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Stafford Again
Late
April and it's Stafford again. The International Classic Bike Show seems to
get a little bigger every year. I had planned on meeting up for the club run
from Sandbach services at 9:30 prompt. But on the day, I wimped out, and went
in the car. I wasn't alone.
I did at least have a few good excuses lined
up....
1) It was pissing down,
2) I hoped to buy a few spares that would be too big to carry home on the bike,
and
3) The nagging pain in my shoulder turned out to be a torn tendon.
I arrived early, but still
had to queue to get in the carpark, then queue again to get in the place. It
was cold, wet and windy, so I didn't linger at the outside stalls, though I
noticed that Sportster Motorcycles of Chester had a good selection of Harley
bits on offer. But £5000 for a bitsa Shovelhead seemed a bit steep. Once in
the main hall, I had a quick tour of all the club stands. But to be honest,
once you've seen one immaculate Gold Star, you've seen them all. I did notice
that the nicely restored Ducati Hailwood Replica that won a prize last year
was back again. It clearly hadn't been ridden in the last year, which made me
feel a bit better about the similar bike that has been sitting in my lounge
for the last three years.
I had a few things to buy, including
a pot of special white pinstriping paint for Chris W. Mission accomplished
(that's £9 you owe me Chris), it was on to the outer halls where the more interesting
trade stalls are often located. Sure enough in one of the distant halls (more
a big shed really), I found a huge stall selling a vast quantity of Harley parts,
including a fair bit of Euro exotica, turns out the stallholders were from Germany.
Unfortunately, they couldn't take credit cards here in England, only cash, otherwise,
I could have spent thousands. For example, they had at least half a dozen pairs
of Fat Boy wheels, which were going for £150 each, or £250 a pair. Stuart you
should've been there. It was here I found Eddy, who had also wisely come in
his van. The last I saw of him, he was clutching a set of leather panniers for
the trip to Brussels, a bargain at £20.
I picked up a few more old 70's bike magazines for
my collection, but drew the line at paying £15 for one issue of a Japanese Harley
magazine I'd heard of, called Vibes. Couldn't understand a word of course, but
the pictures were fantastic. I did splash out on a book I'd wanted for a while,
which at half price, more than covered the £7 entry ticket. One club stand that
did catch my eye, was for the recently formed Triton Owners club, which had
some beautifully finished café racers on show. Wouldn't mind building one someday,
be a lot cheaper than a Harley custom, that's for sure.
By now I was getting a bit footsore, but pressing
on I found pure gold on a small stand tucked away at the back of the show. A
gen-u-wine SFC endurance racing exhaust system, which would go straight on my
Laverda 120 Formula Jota. It had a few dents and rust, but it was just what
I needed. Unfortunately, the stallholder wanted £500 for it (I could get a stainless
version made for that!). I offered £200, but he didn't want to know. Later,
I wondered just how many show goers would want a used exhaust for a 20 year
old Laverda triple? Probably one, and that was me.
By one o'clock I'd seen everything I wanted to see,
so I left early, which meant I missed the Spitfire and Lancaster bomber flyover.
The heavy rain and standing water on the M6 made the drive home horrendous.
But at least I was warm and dry. Hope those of you on two wheels didn't suffer
too much.
The Ed.
Hattech ( A story of
customising folk)
Issue 2 Basic Tuning Stage 1
In
this modern day world we all need a few rules to ensure life remains liveable,
unfortunately as the fanatics take control, things get carried to the kind of
unrealistic and impractical levels which may eventually lead to the death of
our beloved Harley Davidson as we know it.
What am I talking about? Well, it's the fact that Harley
spend millions of dollars developing an exhaust system that usually only lasts
the first few hundred miles and is then only used for the annual trip to the
MOT station. Yes, sadly new engines have to meet strict emission and noise levels
that have already caused the death kneel of the single cam big twin motor after
sixty-five years of faithful service. Undoing all this claptrap and making the
bike into the one that the factory should have been manufacturing is called
basic stage 1 tuning. Actually I hate the definition 'stage 1' as in means so
many different things to so many different people, so lets just call it step
one to getting your engine running cleanly.
