Step by Step

Finishing Liz's P200 is my first priority, and work continues to show progress. I believe I have remedied the fuel starvation issue, I also adjusted the ignition timing and used valve-grinding compound to correct a blow-by concern on the cylinder head. The bore and piston are in rough, but I believe usable, condition. If compression persists as a concern, we'll probably chip in the buck-oh-five for another cylinder and piston. The bike runs briefly then when throttle reduces to idle, stalls out. At this point, I believe the sparkplug is fouled from the excessive 2-stroke oil I used when refitting the cylinder after lapping the cylinder head. I'm hoping a good long ride will tidy things up, and produce Liz a runner. I still have doubts about fuel flow, though.

Even though I haven't been working on the furnace and custom cylinder, I'm thinking about it quite a bit. The furnace I plan on building will be a good bit better than my previous rigs, which were good for about 2-3 burns and then needed to be disposed and replaced. The set-up I used was a lot like This one, but I was using larger cans and a shop-vac for the blower. Here's an image of one of test test molds I did earlier this year in Ohio at a Cutters Shop Night. It's rough, but I'm fairly pleased how well it turned out, considering the casual way I made the model and the casual "eye-ball'd" method I used it melting and pouring the aluminum. It probably would have cast better, if I had used a larger crucible and coated the model with wax before investing it into plaster. You can tell from the picture the inconsistent surface texture, and shape isn't 'full'. Because I'm going to build up a more durable furnace for the custom cylinder pour, and because of everything I've learned up to this point, I'm considering attempting a short run of cylinders for machine that have none available. Or maybe manifolds?? Just a thought.

I thought I'd also share a sprocket I bodged together. I bought a 15T Puch sprocket, and a 22T Tomos sprocket. I chopped off the teeth of the puch sprocket and had Dave Force weld it up. Obviously this is a retardedly tall gear ratio. I worked on this earlier this year when I was hot to trot for the Decepticons' 'Race to End All Races' -essentially a 35 mile highway run from Kalamazoo to the Lake Superior coast. I figured I would want the longest legs I could possibly get, racing against a bunch of 80cc & variated bikes. I don't think I'll ever use it out here, as Seattle has these things called: 'Hills'. I never ran the race, due to not having a operable machine and not really being that pumped to go because of my lack of operable machine. Its a pretty common afflicition for me.