DYNO DAY

Having experienced some problems with power at Knockhill we contacted Chap Middleton of Highland Motorcycle Dynos to get the sidecar booked in for a check up. Chap knows sidecars well as he used to drive one himself not too many years ago. Thursday was the day – set off for Cromarty on the Black Isle early in the morning to get a full day of diagnosis done.

The first problem was going to be getting it into the shop. The door’s not quite wide enough so first of all body work and undertray had to come off. Then between Chap, his son Craig, Jen and Kerr co-ordinating the effort it squeezed in the first door at a fairly jaunty angle. That was hurdle one the next set off doors were into the dyno room and although they were a bit wider not quite wide enough. Enlisting extra support from sidetracked farmers and we were in. Next problem was getting the sidecar to sit securely on the dyno.

Chap and Craig are noting if not patient. Not happy with their first arrangement of tie downs they went off and fabricated a whole new front plate for the front wheel to push against. Some steak pies from the Cromarty Bakery later and we were ready to run. First of all we wanted to figure out where the power problem was. Chap was quite happy with the basic fuelling map but pointed out a couple of lean peaks that he would have to iron out. Various runs later with and without airbox and we discovered a fuelling fault. Code C46 came up on the clocks intermittently this meant that sometimes the actuator for the butterflies wasn’t working properly. They were getting taken out!

That done Chap and Craig proceeded to fit the Power Commander which would allow them to completely map the fuel. Several runs later and Chap was happy that he had it set up spot on with the bhp increased from 131 to 138. This is less than a solo bike would be at the back wheel due to the drag of the big sticky slick tyre. We also got an improvement in torque and are really looking forward to Knockhill in July to try it out. We should get plenty runs as it is a two day meeting and we have entered for the F1 British round races too just for some extra track time and to race against some different outfits.