Troubleshooting

Well, I spent the day working on the bikes, the race stator seems to be the cause of the popping and backfiring, and the power valve controller seems to be dead as well, although I think I can say that the ignition boxes (both sets) work OK.

With my Yamaha Stator the bike starts and runs fine, although would not rev through the mid-range. I have not had time to look at why as yet, but it could be that the carbs are not setup properly, and the fact that the power valve is not connected doesn't help.

I wanted to get going again on the RG 500, and the next steps are to fit the GSXR 750 forks and make the new rear wheel (4.5") fit the RG swinging arm. The GSXR Wheel uses a 20 mm axel, and the RG standard is only 17 mm therefore I will need to enlarge the holes in the swinging arm to take the bigger axle. Some guys were proposing re-enforced swinging arms on the French RG forum, with the modification already done, and I was hoping to buy one in as modifying the original item is no return! The problem is that they don't reply to email!!

I concentrated on cleaning up the front end. The forks were OK, but heavily oxidised/damaged by stones etc... so I spent a couple of hours with the dremel and metal wool, rubbing them down and they turned out as the photo, so quite pleased. I need to find out what oil to put in them, and then I can fit them.

I have also found a local supplier of aluminium, so I bought a lump that I intend to use to cut out my rearsets from. Should be interesting! I will post photos as they come along!

Winter tests at ALES!

Hi, I am a little late in posting this as we went down to Ales (near Nimes) on the 2nd November. The one day testing at Ales seemed a good idea at the time, as I wanted to test my new (old) carbs with the PowerJets and also retest Borut's ignition as I still have 2 sets. In preparation for the weekend, I had changed the carbs and upped the main jets to 320's just to be safe - the power jets come on line at high revs, and add fuel when the revs are high, therefore allowing smaller main jets to fuel better at low/mid rpm - Just what I needed! I also put my old ignition boxes back on. Just to add to the fun, I had also removed the baffle plate in the airbox (normally this is just to make the induction noise less).

We travelled down to Ales on Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning we arrived at the circuit at 8:00am. The circuit is hideen away in the hills but they still have a maximum noise limit on weekends of 95db. Each bike is tested, the 4 strokes get tested at 4k rpm, but they tested me (the only 2 stroke) at 7K, and of course I failed with a reading of 100db. However the guy didn't send me home, and I was aloowed to run with the condition that if he thought I was making too much noise, we would pull me off the circuit! When I heard some of the other bikes I knew I would be safe for the day! I think some of the guys put a removable baffle in for the test and then remove it to run - needles to say I was not the most noisy bike.

The bike was not pulling too well in the first seance, but as I was (kinda) running in a new piston I wasn't too bothered. But we did reduce main jets for the second run. I had reserved "racers" category (they have beginners, confirmed and racers) which was great because there was not many guys, and they were all experienced enough to not cause any problems.

The circuit was nice, but the surface was a bit lumpy especially around some of the bends, the first run was with a wet track, and the second run was with a drying track, and the bike still not really pulling well.

At lunch time we reduced the jet size again, and I was looking to reprogram my ignition and power valve, when we noticed that the powervalve was not opening properly, and it was not working well, when we plugged in the controller to test the powervalve, it came up with an error..... Perhaps this was why the bike was not pulling if the valve wasn't opening the performance would be really off.

Then followed some panic troubleshooting, as the bike would no longer start and the spark was not happening - hmmm I seem to remember this from somewhere....

My chief mechanic (Libby) was convinced that we should look at the carbs as this was the only thing we had touched, and duly instructed I just swapped the carbs out to my old ones as they were in a working configuration (from Carole).

I was convinced that this problem was exactly the same as I had had at Carole! (2 races back), because the powervalve was not working we disconnected it, and we could get a spark, however although the bike would start, it was popping and backfiring at low revs.

During lunch the weather had turned much worse and the wind and rain started to head in, I did however manage to go out for a couple of laps with the bike popping and farting, but with the powervalve fully open. I came in as I was going nowhere quickly the bike wasn't pulling at all!

The heavens opened and the rain fell! More and more people were calling it a day, and after a last ditch attempt at changing the stator (yes again!), we no longer could get a spark, and we decided it was time to go ourselves.

Olly and I put our wet weather gear on while Libby stood in the trailer, I have not seen such torrential rain as that in a long time. By the time we were packed up, nearly everybody was in the process of leaving, and by 16:00 we were on the road. As we passed over many river crossings we could see the water up really high, and flooding had started in some places. On the motorway everyone was driving at 90kph, and luckily we had no incidents going home.

The bike will need troubleshooting at home, but I am getting really pissed off with these electrics issues!!