Where do we start, well the first step
is to look at what Harley had to do to meet the regulations. In order to restrict
noise and reduce exhaust emissions we get exhaust systems like Hampton Court
maze, an air cleaner bearing a very close resemblance to a Flugel Horn, low
lift valve gear, soft cams and unresponsive carburation. Sporsters and Twin
Cams do have an advantage as their lower levels of engine noise means they do
have more aggressive valve gear and better breathing. Did you know for instance
that the standard twin cam exhaust is actually two decibels louder than an evo
big twin? That big twin Evo cam box is certainly a noisy bastard - ever ridden
one without a crash hat?
The first thing most of us want is a proper noise
out of the beast and unless we have a giant spike and a large hammer this means
a change of mufflers and possibly exhaust system. My general advice here is
forget about claimed horsepower improvements and choose what you can afford
and think looks good for your bike. In my experience exhausts do not result
in great performance improvements unless you change a lot of other bits as well.
I do however advise steering away from drag pipes and porkers as normal street
performance will inevitably suffer although you may get a slight improvements
at 5000 rpm plus levels (examples of both of these pipe types decorate my garage
roof).
Another question I am sometimes asked is "Do
I need to retain the balance pipe?". In my opinion engines certainly run better
with one in place (or with a two into one system) but it is not essential and
can be such an ugly bit of plumbing. Note: you can drill out the standard system
with a metal cutter if you want to keep standard looks with more noise, I have
the details somewhere if you want to ask. For
an engine to run well it is critical to keep every thing in balance, therefore
at the same time we change our exhaust it is essential to uprate the carburation.
If the standard carb is retained this is normally done with a dyno kit or similar.
This kit serves two purposes, one is to alter the petrol/air mixture to suit
a more free flowing exhaust and the second is to make the carburettor more responsive
. I believe that more of the performance improvements result from these adjustments
than the exhaust change, particularly if a freeflow aircleaner is fitted as
well.
If you wish to keep the standard looks
then the Screaming Eagle kits from Harley are excellent, however you may prefer
the more exotic looks of Kuryakyn Hypercharger or tear drop design. Do not be
misled by the claims for the Hypercharger, the best street carburation comes
from a constant airflow not the erratic variable forced flow of an open fronted
unit.
If your chosen aircleaner comes with a foam filter
throw this away and buy the K & N equivalent. This is a one off buy that will
last you for ever and given you best performance both in dust removal and airflow.
How easy is all this to do? Well, that really
depends on your own experience. Mufflers are fairly easy, just a case of unbolt
the old and fit the new. Whole exhausts can be a little more difficult and if
the bike is several years old then that front exhaust mounting stud could well
be rusted solid and snap clean off. (Yes Duncan I do remember doing exactly
that on your bike!).
Fit stainless fastening if you can get them on your new system and do not forget
the copper slip.
Fitting an air cleaner replacement is usually straightforward, however you may
need to buy an engine breather kit and carburettor mount as well so check the
instructions. The standard engine breather on all late models blows engine emissions
into the air cleaner so they can be burnt. This puts all crap into your aircleaner
so you are better off running a rubber pipe under the bike that blows all this
crap on the floor (not environmentally friendly but better for your bike!).
You can buy a nice chrome end for this discharge pipe that you bolt on somewhere
convenient such as the spare screw hole on your softail gearbox.
The dyno jet (or equivalent) kit requires removal of the carb. The messy bit
is usually the choke cable which can be a little awkward, the carb itself just
pulls off a rubber gasket once the aircleaner is removed. The kit does involve
some drilling of the slide and brass plug so it is helpful if you know someone
with a drill stand. The dyna jet kit did not use to include a new pilot jet
(the Kuryakyn kit does), I recommend one size up on standard if you can get
one. I was told the dyna jet kit is better because the jets are better made,
I think this may be bull shit but am willing to stand corrected.
Be careful when you replace the diaphragm, make sure that it is fitted correctly
under the carb top.
For those of us that want go a stage further, then we need to look at cam shafts,
carburettors and even gas flowed heads. I also have a few controversial things
to say about big capacity motors so you have plenty to look forwards to in future
editions of 'Hattech'.
Hatman
