SPEEDOMETER DRIVE

Originally I used a Hall Effect sensor to trigger the speedo head as was suggested by Classic Instruments. I have burned out about 6 of those. Some kind of voltage spike was getting to them, I think. I added a capacitor to try to eliminate those but to no avail.

I have now switched to a reed switch. This is a switch that is triggered by a magnet passing by the switch. The speedo head operates by grounding the sensor wire with pulses of grounding. The reed switch is perfect for this.
I found one that mounted where the old unit was and stuck rare earth magnets to the brake rotor, no glue, one on each spoke. This gave the same pulses as the Hall Effect unit so no new calibration was needed. So far this is working great and will no burn out since there is no voltage going to it.

MORE ON CARB TUNING

Previously I posted about synchronizing my carbs with the home made carb stick. I think now I have found a better way. I followed this write up and things are much improved. I found that at full throttle the right slide was 1/4" low. this would mess up the mixture almost all through the RPM range. I can now get the idle way lower and starting off is smoother. Top end should be improved also.
Click on the image; right click on image and click "view image" then click on the imag again to enlarge it.

FENDER STRUT REMAKE

The fender struts have been a real pain for me. The ends have broken 4 times from vibration causing work hardening of the alum. I tried some SS tubing with flattened ends and they did the same thing.

The fix ( I hope) is 3/16" x 3/4" flat bar. This seems to be much more stable. The flat bar is bolted to a plasma cut plate so the actual strut is about 2"+ shorter than before. Time will tell. Photos are the old and the new.

CARB ISSUES AGAIN

Well, the vent tube idea really didn't do much. I then went to Eurocarb and ordered these "surge washers". They seem to help but still not what it should be. I still have and empty float bowl doing hard cornering.

The idea is that these washer cups sit just at the bottom of the float bowl and prevent fuel from sloshing up the side of the bowl or not let all the fuel do that. Some should stay in the sump nut where the jet is located. This seems to be a common problem from my research but no one had found a fix other than changing to fuel injection.

I finally solved the issue by running the vent tube around to the air filter. I punched a hole and fed the tube into the inlet to the carbs. Now when the fuel slings up against the side of the float bowl it vents into the carb and keeps the engine running.

GEARSHIFT LINKAGE

Originally I set up the shift arm pointing out to the left which made 1st gear pull back on the shift lever. That is not intuitive and I've always regretted not figuring out how to do it the other way. David from France suggested turning the arm the other way. That looked like it wouldn't work as the firewall was in the way as was the rear of the tranny if mounted in that direction.

Well, a little of head scratching, contortion, welding and cursing it now fits and works GREAT. The first pic shows how I did the first time using a clevis at each end of the shift rod. Lots of slop.

I cut off the end of the arm and welded a new piece on that shortened the arm so that it could be mounted facing the other way and still allow mounting the ball joint. Here is the cut off end and the new welded end with ball joint.

Here is a pic of it installed and that was a tough job to reach in there with two wrenches to tighten it all up.

So, was it worth the trouble, absolutely. The shift is now in the right direction, the slop is gone and the feel is way, way better.

FRONT END ALIGNMENT UPDATE

I have been setting 1/8"+ toe out as suggested in the JZR forum. The car drove OK but the steering was a bit twitchy. I tried setting to 1/8" toe in and it made a remarkable difference.  The car is much more stable now and the twitchy steering is gone. Well, how about that?

CARB ISSUES

I've been fighting a problem for the past year and I think I've finally solved it. When cornering hard the fuel would be thrown against the vent side of the carb to the inside of the curve and be forced out the vent. I think also a syphon would start and suck all the gas out of the carb. Coming out of the corner the inside cylinder would be dead and would take 10 to 20 seconds to start firing again.

I researched this to a great extent including contacting Eurocarb.com and the Triking forum. No solution offered did the trick. I tried cutting down of fuel pressure on the Holley pressure regulator but that made it worse. I tried looping the vent hoses high over the carbs and then down. That seemed to help but not solve it. Finally someone suggested bringing the vent tubes up high and into a catch can so no syphon could be started. Well that plus increasing the fuel pressure to 3# solved the problem. Hard cornering without a miss.

BRAKES 3

I got the rt. side finished today but still have to get a set of bolts to fit the caliper. I'll use 3/8" bolts and make a sleeve to go on them to tighten up the fit. I hope to have the other one by maybe Tuesday and will take it for a test drive.

