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