4/17-18/05 Summit Point, WV, WERA Sprints
6/12-13/05 Summit Point, WV, WERA Sprints
Reported by Team Charm Staff;
So I'll do a tear down this week and find out exactly what is broken, but so far I know there is 100% leakdown out of the front cylinder via the exhaust. I suspect a bent exhaust valve from piston to clyinder contact. Rear clyinder has about 2% leak down and is fine. Rich, next time you are in WV, please bring some front clyinders heads incase I need one. I'll have the box of transmission parts. I doubt the head will be damaged because the engine was not run long in a dire condition and there is no mechanical damage on the spark plug.
What happend you might ask?
I was out in the vintage pratice and I think I over rev-d the motor when I could hear the RPM (tach broken) behind a rather loud vintage machines. I also think I down instead of up shifted going into T4 which could have mechanically over speeded the engine. Too bad, the bike was running nice prior to that. Sucks for Bernie, who has not gotten a change to ride the machine much yet, especially since it appears I'm likely the idiot who broke it.
The good news is that the clyinders & pistons were in very good shape, so my concerns about them does not appear to be warrented. Also, I am getting to know the SV motor very well.
The weekend started off on Friday with Steve getting to the track early on and Brian showing up around 10:30PM. The game plan was for Steve to stay in Brian’s camper of the weekend. Anya wasn’t coming up as her mother was in town and would be flying out on Sunday, so Steve elected to forgo the hour effort of loading up the Alaskan telescoping camper in the back of the truck.
Based on years of experience, we at Team Charm have learned the hard way that one does not want to leave for the race track with a race bike that does not run. Even if the bike runs poorly, that is better off that setting off with a bike that is in pieces. Against better judgment Steve choose not to follow this wise observation.
The top end parts for Bernie’s SV650 didn’t come in until Monday prior to the weekend. Due to final exams, Steve was unable to have his most excellent students put the front head back together during the week. The bold proposition for this weekend was for Steve to lap in the new exhaust valve on Saturday at the track, then re-assemble the forward head, hopefully getting the bike running in time for a shake down race on Sunday. Obviously we would not be going to registration until Sunday morning.
Like all good plans things got a little off track at the start. First thing Saturday morning WERA Race Director George Mood came over and asked Brian to fill in for Tommy and run the WERA school that morning. Apparently Tommy had some problem getting up to the track. While Brian got thru registration & tech on his FZ600 in preparation for his vintage races on Saturday, Steve began the process of lapping in the new valve and seat. Starting off with course valve lapping compound, working with a quick back and forth rotation of the suction cup valve rotator, Steve started setting a good seat for a baseline.
Meantime, the students for the WERA school were to meet at the classroom at 8:50 for a brief safety review prior to a sighting lap. Steve decided to help Brian out in the classroom, which would delay the work on the SV, but would ensure that Brain didn’t get stuck alone in the classroom and everything would go smoothly for the new racers.
The comprehensive curriculum for the MARRC Road Racing School has evolved over years, with cogent input from a extraordinary group of volunteer instructors. The current instructional content is the result of a tremendous amount of fine tuning and is delivered in about three hours of classroom time. For Steve and Brian, who have been doing the MARRC RRS classroom presentation since ’99, peeling off a “introduction to road racing” classroom is pretty much a reflexive operation. The only hiccup was the lack of classroom time. The WERA classroom time is fragmented in between practice sets in the morning from 8:50 until lunch, in sharp contrast to the all day affair that is the MARRC RRS. This required a little on the fly fine tuning of the instructional delivery to meet the reduced time. Steve also spent some time getting a student’s bike ready practice, which had a open fault on the side stand safety switch cause by removal of the kick stand, the student being somewhat confused by the process. Generally the school went well, one student was challenged by a double oil filter o-ring that promptly caused it to pump all the motor oil into the belly pan on the cold pit and a lost gear shift linkage rod, but the important safety items were covered. On the plus side WERA paid Brian $25 per student, which covered the costs of beer and food handily.
After the last student practice group Brain came in with a fatigue cracked muffler attachment bracket. Since he was entered in the first race after lunch, Brian concluded the classroom and proctored the tests while Steve, Eric Knight and Jeff ????? set about fixing the broken muffle bracket. Since the last time on the race track Brian had his forks redone by Thermous-Man so that there was some fine tuning of front ride height to be done to deal with some lingering chatter problems. Most of this was to be accomplished after Brian’s first race, which Brian barely made the warm up lap for due to a very rapid third call. The race, vintage 6, was flagged off with Brian getting a fair start ending up in third place going into T1. Close on his heels was Don Kinsey who would shadow Brian all race, making the textbook last lap pass to relegate Brian to fourth place. At least the muffle bracket repairs held.
During the afternoon Eric and Steve made steady progress getting the valve and seat prepared. The cylinder head went on without incident save for the use a stud washer lube with insufficient film strength, but more on that in a minute. Another racer needed to borrow the timing chain tensioner while Brian made further adjustments to the front end for a bike that was steadily improving. Brian’s second race of the day was Vintage 5. This race ended up being the best Team Charm finished of the weekend with Brian leading the race flag to flag taking the win. The WERA school mock race was held at the end of the day, with some errors in process, due in part to students who don’t listen, but everyone passed fine.
