Three days of racing this weekend, and with the jetting finally sorted (but way off the recommendations, I'll get to that) I was able to concentrate on riding rather than working around problems. Bike handled like a dream, I'm still not at it's limits for corner speed, hell I'm just getting the lean angles to the point that I can stretch and touch my puck down if I want and the GS is screaming for more. I also knocked 3 seconds off my personal best, which I set at the last event, and I already know where to find more speed! Woohoo! I'm at 1:33.3 for those who are familiar with NHMS, formerly NHIS.
Results:
Saturday - Novice LW Sportsman - 6th out of 13
Sunday - Novice GTL - 11th out of 18
Sunday - Novice Production Twins - 6th out of 8*
Monday - Formula EX500 - 3rd out of 8
* I gotta improve here, the guys I'm going up against have had time to get up to speed while I was injured... Plus, I'm on the 'slowest' bike at the track, by HP. The next closest machine is the EX500 running low 50's HP, and it just gets silly from there, so I'm quite proud to be able to beat anything with my 'slow' machine.
Monday's race I got permission to enter an EX500 only class as an experiment, what a blast. Got my first piece of mantle art on a full size bike in that race.
Now, jetting, I ended up going with stock needles, stock pilot, and a 128 DJ main, which with a K&N filter in my stock airbox should have me way lean, but it was loving it. Smooth from top to bottom, and the dyno confirms I'm right where I should be for power compared to a couple other GS500Es that have been on it, 41hp peak, smooth curve to get there. I initially went out with 125 DJ mains, but the bike started breaking down on top about 5 laps in, too lean.
The other weird thing I have to track down is the left fork leg is seeping fork oil from somewhere near the top. I at first suspected the o-rings in the fork cap, but replacing them hasn't cured it. It looks like it's occurring below the faux clamp and the actual top triple? I'm going to have to take the clamps off and inspect, I'm wondering if I managed to put a hairline crack in the tube when I crashed on that side in April? I ended up rotating the clipon around, but the forks are straight and otherwise function ok? Fortunately I've got a couple weeks to get it sorted before the last race of the season.
Also, one last set of issues to deal with this winter, I'm starting to push oil from the base gasket and around the cam chain tensioner. Interestingly the head gasket is holding just fine. Would it be worth my while to find a manual cam chain tensioner when I go to replace gaskets/etc, or should I stick with the automatic setup?
got any pics?
Awesome man! :thumb: pics of the GS claimed trophy please :icon_mrgreen: I wish we hade a track closer than 2 hours away. I also wish I had some people around here that wanted to go to a track day with me :mad:
Some day... Some day....
8)
Johnny B, our starter and pre grid organizer took the trophy shot:
http://resthome.50megs.com/josh.jpg
97BladeRider (dunno his real name) got a ton of pics from Saturday and Sunday. I'm riding a red GS500E, number 771, pretty easy to pick out.
http://s85.photobucket.com/albums/k53/97BladeRider/2008-08-31_LRRS/?start=all
Congrats! Good luck with the leaking issues. Keep it up :thumb:
took you long enough to come to the dark side and realize bud-duh is full of crap
mb motorsports used to build 96 hp EX's..... the cases were a wear item.....4 races and they were junk ....time to replace