Up and running dandily now, tuned a couple of sleds perfectly over the 1/16 and 1/17 weekend. All is good now...

1/18 NY Speed Paul Mouyos with a couple of big Cats including one XFire 10000 that has been driving us nuts like Rich Hoag's F1000 Firecat. Intermittent cylinder dropping from one side to the other, Ex valves failing to open etc. We'll try again.

1/19 Mike Lochiavo Polaris 800/ Rush chassis tuning.

1/20 Sled Shop Mike Polaris 800/ Rush chassis tuning.


1/25 Don Plowman Monster Cat twin with even more monster NANO nitrous

 
1/26 Al Miller Yammi triple with Nitrous oxide, no constant pressure, hope for the best

1/27 Todd Parsons from Newfoundland, FPP Apex trail turbo

1/28 NY Speed Paul one more time with a troublesome cat

1/29 Scotty Williams F7 trail tuning

1/30 Scott and Darrin from Pickwicks motorsports Pol triple

1/31

2/1 Bil Swoyer hill drag sled tuning 800 Crankshop twin

2/4 Jason Owens 600 cat and 600 skidoo twin trail mod sleds

2/5 Paul Mouyos back again with the F7/F1200, solid mounted but smooth all things considered. Still dropping a cylinder, injector failure from one side to the other just Like Rich Hoag's sled.

2/8 Don Prince ZR880 Boondocker tune

2/9 Jeff Stinson, ISF7cat, Ken Aldrith PS600 SkiDoo triple, Full Power Apex turbo

2/12 Hindle exhaust, private test of headers/ mufflers on Yam Nytro

2/13 XF1200, Power Commander 5 fuel tuning

2/14 Koz Bros tuning a hillcross mod
 
2/15 Hill Billy Howard, Etec800 and Hindle header test on 4Tek

2/17 /kevin Barnes HTG F7/800 boondocker tune

2/17 Trucks-R-Us John Wilbur HTG F1000 firecat boondocker tune

2/20 Ed & Hunter Nelson, Cat SnoPro600 w/ throttle stop carb tuning

2/24 518ers Todd and Tommy tweaking XP800R lakeracer w/ Crankshop twins

2/24 518er Bill L tuning SS500 stocker















 

It often pays to be cordial with the people one does business with. I have a 22 year old SuperFlow dyno that occasionally has understandable issues both mechanical and computer related that causes testing/ tuning to cease.

So last week, when my dyno had issues that prevented it's use as a tuning tool, I sent every circuit board and the torque strain gauge back to SuperFlow to fix. This is critical now, to let me get back on track with the stream of sled guys that, for three winter months, allow me to make 12 mortgage payments on this facility.

SuperFlow has only one poor bastard that has to fix everyone's temporary dyno issues, including mine. Right now they are backed up rectifying issues with SF dyno testers way more important than sled tuner DT Jim (ie Hendricks Racing and Jack Roush Racing who each has 20 SuperFlow dynos) who need maintenance on their equipment.

So because I'm an old pal of the SF people and deal with them in a friendly, not screaming and hollering way, and the fact that they know how seasonal our testing is, they slid my ECU boards in ahead of the big buck people and fixed my problems, red labled back for tomorrow AM.

It will take me until late PM friday to make sure the dyno appears working again. Then I have a local sled guy who needs to tune--will use his engine to ensure proper operation.

So everyone who is backed up now will know by Sat PM if we are back on schedule.

And Rick Hendricks and Jack Roush may be miffed if they don't have their latest restrictor plate engine projects done before Daytona just so my snowmobile pals can get their sleds tuned on time.

Thank you SF tech people. Maybe I'm back on schedule. Everyone please call after Sat PM after I know all is well with the equipment. It pays to be liked by the people you do business with.

And Ross who drove 500 miles on Sunday to find out that my dyno was "broke" because I forgot to call him, $500 credit for the next time to, at least, cover his cost of traveling for naught.

 

This is the worst time of year for this to happen--cold air is here now, and this is when EFI tuners need to tune, and when lake racers with carbs like to tune!

Apparently a short in the airflow meter extension cord fried a small $1200 circuit board last week and lost my RPM and turbine signals. I bought a new $1200 board, installed that and got my tach and fuel and air meter readings back but now the torque zero'd out at 60 lb/ft and EGTs read 2050 degrees. So it appears that the fried $1200 board in turn fried something in a larger $4000 main control circuit board. So on Friday 1/8 I shipped three circuit boards from the dyno control console back to SuperFlow for repair, red label. I can't afford to be down, but I can't afford to just buy new circuit boards, either! Dyno testing with a modern instrumented facility is expensive, per hour of billed testing time. Dynamometer and driveshaft maintenance, continual software upgrades, snowplowing, energy expenses (heat, water and the cost of running our 7.5 HP air blower), and the brutal New York State school and property taxes equate to $65 per hour of billed testing time!

Enough whining--I tell everyone who listens that when I win the megamillions lottery I will begin doing this for everyone, for free! I feel just a touch of guilt charging people for doing something that is so enjoyable for me--helping people make their sleds run faster with more power! The bad news is statistics was my favorite subject at RIT business school 42 years ago, and subsequently I buy maybe three megamillions lotto tickets each year just for fun.  

With some luck, we will be running again late this week, so everyone who was scheduled this weekend and next week will be shoved back a week. I will use this downtime to catch up on DTR stuff to post on the subscribers' pages.