building a drag bike

Took my head to a buddies shop and his extractor grabbed good on the spark plug but it wouldn’t move. So we had to drill what was left of the plug out. We got it pretty thin and then hug it with a tap and chunks of the old plug came out. New spark plug went in fine and torqued fine. So happy it wasn’t a major repair. Waiting on a head gasket now. Once the motor is in the bike and it runs again. I will order the go fast parts. Just trying to decide if I need a double or triple adjustable shock.

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I got the bike running now and started cleaning up a lot of my last minute wire jobs. I mounted the new nitrous set up and wired it up with the power commander. So I can run 2 stages and the pc 5 will change maps when the 2nd kit come on. Going to start small and make sure everything works right. Plan is to spray 80 shot on the spray bay and fog the air box with another 60. Have a Penske double adjustable drag shock coming. Shooting for low 5s with my hand clutch set up. Waiting for this Coronavirus hype to pass then I will order the hand slider clutch.

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Well I went full slick and hand slider. It was a little rough start making the switch to slider. I made about 3 passes at the track today and it was interesting. Hahaha. First pass out of instinct I started to slowly let the lever out on the 2 step and off I went. Next pass I didn’t make that mistake and the bike went 1.5x 60 foot. I think the 2 step might of been to low cause the video showed the bike move a foot then squat and take off. Next pass I upped the 2 step to 6000 rpms from 5000. The bike made a 1.44 60 foot but it launches hard and not smooth. Dennis has helped me a lot and gave me pointers. Going to change the tune up in the clutch and try again. Hopefully I can get more passes in next track event.

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Made it to a test and tune last night. Got a couple runs in and had a small problem but got great results. Wish I could of focus more on the bike and not rush but weather was playing a factor in my amount of runs last night. I changed the tune up in my hand slider and lowered my 2 step down to 5500 rpm which more like 5800 5900 rpm looking at the logs. 1 st pass was good and smooth with a 1.410 60 foot and ran my fastest time in the 1/8 on motor. After that pass I turned the nitrous on. Fogging the air box with a 20 shot turning on at 7000 rpms out of the hole. I also had the 2 kit set up to turn on 3 seconds into the run to see if it worked correctly. It 1.357 60 foot and felt great but the 2nd kit never turned on cause I messed up the settings on the controller. I did some trouble shooting and fixed that problem. Made 2 more passes bike 60 footed 1.35x and 1.36x but wouldn’t shift. I figured out the shifting problem and made one last run of the night. 1.365 60 foot and the 2nd kit came on for a split second then shut off and then back on a second later. So times weren’t the best but happy to see I’m going in the right direction. Next time out I’m going to lower the 2 step to 5250 rpm and turn the nitrous on at 6000 rpm and take some fuel out. Right now on the 20 shoot it’s around 11.5 afr. Would like to get it closer to 12 afr. When the 2 kit came on it was 10.0 afr cause I added more fuel for the 20 shot that was on top of the 2nd kit. So pulling fuel out on that map too. The next couple times I go out I hope to get it more dialed in. By the end of the year I would like to be 5.0 in the 1/8.
The last picture is of the log from the nitrous run. Looks like the clutch holds at 8,400 rpm. When it’s all motor it’s a smooth incline but on the nitrous it holds the rpm then Goes up.

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Sounds like you need to work on fueling some more. Sometimes they don't shift if they are pig-rich which could have been part of your problem. The RPM curve looks pretty good other than that dip right before the bike catches up to the clutch. Looks like it was starting to go fat there. You are making good progress. One step at a time.
 
Sounds like you need to work on fueling some more. Sometimes they don't shift if they are pig-rich which could have been part of your problem. The RPM curve looks pretty good other than that dip right before the bike catches up to the clutch. Looks like it was starting to go fat there. You are making good progress. One step at a time.

the nitrous map that I made was a little to fat for the 20 shot. I made a couple more maps last night that will try this Sunday. Very happy I’m going in the right direction.
 
