11/1-2 Private session, DynoCams off
11/3 Allan Ulmer, Turbo Nytro, Nytro w/ replacement header and other bolt-ons with excellent PCIII tuning, made over 200 boosted HP on 87 octane w/ no signs of knock on deto-phones, the NA sled tweaked to 150hp with intake/ exhaust mods.

11/4-11/6 private session cams off
11/7 Dan Schuler, PS800 SkiDoo looking for more HP tried raising cylinders to increase port timing, lost HP, but created a good timing map with custom ignition
11/8 Dave Shoupe, HTG big bore fusion? Rescheduled from 11/1
11/9 private session cams off
11/12 private session cams off
11/13 Jeff Stinson trail mod F7.another perfect Boondocker tune, 13/1 up to 7200 valve opening then exactly flat 11.5/1 from 7201 to 8200.. PM Apex w/ Bender muffler PCIII found bigger HP with a combo of modded airbox and added fuel (a must) with PCIII
11/15  late AM Dave Shoupe HTG Fusion, new twin pipes tried a set of twin pipes with boondocker, made less HP, tried SLP pipe/ can but finally back to HTG single pipe and can for best TQ/HP
11/17 Greg Whitney (Nova Scotia) F7 w/ F1000 engine Madman Greg drove 1200 miles to get a perfect tune and bring me 12 Molson XXXs and get a perfect trail tune, beautiful installation, bone stock engine 190 plus with SW Ypipe, pipe, and can and 185 plus at ultra-safe 10.5/1 for upnord mystery pump gas..  PM Bill Swartz SDI600 mod Crankshop trail ported cylinders, CS single with stock muffler, boondocker tuned to 135 HP with no deto, all in a 440 snocross chassis...
11/18 CJ Motorsports, Full Power new production 4tek1200 stock baseline then install production turbo kit on the dyno, check fuel mgr calibration seemingly tighter stock muffler created deto on 87 that wasn't there on preproduction machine, so tuning tuning tuning finally have pump gas stage 1 and stage 2 packages 200-240 HP and race gas easily to 300 plus.
11/21 AM Joe Parfitt, Mach Z tuning  NX N2O learned something new today from Sled Shop Joe (Baldwinsville NY) like we do every day, those NX Y shaped nozzles are limited in N2O flow just like we sort of figured with Tony Koz' big Cat twin. Also Joe's MachZ may have been suffering from maladjusted exhaust valves, and that light pressure EFI pump with the wet system was creating severe on-button deto until pressure caught up with N2O, engine saved thanks to Sean Ray's detophones. But with Joe pushing the N2O button and swapping jets he's got a dandy lakeracer with 260 plus at .60 plus total BSFC (measured fuel flow from EFI plus fuel flow from wet system) the way we like it.
11/22 Ron Schantz and pals, two or three big Cat triples more Canadian madmen lakeracers with green thong underwear...learned lots today by swapping many sets of big cat triple pipes/  mufflers/ CDIs with three engines--- Ron was off 80HP on his sled because he was told to run 9200 when his HP really happened at 8500 Dont believe anyone, test your stuff on any instrumented dyno to be sure..

11/24 AM Mike Brisbane, F7/8 BMP with N2O, mike wanted pump gas power with an extra shot of pump gas nitrous, but we tweaked and tuned on his NA baseline but the detophones were warning of nasty midrange deto even with normally safe fuel flow and A/F ratio, it was rattling the detometer so hard NA I advised leaving the N2O for another day...he must check installed uncorrected compression ratio. N2O and big HP on pump gas is difficult, and if were clicking NA we must change something before we destroy parts.
11/25 private session all day, cams off
11/28 Jason Pigeon F7 mod Cat radar runner, deeder cancelled, maybe another mystery cat coming in PM...Jason was fibbing, actually F8 tuning for radar running with D&D Monster Single jacked timing and fuel flow with High RPM D&D Boondocker to over 180 HP.
11/29 Brett Smith, CS 1140 twin built by Carl's
11/30 Damon MacArthur troublesome SS900 Cat

