rxrider's Turbo Garage - pics back, will continue

[BOUNTYHUNTER]

24lbs on pump gas stock engine and its still going strong, I wish the new owner would chime in here to voice his knowledge now.

Me to as I believe your Red Apex Rocket came here to Manitoba, I would love to see it one day.

 

[rxrider]

Any time Rxrider!!!! Did you get the fuel pressure tester guage?

Thanks TT - I did get it wednesday at noon I will measure the fuel pressure when I have the IC off.

 

[rxrider]

Bad spark plug, bad plug boot (this was a fairly common problem on RX-1's), too much plug gap.

First just start the sled in the shop or outside when it's dark and open the hood and look for any arcing from the spark plug coils to the valve cover. Then I would try a fresh set of plugs, and finally tighten the gap after that.

Thanks Allen

I would do that if I can't solve it. Running a front mount system I would want to take her apart as few times as possible. Changing plugs is a huge job in my sled, but I will change out the CR10EK's as soon as I can and I will make sure I set the plug gap to 0.020" or 0.5 mm.

 

[rxrider]

I would guess a bad plug or plug blow-out, You can also add some timing with the meth if you have the option 8lbs should not be a problem ramping in, and on my apex i could max the meth and it never felt any different. EGTs would drop drastically but never couild feel the diff.24lbs on pump gas stock engine and its still going strong, I wish the new owner would chime in here to voice his knowledge now.

Thanks Kevin

Only way to alter timing on my sled would be adjusting the TPS up to 1 Volt at idle. Remember I run CR10EK's - they may be a way to cold plug????

 

[rxrider]

I disconnected the meth system, added 10 liters of racefuel and topped off with pump premium. I adjusted the boost up to 16-17 lbs to get target rpms 10400. Now my sled ran perfect, only problem is a fat low end giving it WOT from a stand still. I will try lowering the needles one position.

It appears to me that it has to be the CR10EKs causing me problems when spraying meth, will change them out next week.

 

[rxrider]

Purchased a new set of CR9E today, will start to work on my sled asap. I maybe able to make one last spring ride before the big sleep.

 

[rxrider]

Update April 28. - Repairing leakage in the tank vent line. Rewireing of fuel pump, WBO2 and Meth Injection system to battery.


After riding the sled for a few rides I took off the tank covling and side covers to have a look on how my insulation and stuff held up.

I found another leak, this time where the vent line for the gas tank enteres the tank. The rubber grommit had broken up and a piece of it had fallen into the tank. By looking at the tank covling I found the reason why the vent line grommit in the tank had failed. The tank covling hit the 90 deg plastic bend entering the grommit and caused it to fail. To fix this problem I had to plug the old hole for the vent line and make a new one further forward to stay clear off the tank covling.


Here's a pic of the tank vent line (to the rear on the tank filler neck) before fixing the problem.

Here's a pic of the old hole plugged. I drilled out a new hole and installed a Ski-Doo fuel vent plug and grommit.

In addition to the leaking fuel vent line I have a problem with the ignition. When running on meth on high boost the ignition cuts out at 9500 rpms like hitting the rpm limiter. I thought I may have drained too much juice from the ignition circuitry so I decided to draw current to all 3-party systems directly from the battery. I connected a thick lead to the battery, added a 30 amp fuse on the lead and connected the lead to two 30 amp relays where I hooked up the fuel pump, WBO2 and meth system. The relays are activated when there is current flowing in the brown/white wire up at the ignition switch (key on=power).

Well draining power from the ignition circuitry was not the problem as the sled still wouldn't run past 9500 rpms at high boost. Now the new electrical wireing came in handy as I was able to easily disconnect the meth injection system.

EDIT:

Before testriding the sled once again I added 10 liters of 116 octane racefuel and topped the tank off with premium pump. When out riding I started at WG boost of 12 lbs and worked my way up. At 12 lbs my rpms were 9000 rpms, I had some misfireing for the first minutes riding it at WOT. As I turned up the boost the rpms rose past 9500, the AFRs rose as well from low 10s to 10.5. At last I had boost up at 17 lbs and target rpms was 10400 rpms with AFRs in the high 10s, the sled ran perfect for the rest of the day. I'm very pleased having figured out what was the culprit.
I would also like to thank all my friends both locally and on TY for helping me out solving the misfireing problem and for suggesting running srock CR9E spark plugs gapped at 0.020" or 0.5 millimeters.


When done for the evening I discovered that we had got an inch of fresh snow and it was still snowing.

