Bonneville was a bust this year as we were rained out.
It's hard to hit a Land Speed record with 4" of water covering the lake bed
Anyhow, testing and tuning continues...
Which is good.
We have picked up a few more miles an hour with changes to the crank, muffler packing, and compression changes
Back in the old KXRiders.com days Stewart Rouse built a KX500 engine that ran 125.8545 MPH at the Maxton Mile.
That was like a 1 mile long drag race.
That record stands today even though the Maxton Mile is no longer around.
Bonneville is a little different.
You have one mile to get up to speed, then your time starts and will stop at the end of the 2nd mile.
Our last setup ran .95 miles at 127.3 MPH.
I'm certain that we have that beat by a few mph.
Stewart's same engine ran 123.411 at Bonneville.
Somehow he only lost 2.5 mph.
When we tested out 127.3 setup at 4400 feet we lost 5.5 mph.
From other Land Speed record holders they tell me that you should expect 7-9 mph loss.
So I'll take a 5.5 mph loss.
Stewart's record at Bonneville will stand forever due to some rule changes.
RIP Stewart.
In 2012 Stewart's record was beat.
500 P P 125.031 Smith G. Kawasaki 2012
I wish I knew who G. Smith is as I'd love to talk to him.
Not to get any secrets but just to get advice for making sure I pass Tech
So, 125.031 mph is what we need to shoot for.
Adding 5.5 mph for altitude loss we will need to hit 130.5 mph at 400ft to tie the record.
Obviously you don't go through all this effort just to tie
I can say that Stewart and G. Smith knew what they were doing..
It's not going to be easy but I think I have the missing links to pull it off.
With weather getting worse by the day we will be lucky to get any more testing days.
But I'll take anything that I can get..
The latest project is getting the bike to the correct seat height.
Kawasaki claims 37".
Both my Land Speed Bikes measure 37.5"
From what I have been told for this class, every 1" of height looses you 1 mph.
Getting the suspension right should net us 1/2 mph.
We will see..
Before our next run I'm doing another compression change.
I'm hoping to pick up another 1/2 to 1 mph with the seat height and the fork height.
But we will see...
Looking at these forks you would think that I'm lowering much more than 1/2".
But I'm doing two things here.
1. lowing the fork height but compensating for the angle.
2. by allowing the fork tubes to be lowered into the triples more I can run the controls closer to the centerline of the bike and allowing the bars to be narrowed further.
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