10/1 AM Casey Mulkin production 09 dragon 800, pipe mods, SLP single, etc my brain is shot after 12 hours of testing changing swapping stuff. This is a hugely powerful engine, but it has been detonating easily, and when it does the ECM seems to overcompensate. Casey's sled baselined at 145, leaned out with Power Commander to 152ish but on the edge of rattling the ECU to big retard. Polaris technical people are flying in tomorrow, cams off, I need to show them what is happening here, maybe changes are in store...
10/2 Casey day 2--another 12 hour session, this one much more enjoyable, excellent technical support provided by Darren Hedlund of Polaris Engineering,  finally were able to increase HP knock-free by operating at slightly lower coolant temps (increased airflow and reduced active radicals), monitored pipe backpressure, with what appeared to be real 93 octane gas (we were surely boned yesterday by rattling fake 93 Sunoco)...we tuned fuel down to 153hp with Power Commander, then were able to add custom exhaust parts and further fuel tuning to over 162HP, limited there by the octane of the fuel. 50 plus dyno tests to review with Casey, will try to compile that information this weekend, including four single pipes and the actual PCIII numbers we used to optimize fuel flow for each combination.

10/3 10am Nat'l flat track Champ Austin Lusczak, dynotesting new custom DynoPort down pipe on his 250 flattrack bike. the new DP pipe added 10% hp with  broad HP curve, trying to get all these flattrackers to datalog their on-track RPM w/ digatron, so they can adjust gearing to allow engine to operate in the largest pile of HP.

10/3 Friday night...Just taking a break from six hours of data assessment, graphing results. Will have extremely detailed, technical report on the Dragon 800 done by this weekend on the website. You guys who didnt get instant access codes please check your spam blockers because the computer generated access codes appear like viagra ads (I don't block those ads myself, always looking for the best deal). If you cant find it there please call me 585-993-2777 I can look it up on the database.

Not being defensive or patronizing, this final production 800 Dragon is now coming out of the crate properly calibrated for that awful midwest gas w/ 10% ethanol. 110 lb/hr is what it will take for any pea-brain to take this sled WOT for 20 miles or until the belt blows, or the tank goes dry, whichever comes first. That's what mfgrs must deal with. You poor bastards who drive normally, on normal 5% ethanol gas are paying for that. But for a few bucks you can have perhaps the world's most powerful bone stock 800 twin w/ single pipe on pump gas, based upon my testing of this other 800 engines with relatively cheap bolt-on stuff.  

So I think maybe the engineering guys decided to make the sled midwest peabrain-safe, while the marketing guys were going to press with a 154HP calibration that most of us could ride to Alaska on. And surely the engine dyno'd by SLP could have made 154 CHP at their altitude with a non-peabrain calibration, so we can assume that that's what they tested over a year ago if Polaris gave that to them.

I spoke at length to my savvy friends Sean Ray, Joe DiSpirito, and Bill Davis about we encountered on Day One with the production Dragon 800. We discussed things we have learned from Kevin Cameron in the archives of DTR over 20 years. You can't cheat mother nature, and this is a prime example!

Yes it was helpful and useful for us to have Polaris engineering assistance in dialing in this bone stocker with the aftermarket stuff we had to tune and test that day. I personally learn something every day I test, and this was no exception. Just when I began to think my brain was chock full of important information, I found room for more! The good thing about a very full old brain is, I can still recall the CFM and HP of a 1984 Phazer with Boyesen 402R reed petals (that I developed for them). So new meaningful technical information comes along and fortunately, it displaces the memory of what I had for breakfast yesterday morning instead of the airflow CFM of my old Phazer.
 


10/6 AM BMP F7 800 big bore, boondocker tuning
10/7 AM Tripod Dan and Danno, back with PS800, got rid of the solid mounts, trying to fix carburetion issues with rubber. rubber mounts smoothed out that awful fuel flow made more HP than before after raising cylinders and adding compression-great peak HP 235 but a tiny pimple of a HP curve, poor midrange, will be good to see if Tripod can hit the clutching on this setup...

