RX1 w/R1 Fuel Injection - What next???

[K-fab]

The engine runs!!

It's easier to just copy/paste what I just put up on my Yellowdogracing web pages:

<snip>yesterday (Sunday, 4/30) I finally found some time to get into the shop and start finishing up the Dez. I'd decided that, even though the airbox wasn't finished, it was time to see if the RX1 was going to fire up.
Final stuff was done - lines hose clamped, fluids inserted, wire harnesses checked. All seemed in order. Time to give it a try and see if the engine was going to come to life.

Turn the key, lights on the dash blink, fuel pump starts up and it's time to hit the magic button. The engine cranks over nice and quickly and there's the sound of an engine sort of trying to do something - pop, pop, pop. Little blue flames are coming out of the throttle bodies in no particular order. Hmm...

Unfortunately, I was constrained by time and I had to quit early - plus the battery was on the weak side - it's been sitting for the past four months: time for a charge. I'll try tomorrow.

Last night, laying there in bed it struck me. The engine was firing, but not correctly - as if the spark timing was off a bit. Aha! I know the problem! The RX1 engine is a reverse cylinder setup - the intake is on the front side, the exhaust is on the rear. Bikes are just the opposite. My wire harness for the ignition coils was on backwards! Cylinder 1 on a bike is Cylinder 4 on the sled. TADA!!

This morning I headed down and swapped the plugs around: 1 to 4, 2 to 3. Walked back up to the driver's area, turned the key and hit the magic button.

Here are the results!!! <---- Windblows Media File


The rattling sound you hear at the beginning of the video is a wrench, a pair of pliers and half a dozen Dzus fasteners floating around on the aluminum belly pan. Had me worried at first, but once I picked everything up, well, you hear the results.

The engine revs instantly. The primary clutch isn't installed at the moment, so there's no mass on the crankshaft. Nothing to slow down the rev up or rev down. The engine's also quite lean off the bottom end (why it's sluggish on response and back fires). I'm sure this has multiple factors effecting it. Broken air pressure sensor on the throttle body assembly, no air filters or velocity stacks, non-stock exhaust. I didn't have the Power Commander hooked up yet either, so there's not any way to adjust this out yet. - that's an easy fix, though - two quick plug ins and play with the buttons.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get back down to the shop and start working on finishing it up. It's time to get this beastie running and in the dirt again - Summer's on the way and there's a race in Mexico on June 17th.

I plan on being there!

 

[alaskanbowtie]

I like it !

NICE....... I would love to hear how it performs and if it's comparable to the previous engine you used. Sounds like the mapping is a bit off still, did you check into the efi box by Boondocker ? That would be a nice option to have , the ability to change the curve as needed. I like to see you have Fundy Power sports build you the 1184 Big Block and then you'd be around 220 h.p. and an #*$&@ load of torque..... talk about sleeper. Then you'd just have to get it to hook up. Make sure you post up some video of the buggy in action, something a bit longer, maybe 10 or 15 minutes.......... Anyone else building these with the R-1 engines ? I would think so but I doubt they have it built or close to an 1184 monster...LOL. Nice Buggy !

 

[K-fab]

I have a Dynojet Power Commander that I'll be able to program fuel injection with, along with some mappings a of mine buddy has already - he's been putting RX1 engines in his desert cars for a while now. He's done na engines, a couple of the R1 injected units and one turbo - wicked beast.

It was because of him, and riding in a couple of his cars that I decided to give the RX1 a try.

With this new setup, I may be down on raw HP compared to the old Arctic Cat 1000 triple, but torque is gonna be waaaayyy up and that's what gets my car moving.

As I get tuned into the new powerplant and clutching, I'll work on upping the HP and torque. I'd like to get somewhere in the 170 to 190 hp range when it's all said and done.

If you want videos - check my web pages under the Deztaz section at the top - there's a bunch in there - both from inside the car and from spectator's views.

This is my favorite

 

[K-fab]

Just an update on my non-sled RX1...

After almost four weeks, I'm finally home. I went out west the beginning of June, got home this past Thursday. Unfortunately, I spent the first four days in Phoenix repairing some damage I did to the car just before I left (dork move on my part in my yard, of all places.... Dumb Arse!!).

Took it to a dyno on the west side of Phoenix. We were able to tune the major hicups out of the FI, but it's still pretty far off. I can't get over 9500 RPM in the desert yet. We were able to pull all the way to 11K on the dyno, but it was an issue with trying to get the dyno to think that the car was in "a" gear, not a CVT setup. We never did get the dyno tuned to the car to mimic the real world. Still, it was worth the time and effort and taught me quite a bit.

The dyno was a pretty cool setup - it was actually two large "boxes" that the rear hubs mounted to, via adaptors. Remove the rear wheels, install the adaptors, plug 'em into the boxes and do pulls.

When we finally started getting a load, that sort of worked, it was wild - the rear of the car would squat down due to the torque, just as if it was in the dirt. Got my attention the first time it did it - thought the thing was coming loose or something. WHY AM I SINKING?????

Dyno guy said that he figured the engine was putting out right in the 145 - 150ish HP range. He based this from experience with his dyno and lots of runs (we probably did 20).

The dyno graphing didn't show it because the CVT setup was constantly trying to upshift and the dyno wanted a direct drive (gear) to correctly measure output.

Only issue that we had during the dyno pulls (besides not getting the load on the dyno correct) was that I'd overpacked the CV boots on one axle and once a bit of heat built up, well, they both decided to let go and spray CV lube all over the car, the room, the walls and dyno. CV lube has to be one of the nastiest greases around - think thick, black anti-sieze. One little pea sized glob will stain everything in a 10 mile radius and I spread at least 8 oz of the stuff everywhere... I spent the better part of an hour cleaning the dyno room. That sucked.