Meanwhile back in the pits Steve and Eric were making steady progress on both the motorcycle and the cooler of beer in the trailer. With the cams timed and a rough valve clearance set the machine was ready to fire up for the first time. Due to the battery being (a) three years old and (b) horribly undersized for the current needed, the machine would have to be jumped off the truck battery, but more about this later on. After some cranking the vacuum operated fuel pump finally pumped enough fuel into the carbs to fire up the bike, which ran fine, albeit with some serious blue smoke from assemble lube and accumulated fluid in the header. Unfortunately the head gasket with weeping water externally on the starboard side. After some careful consideration Eric and Steve agreed that the lube placed on the cylinder aluminum stud washers had insufficient film strength. During the two step head torque-ing process the studs would “kink” loudly when yielding from static to rotating friction. This is a tell tale sign that resulting torque would be lower than applied torque, the loss coming from excessive washer friction. Since the cams would likely have to come out anyway, as the replaced valve’s clearance was a little tight for racing service, it was decided to pull the cams and re-lube the washers with a better lubricant. Hopefully this would make the resulting torque what the applied torque was and synch up the coolant weep. Under the theory that coolant may have passed into the crankcase, the oil was drained and checked for coolant emulsion. None was found, and the oil was poured right back into the crankcase from the freshly scrubbed drain pan. Pressing on into the evening the job was finally finished around 9pm. A quick start up showed no more head leak and the adjusted exhaust valve clearance was a race friendly .010” Looked like Steve would end up making that trip to registration on Sunday morning after all!!
Sunday morning broke cool, and brilliant and found Steve tending to last minute tech requirements on the SV while Brian fiddled with the FZ a little more. Sweeping thru tech Steve made his first practice group to break in the motor. With the tachometer broken, Steve, who has poor hearing, had to attempt to shift by engine sound and vibration. Overly preoccupied avoiding high RPM Steve putted around the track feeling out the motor, which felt, compared to the 1000cc TL he normally rides, a little slow. Brian on the other hand only got about 1 lap before his starboard foot peg broke off the machine, sending him to the pits to scurry around looking for new pegs. Steve put the SV back up on the workbench to inspect for runs, drips or errors and found none. Since no races were to be run before lunch there was a second practice round which would give Steve another chance to break in the replace valve parts prior to the race. Steve went out with Brian to provide some mutual harassment, or should we say, “Harris-ment.” Brian proved to be the master of traffic and practice, consistently putting a second per lap on each of Steve’s attempts to catch him. Too bad the two would not be squaring off in a race for the day….
The first race for the day for Team Charm was clubman. Brian gridded up and
was flagged off for the race. Brian had a nice race long dice with Shawn Romano
on the 501 machine. Here they are running down
the straight. On the last two laps Brian made the pass stick and stretched his
lead
over fourth place at about the same time that the number 587 machine in second
place crashed out, resulting in Brian inheriting second place while he earned
third place. Brian’s best lap time on the air cooled FZ600 was 1:26.7,
which was his best time from the weekend. Brian being done for the day started
working on the remaining beer in the cooler in celebration of a great weekend!
Steve on the other hand was busy doing a chassis alignment on Rachel Sasse’s YZF600 that had a suspected bent frame. Using Dr. Tuliue’s method Steve and Rachel were able to determine the chassis was only .5 of a degree out of alignment, clearly good enough for racing. Since Steve’s race wasn’t until the end of the day (last race in fact) he got to spend most of his time watching Brian, Rachel and Eric put the hurt on the cooler of beer. As steve sez:
“This racing thing is starting to get in the way of my drinking, I’m not happy about that.”
After a red flag induced hour down time for a medi-evac the remaining races
6 thru 16 were cut down to 6 laps each. By the time the last race finally came
around, lightweight twins superbike, Steve was eager to get to it. Gridded up
on the last row of the expert grid, with two waves of D supersport and SuperMotards
behind him Steve was a little concerned about the start. The battery, or lack
of it, became a source of consternation. Should a stall happen prior to the
flag dropping the engine would not be able to be restarted. This is a recipe
for potential starting line tragedy. The engine was idling perfectly, perhaps
a little high, and Steve spent a few moments visualizing not stalling the motor
prior the green flag. As it happened Steve got a fair start with no problems
and was the last lightweight twins expert into T1. What little ability Steve
had to hear engine RPM in practice disappeared due to being next to a bunch
of rather loud SV’s. This caused Steve to short shift the motor, reducing
drive
out of the corners, and quickly exposing him to flurry of yellow plated novices
who were more skillfully applying their throttles on the straights. By the last
lapSteve was alone enough to start pressing the RPM a little higher, but never
hit the rev limiter. Steve a distant finished 5th, here he is on the last lap
coming into T10
.
As Steve sez:
“I couldn’t hear a thing out there, I kept short shifting it, being a woyss on the motor, I never hit the rev limiter. The chassis starting coming in once I picked up the entry speed, the handling felt good, but I have no idea what is going on with the motor. Felt underpowered, the bike needs a tach.”
Post race beers
were the order of the day, and packing up the new, super-sized team charm trailer
and race transporter was a snap. We would like very much to thank Eric Knight
for all his hard work. Eric got stuck with Steve most of Saturday listening
to him bark out commands like he was talking to his students, and graciously
lend-ed his time and effort to get the machine running. It is doubtful the SV
would have been raced on Sunday without his effort. Thanks Eric!!
Next event, July 1 MARRC RRS and track day, see you at the races!!!!!