10/11 finally finshed Carl McQuillen's cherry GS1100.

10/12 Dan Schuler, another PS800 tuning MSD Sunday AM solid mount skidoo triple had buzzing carbs, aggravated by K&N filters that were jammed tight against chassis, fuel flow was corrected with 15psi fuel pressure plus removing the filters. Dan is going to use soft foam filters and a Holley blue pump w/ 15psi.
10/21 Ernie Pivetta, ApexSC w/ PCIII, Rob Lower Sherlock F7/8 trail sled w/ Boondocker N2O Ernie's low boost SC was tuned w/ PCIII using map sensor, spent time mapping fuel flow in midrange for good mileage, made 186 HP on pump gas and 190 with timing tweaked with PCIII. Rob's 800 was a little low on HP, maybe his head was wrong compression (Sherlock only did cylinders, someone else did the head), made 160 on pump gas w/ single pipe then made 166 w/ D&D F7 Lite pipe that was hanging on the pipe rack, then added 40 HP with Boondocker N2O.
10/23 Mike Koz & Jeff Sherlock trying to twist my large driveshaft. Jeff was smart and stayed home, twin Koz' Tony and Mike brought this F1000/ 1200 HTG big bore looking for 300 with NX fogger N2O. Problem one was motor only with D&D big bore twins the engine hit the rev limiter before reaching the HP peak 218 @8000 and climbing--and N2O would surely make this even worse! Since we had 10/24 open we stopped and ordered a BMP big bore single pipe to pull revs down, next day air using Michael's credit card. Day 2 Michael went deer hunting and sent Tony to finish the session, Tony pulled the twin pipes, installed a D&D 1200 Ypipe I had on the shelf and waited for FedEx to bring the BMP pipe. While waiting, I made Tony's jaw drop when I demonstrated how to manipulate the 218 HP dyno run still on the computer to show 251 w/ a few computer clicks to change vapor pressure from .30 to 2.30 in hg. Then of course I corrected the vapor pressure back to .30 in hg. The pipe showed up at noon, and as we hoped it peaked 208hp at 7300 then tailed off gradually, perfect for N2O. Now shooting N2O with Tony operating the button and me wearing the deto-earphones, we brought the fuel flow up to 180 lb/hr with 120 lb/hr from EFI and 60 lb/hr with two .036 N2O fogger nozzles (the dyno measures and records those separately). Then working our way up with N2O we spent four hours trying to get enough N2O flow to burn the 180 lb/hr of fuel. Bottle pressure was 5-600 psi and I was trying to convince Tony to tune it with that pressure instead of 1000 to make winter lake racing easier. Once we got up to 260 HP we picked up a sputter which was cured by pulling all four plugs and gapping them at .020". We went all the way to .053 N2O pills and were stuck at 260 but running clean. We pulled the flywheel and found a stock key (which make the timing effectively retarded from stock with the bigger bore), and installed a 2.5 deg key. HP went to 280 but just flatlined there. By now it was 6pm, I was getting mentally whipped and this was one of those times when just tweaking that vapor pressure to 1.30 in hg would have been almost justifiable to get Koz his 300 HP dyno sheet and send him home. But an extra inch of vapor pressure would not make the sled run like 300 HP. So we kept going. Tony had been eying the Mapp gas self-igniting torch I use for killing houseflies in the control room, wanting to heat the bottle which I hate and don't allow (the aluminum alloy can lose much of it's strength if it's heated above 500 degrees F) in the dyno room. So to compromise, I heated the cylinder with hot water in the bathroom sink, and raised bottle pressure to 800 psi. At the same time, we dropped N2O pill size substantially. Now we made 290 plus for two runs, but BSFC was still safe so Tony went up a few more thou on N2O pill size and we made 303 HP at .60 plus lb/hphr at 7700 RPM (with .30 in hg vapor pressure!). Finally. But I'm still surprised that with 5-600 psi N2O pressure we couldn't make over 30 HP per fogger nozzle (with the extra timing the BMP pipe netted us 220 HP). It took 800 psi to get the 40 HP per nozzle (80 HP total). Also Tony when you read this I think you accidentally made off with my Boondocker 9v battery jumper that I need back. I'll trade you for that sack of tools you left on the desk. ANYONE WHO THINKS I GAVE TONY PRETEND HP WITH EXTRA VAPOR PRESSURE CAN PURCHASE TONY'S COMPLETE 303 CHP SF DATAFILE VIA EMAIL FOR $20--THAT SHOWS during every second of that test EVERY FAKE-OUT PARAMETER THAT DYNO FIBBERS MIGHT ALTER: [correction factor %, vapor pressure, air temp, baro pressure, engine displacement]. HP must be earned here, and Tony Koz' session was no exception.         
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10/25 John Schwartz F1000 trail sled Sat AM Boondocker tuning John and his pal Snappy Dave are charter DTR subscribers, and this was a quick boondocker tune to get perfect 11.9/1 from valve opening to rev limiter, we monitored coolant and pipe temp with Cat EFI diagnostic software, made 185 with just BMP pipe mod and Y pipe.