Figuring out hand slider is so hard for me. That and suspension are my nemesis. Just like anything else prolly when you get it you got it down but its frustrating getting there. I had that spark plug issue with a head on a 1441 of mine. We ended up having to tap it and green Loctite an insert. Works great. I am lucky I have a local machine shop guy that is awesome to me. I don't however have a Dennis to help me and a lot of my time at the track is leaving with a frown. People do give me a little help but not many are going to share that one thing they know is going wrong that is holding you back. Hooking up those cameras like Tom "Itsdoomz" does would have really let me know i was squatting too hard this whole time. I overlooked it and wasted a lot and chased my tail for a long time while other problems popped up. Just makes sense, shock bottoms, energy goes into upsetting the suspension and you spin. No gear swaps, changes to clutch static, any hail Mary is going to stop that and I didn't even realize it. Learn as we go.
 
This past weekend a local track had a no prep event with a bike class. Made a couple test passes to try a couple things out. No improvement in the 60 foot but bike was getting better. Trying to fine tune the afr more. I did win the bike class of $410 dollars. Bike was feeling pretty good but has much room for improvement. I will post some videos up this week. Going to change the gearing on the bike to see if that helps my 60 foot more. As I added more nitrous and it was on the back tire 30 feet out.
 
update. I went to the track a couple times and it’s been a struggle. The one time I went I changed my gearing from 18 48 to 17 48 that was to much so I went down 1 tooth in the rear. I was having to do all sorts of ramping of the nitrous and fought wheelies all day it seemed like. Best 60 foot that day was a 1.323. Yesterday I went back to the track with the 18 48 to see if I could improve with that gearing. I did raise the center of the bike so my swing arm wouldn’t be sloping down goes towards the front of the bike. Right off the trailer I sprayed a 25 shot out of the hole and ramped in the 2 Nd kit 85 shot. Bike wheelied so I ramped the 1st kit down and still wheelied. So made another adjustment to the 1st kit. Ramping it 100% from the start down to 70% .5 seconds in. Bike didn’t wheelie and the 2nd kit had a 2 second ramp in. The bike made a good pass and didn’t wheelie. But the 60 foots were still in the 1.34x to 1.35x range. No that I had the 1 st kit working and no wheelie I started to bring the 2nd kit in earlier and faster ramp. I managed to get the 2kit to come on before the 60 foot and 1 sec ramp in but I didn’t see no improvement in my times. I got the turn dam near perfect in every gear. I did make one other change before going to the track I set the power commander up for tune by gear. So now I have more control of my tune in every gear. So I could adjust timing in every gear. I really hoped that would help but I didn’t see anything from it either. I did try one thing at the end of the night. I added 2 small washers to 1st stage on the clutch. Was interesting. Bike slowed down to a 1.370 and 1.378 60 foot. I’m going to try a different gearing next time and take some weight out of the 1st stage of the clutch. See if that helps. Trying to get my buddies nx Maximizer 5 nitrous controller. That will give me a lot more control of the ramping in of the nitrous. I will put that on before going next time. Would love to see the bike run 1.2x 60 foot and 4s in the 8th this year. Side note I did bump the 2nd kit up from a 85 shot to 105 and didn’t see any improvement of et or mph. I haven checked my air gap and hasn’t changed at all with the 30ish passes on it. Air gap is .047 right now.

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LOL almost as consistent in the 1/4 letting off as the 1/8. Keep playing with things and you will find what it wants.

Lol ain’t that the truth. Going to figure out how to make this new nitrous controller work the way I need it to. It has a time base option just need to figure out how to get it to work when I let the clutch out. I don’t know if the rpm will trigger it to start its ramp in. Or it need something else to start it. Totally new system to learn. Hope this and new gear change will do the trick.
 
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I installed the new nitrous controller and love it so far. Wish I would of bought something like this a long time ago but the nos mini worked great for what I used it for. I think I figured out how to get it to work. Both stages will be ran timed base. I made up a map that I hope will work off the trailer. Looking at my data log my bike takes .5 seconds to move once it hits 6000 rpms. The way I have it set up now it will start spraying the 1st kit at 6k and ramp down after that 1 sec to 70%. The 2nd kit will come on at 1.5 seconds into the pass and will ramp for 1.75 seconds. Looking over my old passes I was spraying the 2nd kit just before the 60 foot. I ordered a nitrous y fitting to help the nitrous flow to the 2 solenoids. Plan to go to the track next Wednesday and hope for a 1.2x 60 foot and 5.1x on my current nitrous jetting. Once I get it dialed in hopefully I can start to turn it up. Goal is to get a 4 second pass this year.

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