I'm out to change out spark plugs .... hope to be able to run it at 22 lbs at full capasity and tune the clutches accordingly.

 

[rxrider]

A few pics of my friends '08 Apex RTX with rear mount MCX550 turbo kit installed.


The turbo has a shield down in the tunnel to keep snow from directly hitting the hot parts.

The seat are off. Air filter on the left and a solid muffler on the right. This sled is very quiet until you upen it WOT.

The heat shield above the turbo removed reveals a huge external waste gate with double divorced downpipes entering the WG.

The turbo is huge, can this one offer any throttle response... sorry it won't. Not even close to our custom front mounts.

The turbo is mounted on rubber sitting on a cross shaft running underneat the turbo.

Dyno results showd 440 HP on MCXs SuperFlow901 at 2.1 BAR or 31 lbs of boost. This is running JE 10:1 pistons and a custom head shim/gasket running CRs at 9.5:1 - sled was tested running straight Sunoco GT Plus 104/109 US/Europe. The sled was tested with race air filter and downpipe. Tested running at 1.9 BAR or 28 lbs of boost running an air filter and a muffler out the rear showed 380+ HP. At at pumpgas safe 1.3 BAR or 19 lbs was around 330 HP. Will try to get hold of the dyno sheets if possible.

That's all for now.

 

[TT]

That MCX550 trail setup is SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the pics.

 

[rxrider]

Yeah it's OK but now we can talk about turbo lag. Due to problems with binding in the Hauck 4 arm clutch my friend is running we were not able to improve on the response. We did gear down 1 tooth tho. Top speed is not a problem even running in slush.

 

[rxrider]

Update May 4. - Changing spark plugs and adjusting gap. Lowering carb needles.


Today it was time to swap out the CR10EK plugs for a set of stock CR9E plugs. Before installing the CR9Es I adjusted gap to 0.020" or 0.5 millimeters to improve spark intensity.

To be able to get to all plugs I had to remove the air filter and air hoses from the turbo. Luckily I did not have to remove any more parts, a few zip-ties had to be cut away and the front meth tank had to be lifted up in the front.

Airfilter and hoses removed.

It was a pain to remove the coils

Removing the spark plugs was no breeze either but I managed to remove them without too much trouble. Installing the new plugs was pretty easy, way easier to install the plugs and coils than removing them.


With the spark plugs and coil installed I went on working on the carbs. My sled runs way rich when giving it WOT from a standstill, it's not misfireing like last season before installing the Hurricane turbo springs but it still way rich down low. It is also running in the 11s driving around slowly like 20 mph or 32 kmh. I have lowered the needles one step from stock setting of 3 (mid) to setting 2, one step closer to the top of the needle.

My friend Mikkel showed me a smart trick when installing the plastic plug with the small spring underneat it, apply a little oil on the o-ring on the plug and into the hole inside the throttle slide for easy install. The plug pops into place right away with no to force it in. This should help avoid breaking the fragile internals of the slide (been there done that). Thanks buddy your tip of the day worked wonders when assembling the needles into the slides

The rubber belly on the right throttle slide had a small hole in it close to the outer edge of it. I used some O-ring glue to fix the hole, work well.

With the slides back in place I installed the hurricane turbo springs back in. Only thing left is installing the STM carb caps and a few straps and I'm ready for the final ride of the season, next weekend I hope.

I need to :exc:

 

[kinger]

I hear ya on the plugs to do a compression and leakdown test on my new apex when I got it took like 3 hours! Once dialed in good thing we only have to access them every 50,000 miles LOL

 

[rxrider]

I hope you're right on the 50000 miles thing

I'm finishing her off today, ready for the last spring ride the coming weekend.

 

[rxrider]

Before the last ride I changed plugs to CR9Es gapped them to 0.020" or 0.5 millimeters.

I connected the meth and ran the sled at 18+ lbs, sled ran great for 10 minutes after take off then started to misfire dropping rpms down to 9500 rpms.

Again I disconnected the meth and turned the boost down to 16 lbs, again the sled ran without misfireing at 10000-10200 rmps. AFRs was in the low 11s at WOT both on and off meth.

No current is drawn from the ignition circuitry as I have rewired all systems (wbo2, fuelpump and meth) directly to the battery thru a 30AMP fuse and two 30AMP relays.

Any suggestions to what the problem is would be highly appreciated.

Jan-Ove
rxrider

 

[TT]

Just brainstorming:

1. Lower sparkplug gap to 0.018"

2. Injecting too much water/meth too early

3. Could you have to much water in your mixture the way you have dialed in the meth kit