10/27 I have to go for my annual prostate exam. Trying to get Tripod Dan come along to hold my hand. Dan came along, but he only laughed at me when I complained about the doctor having both hands on my shoulders during the exam which took way too long...

 10/28 Mike Martin Nytro SC set up by Woody, also a Dragon 800 set up by Bill Lutz w/ Boondocker and BMP pipe mod Mike remember to bring your Boondocker 9v battery jumper since I think Tony Koz has mine...Mike's Nytro SC made 211 HP on pump gas, but was running out of fuel pump or injector size at about 190 actual HP where it would suddenly begin to go lean, from 11/1 at 190 HP to 13.5/1 at 205 (as revs climbed from 8500 to 9000). Mike has purchased an upgrade kit from Mtn Perf and is coming back to verify that he can have 11/1 to 200 and beyond...Mike's Dragon 800 is a Switchback, that mysteriously made 153 HP with a lean and mean 95 lb/hr, 15 lb/hr less than our previous SP's!!?? Adding a BMP pipe mod required extra midrange and top end fuel to run w/o deto and make 156-7 HP. After initially thinking the SB's have leaner maps than SPs, now we're surmising a TPS set out of whack causing lean and powerful WOT but too-lean midrange, hoping that Mike can bring that one back again for us to test TPS.    
 
10/29 Ed Frellick Mach Z twin pipes, Boss Noss fuel controller and N2O system. bone stock w/ just the twin pipes, Ed made 187 HP a bit on the lean side, and that was cured easily by a few clicks on the fuel controller (those work well on EFI sleds that don't need fuel flow reduced). Then we added another 40 HP with the Boss Noss EFI N2O system, again an easy tuneup.

10/31 John Ransford, F7 w/ aaen port job, aaen pipe mod, Boondocker tuning John was late for his 8am session, because while driving the night before from Albany his new Tundra took a head-on hit from a loose wheel from a honda in the other lane, wiping out the front end of his truck. After getting a rental vehicle we were able to finally do the Boondocker tune, made 153-156 HP with added fuel and no key, so that partially made up for his bad trip here.

10/31 noon- 11/2 pm private session, DynoCams off

Carl McQuillen Racing Engines in LeRoy, NY has remanufactured two circa 1906 Curtiss OXX6 V8 airplane engines which lifted off Keuka Lake in Hammondsport, N.Y. in a replicated Curtiss America 1913 seaplane. www.seaplanehomecoming.org is where you can see this amazing thing. Carl is an aviation aficionado and somehow the Curtiss Museum found him and his capabilities. They had two right hand rotation surplus OXX6 V8 engines that needed to be rebuilt, with one converted to left hand rotation to drive the other propeller. Instead of simply rebuilding, Carl redesigned the nearly century old engine with some modern technology (pistons, camshafts, valves, magnetos, etc) and instead of 80 HP as dyno tested in 1906 (and in 2006 on Carl's dyno) the rejuvinated OXX6 engines now make 140 HP, both right and left hand rotation! It was delightful to watch this project unfold, using modern-looking but century-old cast aluminum engine blocks and billet crankshafts machined in 1906 on manual lathes driven by flapping leather belts.

