I received my DC1-11 from Borut (zeeltronic), and installed it today, and it works fine, it basically replaces the charging coils on the stator with some electronics taking power directly from the battery. I tried the bike up the road, and it was a little rich, so I went back down to 350 mains, which seemed to sound a lot crisper. The Yam will now go under the covers, and the RG500 is now in position to get worked on!
Next job will be removing the heads, barrels and valves from the bike to send them off for a tune!
Well I rewound the low rpm coil (3000 turns) of 0.14 diameter wire. The guys at the local winding shop lent me the complete reel of wire as they couldn't be bothered to run of 200 metres for me.
In the meantime I removed the head, and replaced the head gasket with a more recent one, but nothing untoward under the head - all OK.
Finally I replace the old stator with my rewound race stator (see pic) and low and behold it works fine. so I had troubleshot to the right component after all. All that bugggering about with the carbs and head etc... and it was the good old stator the whole time!
Anyway, my good friend Borut from Zeeltronic, has another technical trick up his sleeve. He produces a box that will convert the battery current to a sufficient level to feed the Capacitors, giving a flat steady current to the CDI, which he convinced me would be better than changing stators every other race, so I let myself be convinced, and I have one on order - I am really excited about this, because although it means I have to keep the battery it means I can use a significantly lightened flywheel and race stator (even without the CDI charging coils), and I will have great sparks!
So after testing, the bike is still not reving and it could be worse, so back to my old stator, which of course means I still have a problem.
After reading a couple of threads on a RD 350 forum, I was convinced that my problem must be coming from a broken reed valve, so I pulled the carbs and the Vforce reeds, but to no avale. Everything was Ok, and the pistons looked good from the carb side, so I am less and less convinced about a broken ring, or something.
next troubleshooting steps are to pull the head and see if I have a leaky head gasket, and find a decent stator (there are two on ebay this week). I have also unwound the "low rpm" coil, on the race stator, and I will re-wind that with new wire. For information there are 3211 windings on the coil, and the wire used is smaller than the other coil I rewound, so I will need to find a supplier! The average diameter of a winding is approx. 6.5 cms, so that gives a length of approx 201 metres!
Well, I got my high temperature tape, and fibre glass insulation from a Grenoble shop ISOVAC, enabling me to finish the stator, which I put on today. The bike started OK, but runs rough at low rpm aswell as high rpm, so I put back the original stator, and the bike started fine. I really can't tell just starting it in the garage if cleaning out the carbs (I did find some dirt in the power jets) which could correspond to a high rpm misfire, anyway the weather is so rough (pissing it down all week), I couldn't take it up the road so, I will have to see if something has miraculously fixed my problem....
I am going to replace the rear master cylinder on the RG500 with just a tube, basically just to make it a bit more racey, and because it will save some weight.
Over the winter break, I will be trying to fit the following in :-
Yam :- Fix it!
So far I have removed the carbs again, cleaned out the power jets, etc... removed Christian's Stator which is definately faulty (CDI coils out of spec.). I have also removed the petrol tap, and filler cap, and dismantled and cleaned everything. I am in the process of rewinding my old "race" stator by hand - having some difficulties here as I am not sure of the number of turns to do. When I removed the old winding I counted about 450, but some were damaged so I have gone for around 470 initially, the resistance is a wee bit high, and I am not sure of the consequences of this.... If my old physics lessons serve me well, then the Power = Resistance X current (squared), which means as I increase the resistance then for the same number of magnetic flux crossings I should produce more power! Now whether this is what cooked my stator in the past is the big question. Maybe I should take off some windings and create less power=heat.
Anyway the real blocking point at the moment is finding the "insulating tape" to cover the windings with - no-one seems to know where to get it (see photo). I think it is probably a glass fibre based tape (I found some on the 3m web site here :-
But I can't find a local stockists, so I might need to pay a visit back to the place that sold me the wire....
I need to head for the dealine of November 21/22 where Olly and I can go to Ledenon for some of the last training sessions of the year.
Suzuki RG500
So here's the list :-
Modify gearlever so it is more precise - I have too much lever to lift to engage gears. Dismantle clutch and see if I can do anything about the drag. Remove heads/Barrels/Pistons/Disk valves and send them to Bob Farnham in the UK for a tune. Fit ZXR750 radiator.
Back after the weekend in the South of France at the Nogaro circuit, which was one of the most famous courses in France some years ago, but recently it has seen less of the limelight.
We arrived after a night of deluge near Montpellier, which had apparently been the same at the circuit. We setup the gear in the huge Nogaro pit car park, in a zone specifically for the classic machines which is great as we are all together, and the atmosphere is better.
I hadn't touched the bike since the last race, as I had been on a business trip for 10 days, so I took out the plugs just to see what they ended up looking like after the last race. The rear plugs were slightly lighter than the fronts, but still fairly dark, so along with the consensus in the pits (hmmmm....) I decided to drop another size on my main jets - back down to 190's. The first practise was Friday evening at 17:00 - the bike ran great, I pumped the choke at the end of the long straight just to ensure the pistons were getting some cooling fuel, when the throttle is completely closed (heavy on the brakes).
The track was drying during the practise, but lap times were slow, due to relearning the circuit plus the various damp patches. I was fairly impressed with the Power One's no slipping at all.
I checked the plugs, and they were OK after the practise, however I am not sure how much this can be trusted as the track exit is about 500 metres of low idle speeds to get back to my trailer, anyway certainly no signs of detonation, and the bike was running well.
Saturday morning timed practise, was damp for the first couple of laps and then downpour for the rest. I stayed until the end, as I have little experience in the wet, and I really needed the track time. This was good because I slowly improved my lap times, which enabled me to get a 4th row start position for the race. My qualification time was 2:14, which is pretty slow, but as most had only done a couple of laps it was good enough!
Race 1, I was a bit stressed because I had some really torquey four strokes behind me, and the last thing I wanted was to have some big 4 strokes up my chuff, as my starts are crap, half due to me, and half I am sure, due to the binding clutch on the Suzuki. Anyway, I got a reasonable start for once, and with the bike running well, I was in a good position mid field. I overtook a couple of bikes, and I was catching a normally faster group, which I managed to attach myself to. I got past a Kawa ZXR750, and then was third in the group. On the last lap the guy in second, go past to go to the front (of the group), and then he really braked for a bend which brought us all close togther for the last bend of the circuit. I made a last second dive to overtake a VFR750, which suceeded but unfortunately didn't have the power to keep in front down towards the chequered flag! I finished around 11th in my category, well happy with my best time of 1:51:735.
Race 2, again from the 4th row, and a worse start this time around, but I managed to fend of the guys int eh first bend and maintained pretty much my position. A pretty lonely race this one, I was on my own from start to finish unable to better my position, although I did manage to improve (just) my lap times, and I am sure I was more consistently quick throughout the race. I managed a 1:51:691, which again I was happy with.
Still more effort required to get up with the front runners, but hey, everything takes time....