Took the test drive today and the brakes are fantastic. Wow, does it stop now and much less pedal pressure. I can lock the wheels if I push too hard. Better tires might prevent that. I think 32mm pistons would do just as well. This is an area where you don't know till you try it but I'm happy.

BRAKES 2

I was not happy with the look of the Suzuki calipers and will send them back. I bought, instead, a pair of Ducati Monster calipers with four 34mm pistons and four pads per caliper. Much higher price but larger pistons so more braking effort than what I had. The Suzuki calipers have four 32mm pistons and 108mm bolt spread. The Ducati has a 100mm bolt spread. Both are about the same size but the Brembo ones are a tiny bit smaller

The 3x3x1/2" aluminum angle will be made into the mounting brackets. I roughed out one today. I plan to add Drillium to it to lighten it up and do some contouring to it also.

I think these will look great when all finished up which should be early next week.

FRONT BRAKES

I haven't posted for some time because I've just been driving and the car has, for the most part, has performed beautifully. The one exception has been the front brakes. The calipers I got with all the parts were from Wilwood, an aftermarket supplier. They have turned out to be not up to the job. They will stop Ok but in a panic stop I have to really push hard on the pedal and the calipers over heat, boil the brake fluid and then tend to lock up. Following that they start to leak fluid. The calipers I got are described on the JZRUSA page. http://www.freewebs.com/jzrusa/07.htm

So, I have had enough and have bought new calipers.

These are from a Suzuki 600, 750 and 1300 Hayabusa bike on ebay. They have 4 pistons with 32mm pistons, similar area to the  Wilwood units and larger pad area than the Wilwood units.

Some notes on caliper area/pad area.
A single piston floating caliper with a piston area of, say 2.4 sq. in., is the same as a caliper with 2 pistons with 2.4 sq. in. area each. A 4 piston caliper with a single piston area of 1.4 sq. in is still the same as all the above. You take the number of the pistons on one side of the caliper and figure their area to find the force the caliper can create. A 4 piston caliper will have larger pads due to the larger spread of the 2 pistons on each side. Look at the width of the caliper on the web site above and look at the calipers I just bought. The piston area of the new ones is 2.5 sq. in. but are much wider.

Now for the myth of pad area. If you double the pad area you will not change the pedal effort required to stop the car!!! I know, this doesn't make sense but it is physics 101; trust me or look it up. So, what does happen by increasing the pad area is that heat is dissipated better and pad life is extended. Of course all the above requires the same master cylinder pad composition and the same pedal force. There are some other very small bits that affect pedal pressure but the above are the main areas of concern.

I'll post photos as I make the brackets and mount the new calipers. BTW the brake hose hookup will be really simple.

HANDLING ISSUE

I've had a handling issue for most of this year. When accelerating and decelerating the car would pull to the right and to the left and when braking it would pull left. I got stuck with the idea it was the rear wheel not being in line with the chassis. After measuring the alignment of the rear wheel I found it was off by about .029"; not bad.

I then looked at the left front brake and found that the caliper bracket was not square to the rotor and that the caliper was not sliding well on it's mounting bolts. There is the problem; a dragging brake pad. This too would make the car pull each way when giving it gas and letting off and when braking. Sure enough, new pads, caliper seals, shims on the bracket and reaming the slide holes fixed it all. It now drives straight all the time.

Now I'll go back and play with toe out and tire pressures some more and see what happens. Probably nothing but I think it's worth a look.

LONG CRUISE

Last weekend I went along with a group of motorcycles on a 200 mile drive through the twisty back roads of south Alabama. This was the first long drive and the first drive on twisty roads at speeds of up to 75 MPH. It was exhilarating  to say the least but the car handled great and took the curves at speed right along with the bikes. Temperatures were in the mid 90's but I felt no heat from the engine. The drive shaft tunnel felt warm from, I assume, transmitted engine heat and heat from the driveshaft bearings. I'm looking forward to another run like that, maybe in the fall.

HANDLING ISSUES SORTED

I have finally gotten the handling issues sorted. With the caster now at about 7 degrees, camber at -1 degree and toe at 1/8" toe out. Front tires at 20Lbs. and rear at 40Lbs. She now drives straight up to 80 MPH. I can wiggle the steering wheel without affecting the straight line motion. Side winds will push it and require correction with the steering wheel as in any car. I've driven it through 90 deg right corners at 40 MPH and it handles them with ease.  I've put about 1200 miles on it now and it is a pleasure to drive.