22 years ago, then young Carl McQuillen accompanied me to SuperFlow headquarters in CO Springs to help me assess this new computerized dyno testing equipment I saw in some Hot Rod magazine. Carl was just then beginning his engine building business, had his own dyno, and did performance stuff for street/ strip dragracers. He convinced me it was wise to borrow $50,000 for this then-new dynamometer technology "if I wanted to do it right" so I could spend another $50,000 adapting it, and creating this test cell to dyno test snowmobile and motorcycle engines. As young people are apt to type, online, "WTF?". But here we are.

Carl was helpful to me while I created this fixture/ facility for testing and tuning. When I began testing things and learning, Carl was one of many who helped me understand what was happening that had bewildered me. If you look back in the DTR archives--Volume 1 #4 Carl McQuillen explained for us, in understandable terms, why Breck Norton's "Extrudehoned" 650 Wildcat engine failed to make added HP even though airflow CFM was marginally higher.

Since then Carl McQuillen Racing Engines has invested in many bucks worth of equipment including CNC machining and EDM equipment, several new fully instrumented dyno cels, and is capable of creating intricate, useful things out of huge hunks of metal. This OXX6 engine project is a great example of that capability. Here is a good Utube video, showing the green-shirted plane builders beckoning Carl to be in the the photo-op before the flight. White-shirted Carl did wade into the picture, and surely if the plane flew Carl would get his own green shirt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMMAmTLUaTI

9/2/08 Honda VTX1800 with straight pipes, Edelbrock N2O and Power Commander street/ drag bike w/ 2.5 lb bottle bolted to sissy bar, 90 DJHP on motor, 148 with n2o, but recommended fuel/ n2o jet stagger is for carbs, not EFI...with n2o injection airflow through the carb/ throttle body drops (cylinder is partially filled by the n2o system)...so with a carbureted engine, airflow drops and fuel flow drops but with EFI engines like this VTX the airflow drops but fuel flow stays constant so we needed way less fuel from the n2o system meaning a backwards pill stagger was optimal. We tweaked the n2o system fuel down a bit, evened up pill sizes, added 4 hp to152 but still 10.8/1 wideband reading meant we could have dropped fuel pill way lower than n2o pill size. But since this bike is run only on 93 [sometimes 87 when he gets boned at the pump] we left it at 10.8/1
9/3/08 KTM SuperDuke 990 twin this fellow bought this bike used, was concerned that the original owner hadn't done proper breakin and perhaps HP was low? I tried to allay those concerns describing to him the times we've done factory recommended dyno breakin on nickasil engines with no change in leakdown, blowby or HP...I believe they are ready to rumble out of the crate...as I predicted, HP was perfect, 104 DJRWHP.
          05 bone stock F7 carbureted. this was the first bone stock 05 carbed F7 engine, turned out to be way, way better than the 03/04s, only needed jetting and two degrees of timing to be 140 plus (remember the 04 stock carbed F7 needed 9 degrees of added timing and John T Cowie's airbox mod to make good HP).
9/4/08 YZ85 Yamaha flat track bike, carburetion and timing tweaking for max HP I enjoy tuning these on the CycleDyn eddy current roller dyno--easy to hook up and easy to max out HP--this one was typical getting jetting absolutely perfect and then rolling timing about, 1/16th of an inch at a time, to create the best midrange and peak HP without excessive drop past the peak. Net gain was only 2 HP but that equates to 10% HP increase. It's all relative. I have several young racers who are national champions in 125 and 250cc class.
          Tripod Dan, HTG Polaris PS800 triple, DynoPort pipes
9/5    Another flattracker, Yamaha 450cc 4stroke on the Cycledyne roller dyno picked up 8% more HP by jetting perfectly for max HP.

