have it sealed if we are in impound and bring it to the car and they watch as all the seals are broken on the tank and bottle and the tank is filled.  Then they put on new seals.  If you aren't in impound I don't know or not if they will let you stop by there with a sealed bottle and let you do all of that procedure or not?  Dan?

I had to do that once with the sidecar at SW while we were in impound. We had a seal gas can and the tank was sealed, we broke all of the seals in front of Russ and filled it up and then he resealed everything.

Good thing is I have El Mirage to test everything out and get a feel for how much fuel I will be using. If I need to be more creative later and come up with a new gas tank I will, after all I do have a regulator and a fuel pump that are not going to be used.

Thanks for all of your input Sum,

Scott

[SPARKY]

Sum,   The RULES SAY one HAS to go directly to impound----not by the fuel truck---you need a spare fuel can you put fuel in--have it sealed---Then have the MAYOR break the seal and watch you fuel---then he reseals!!!!!!!!!!  BEEN there TRIED TO DO THAT--!!!!!!!!!!!

[isiahstites]

Sum,   The RULES SAY one HAS to go directly to impound----not by the fuel truck---you need a spare fuel can you put fuel in--have it sealed---Then have the MAYOR break the seal and watch you fuel---then he reseals!!!!!!!!!!  BEEN there TRIED TO DO THAT--!!!!!!!!!!!

That's what we did, dropped the bike off in impound and then when and got the gas can filled and sealed.

Scott

[Sumner]

Sum,   The RULES SAY one HAS to go directly to impound----not by the fuel truck---you need a spare fuel can you put fuel in--have it sealed---Then have the MAYOR break the seal and watch you fuel---then he reseals!!!!!!!!!!  BEEN there TRIED TO DO THAT--!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I was talking about just going by the fuel truck on your regular runs can be a pain if you have to do it every run.  I also wondered if you had a sealed can and "were not in impound" if you could stop by there and fill with the sealed container or if those guys don't really want to be bothered with that as they have enough to do already??

c ya,

Sum

[John Noonan]

Scott,

Looking great!!

FYI, prior to running 176+ going to the 5 you will need to make the bike long course qualified by running over 175 on the short course 3 mile track.

See you soon..

J