One last thing to play with is scrub radius with the front wheels. The tire inner edge is offset from the kingpin line by 2". It will take a lot of work to change that so it probably won't get done.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

The alternator problem is fixed. The amperage draw dropped from 23 to 18 with high beam, 16 with low beam. The light output difference is amazing and I know they are not adjusted correctly in the photo so it will get even better.

ALTERNATOR

I drove the other day with the headlights on for an hour or so and that ran the battery down to the point that it wouldn't crank the engine. Not good. I put an ammeter into the circuit and found that I was drawing 23 amps and asking a 20 amp alternator to keep up with it.

So there are 2 options: get a 40 or 50 amp alternator (300 to 500 bucks) or reduce the load. I chose the 2nd option and bought these two items:
http://www.amazon.com/Vehicle-Motorcycle-Signal-Reverse-Backup/dp/B00BWDPJ5K/ref=sr_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1424793422&sr=1-5&keywords=1156+led+bulb+amber

http://www.cyclopsadventuresports.com/3800-Lumen-H4-LED-Headlight-bulb-_p_83.html

I'll report back when I get them installed and measure the amps.

CORRECTIONS

A couple of other things needed fixing. The turning radius was always not enough so I moved the rack to the right by about 3/4". This allowed the tie rod to move to the right 3/4" and decrease the turning radius a great deal. To make the left turn the same I cut 1.5" off the right end of the rack housing.

You can see from the photos that the clamping strap is now over the alum. hub. The mounts did not change just the position of the rack housing. I had to machine the area of the housing to allow the clamp to fit there.

The next issue was the rear suspension. I had removed one of the two springs inside the Honda Goldwing air shocks thinking it was too stiff and raised the rear ride height. It ended up that it was way too soft and would bottom out on the slightest bump. Today I put the springs back inside the shocks and now driving it with 2 up was really great. It never came close to bottoming out . It has however raised the back of the car and the shocks are fully extended with no passengers aboard. I drives fine so I'll leave it for now.

Here is how much turning I get. The left wheel looks like it is cambered out but it is just a camera angle. It is actually cambered in a good bit. Lots of Ackermann too!I also trimmed the alum. plates under the ball joints and they look much less noticeable.

FRONT END WORK again

All that I had done on the front end and I still didn't get enough caster. Driving up to about 50 got really scary. The steering was so sensitive. I tackled the problem by adding more caster. I found that I had very little. I machined up 2 plates that would lift the lower ball joint above the lower a-arm so that I could move it forward by about 3/4".

I did this because there was so much mixed opinions about it making any difference and I could put it all back the way it was if it didn't work. What this did was to make the king pin angle change to 7 1/8 deg. as viewed from the side. This is not the proper way to measure caster from what I've read, but the result is nothing short of AMAZING. After setting the toe in to 1/4" in, I took it for a drive. Up 60 MPH it was steady as a rock!!! When it warms up next week I'll take it out on the Interstate and see how it feels at 70+. If all this proves out I'll trim off the edges like the lines show and pretty it up.

Moving the ball joint also added a lot of negative camber so I'll have to fix that too. I hope I have enough thread on the upper joint to do this. Lowering the inner pivots of the upper arm moved it inward and I had to extend the ball joint to cover that too. I'm running out of thread. As to cornering I've hit it as hard as I can with no lifting of the inside wheel, little body roll and some understeer. The outside wheel stays square to the road. Harder cornering would just mean more understeer and sliding. I'm a happy camper!!

Stay tuned; more to follow.

TAG

I was rained out last Monday but finally got my inspection today and got my title and tag. Been driving all morning. I need to get the front wheels balanced; it shakes badly at 50 MPH.

FINALLY. A TITLE?

I finally got the Fl. DMV to accept my paperwork. They will register it as a "motorcycle built from parts". I now have to get the inspection done and get the title. It's been a 6 month ordeal but it's now Game ON.

COCKPIT MOLDING

I started the cockpit molding today. This starts with a piece of 1/2" clear tubing slit and slipped over the edge of the fiberglass. Next is some foam pipe insulation (the smallest they had). I remove about 1/3 of the foam lengthwise so it wraps around better and is not so bulky.

The leather stitching left a little pocket at the outer edge and I shoved a 3/32" brass rod into the pocket. I think that finished it off nicely. Lastly I got a spool on 2.5mm round rawhide and drilled holes and punched the leather and laced it all up. It was quite difficult coming around the corner.
the piece for the other side will butt up in the center and a short rawhide piece will tie it together. The outer end will be finished off by trimming and folding the leather over and glueing a round patch on the end.

Down the body side I bent an alum. angle from flat sheet and bent the angle into a curve. That will be easy to cover.