9/6 Sean Ray, PS1000 twin cameras off

9/8 Hayabusa dragbike, 1460 big bore, FBG ported cylinder, built by Sunnyside, Power Commander tuning. complete remap, starting from scratch since no PC download maps are available, spent 3 hours mostly midrange tuning, now it's close enough for a dragbike. 180 DJRWHP on pump gas, 11/1 to stay safe.
9/9 Tripod Dan & Dan, PS800 setting up for Holley drags Dan and Dan had good dyno luck converting their HTG1200 from, rubber to solid mounts for 1/4 mile asphalt--fuel flow was smooth and even, tuning the lectrons was predictable. So when they put this prostack dragracer together, they tried solid motor mounts, this time with awful results...fuel flow lb/hr is all over the place, adjusting the lectron power jets is confusing--open the power jets and EGTs climb, close the jets and EGTs drop??!!we're figuring that opening the power jets causes float bowl level to drop, since the milkshake-like emulsion in the bowls prevents the fuel pump from keeping up, and causing mixture to lean out as level drops, but if the dyno run is too long then HP drops.Once again, tie wrapping my five pound crowbar to the three lectron carbs cured the problem. With the added mass fuel flow smoothed out reasonably so we could adjust jetting, and fuel flow and EGTs responded appropriately. Since this engine is for five second runs, Dan and Dan will try to run the sled as is this weekend, 220 HP if there is fuel in the float bowls.
9/11 tripod Dan & Dan, one more grass drag sled a PS1000. Another solid mount engine. Hoping for smooth fuel flow. this one had horrible fuel flow, and inconsistent dyno numbers, varying wildly as float bowl levels changed from cylinder to cylinder, open up power jets fuel flow dropped, close them down fuel flow increased, then we discovered crank PTO TIR .005" causing added vibes to goof up carburetion...stock rubber mounts usually cover up this sort of problem, but solid mount engines must have the most perfect balance to allow carbs to deliver proper fuel flow...back to Clark Spreigel for a new pto end and we'll try again...

9/12 or later Casey Mulkin with his new Dragon 800. 1000's of people are waiting for this one. 9/25 thursday

9/15 two F7 Improved stockers, cams off both D&D mods, both 180 plus with perfect max HP boondockering

9/19 Sean Ray PS1000 twin on engine plate cams off

9/20 Suzuki EFI quad, tuning Power Commander on the 901 shaft dyno. will have to reshedule because the quad arrived for tuning Sat AM, the splined dyno adaptor would not fit the frame, I have to fabricate a smaller one, maybe next Saturday

9/21 Justin Fuller and Todd Parson (driving here from Newfoundland) trying for big RX1 turbo HP for dragracing on some hill, maybe trying to take Glenn Hall/ D&D HP record? Justin has the sled, rebuilding engine, rescheduled to Monday AM then rescheduled again for Tuesday 9/23, ...fell well short of D&D record,  400 plus and probably more HP than he needs, but Justin is doing some reconfiguring, no problem with engine, perhaps needs some component alterations to hit 500 plus real HP...

9/25 Mel Severance/ Randy Cramer HTG660 Fusion Polaris twin trail mod w/ truckload of pipes after tuning, more HP than a dragon 800 stocker, single pipe with stock heat shield and stock muffler.

9/26 Casey Mulkin new production Dragon 800 w/ all those single pipes to test along with Power Commander fuel controller. still no sign of the trailer with 14 dragon 800s on it--Casey found it today, still sitting at the factory waiting for a tractor to pull the load to Jamestown, NY. Looks like next week.

9/30 Casey's been promised delivery by 9/29 so we're hoping for Tuesday...had Dr visit tuesday so now Wednesday 10/1