Clutching engages right at 4500 - which appears to be pretty good. Originally I wanted a lower engagement speed, but for now, this may just work.

I wasn't able to get many high speed runs it - there's no place to fully open the car up where I test. I did see just under 75 a couple times and the thing still has lots of room for more speed. Engine was running about 9200 or so during the runs.

I put somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 miles on the car and only had one problem - tranny rubbed through a hose clamp, hose clamp quit holding on, coolant decided to leave the system.

During my last run, we (had a co-driver with me) got about 15 miles up the Four Peaks Mountain Road near Fountain Hills, AZ, and the temperature gauge slowly started to rise from it's normal running temps of anywhere from 170ish to about 200, depending on how hard I was using the go-pedal.

When it got to 240, the little red light on the dash came on. We stopped and discovered the lack of coolant and the hose clamp issue. Fortunately I was able to fix it on the spot. Man was I glad the tool kit had spares! The only thing we had, liquid wise, was 1.5 quarts of Orange Gatoraide and 1 quart of Blue Gatoriade.

Half full radiator of Gatoraide holds the temp to right at 210!! (I guess our bodies are not the only things that like electrolytes!)

Made it back to my truck w/no issues. (whew)

When we got home, we ran at least 10 gallons of water through the system to flush the Gatoraide out. I still need to put coolant back in - wanna fix the rub issue first.

The power delivery of the engine is great. Smoooooooooth and strong across the board - will only get better as I get the FI tuned in. - I do need to add some fuel right in the 5K range at full off throttle - I get a nice backfire pop every time it goes through that rev range when I'm off the throttle.

My main focus and goal for the first few runs were to just make sure the powerplant install worked. - Gotta say, so far, so good - really good, in fact. Other than the hose clamp rub, I have absolutely no other issues (yet).

My belt looks great - says that I got the alignment correct. YEA!!!

I'm sort of bummed that I didn't get more seat time - but getting up at 4:00 a.m., to be out in the desert by 5:00 a.m. to beat the heat was a biatch. By 9:30, it was usually close to 100F and stopping/starting/getting in/out, doing tuning and such just got too hot.

Now that I'm back in Ohio, I'll find a place that I can go out and do long runs over a smooth area. This will allow me to sit the computer in the co-dog's seat and let me tune on the fly.

Sorry, but I didn't get any video or audio of the car running. I was too busy working on other aspects.

When I find my place to do my tuning, I'll work on getting in-car video and try to get them posted on my web pages. I know of a motocross track close by that will let me run the car on it, so that will be a good test of how my FI tuning goes, along with a great place to take videos. The track has three big doubles and a couple smaller rhythm sections that are a blast!!!

 

[Swiss Sledder]

Thanks for sharing. Some pictures of your non RX-1 would be great.

 

[K-fab]

Thanks for sharing. Some pictures of your non RX-1 would be great.

Sorry, but I don't have any pix of the car in action with the new setup.
Here's the installation of the engine.

Lots of pix and video can be found in these pages.

I'll get more pix, and hopefully video, uploaded soon.

 

[sleddheadd]

those videos were hillarious!!

 

[alaskanbowtie]

Thanks for sharing. Some pictures of your non RX-1 would be great.

Sorry, but I don't have any pix of the car in action with the new setup.
Here's the installation of the engine.

Lots of pix and video can be found in these pages.

I'll get more pix, and hopefully video, uploaded soon.

>>>>
Hows the buggy going ? Have you got it tuned in correctly and is it more powerful then the 1000cc tripple ? I'd love to have one of those to play around....... though it wouldn't be very useful in Alaska....LOL.

 

[K-fab]

Howdy Guys. Long time, no been here...

The RX1 engine in my desert racer works GREAT!!!

I spent most of October out in Phoenix and got a lot of work, tuning and driving done.

R1 fuel injection setup (with a Power Commander running it) works really well once you start getting it dialed in. The engine wants LOTS of fuel up on top end.

I finally got the clutching close (it still upshifts a bit too quickly) and I still need to richen up the top end a bit more, but she'll pull right up to the point that the dash board light comes on saying "Okay, that's enough".

I'm still having issues with the engine back firing when I let off. I've tried richening up the low throttle position settings, but I didn't get enough time to get it totally dialed in. Next time I'm out west, I'll spend another day working on that. It gets worse when the engine gets warmer.

I'm seeing coolant temps that average 170F or so with an air temp in the mid 70's/low 80's. Fan doesn't come on that often either (I have a LARGE radiator)

I'm truly impressed with the powerplant. Smooth, amazing throttle response and it pulls like a freight train. Definitely more grunt than the old Arctic Cat 1000 triple that was in it.

I ended up taking quite a bit of weight off my primary clutch arms.

I started out with this setup:

By the time I was done, I'd removed three grams off the end of the arm (the three washers together) and then I moved the two grams on the end of the arm down to the middle position. Engagement speed is about 5200 and once I get it moving, it doesn't disengage until about 4K. Works just fine for now - but I know it can be better.

I want to concentrate on the driven clutch next time I tune too - I think it's upshifting too quickly, so I'm going to add a shim or two under the spring for a bit more preload and then maybe see if I can find a slightly higher ramp angle.

I don't recall what helix I have in the Team right now... I think I already have it on the more agressive of the two ramps, but I need to go look before I commit to that comment...

I have some in car videos posted in my web page on the RX1 conversion of the car.