well nothing is going to fix the long term issue, its going to be a change
every 5-8 years if your lucky
thats why i dont think switching to 4 stroke will solve it either, the bike
engines rotate design just as much if not more often than the sleds so how
is the class going to keep up with that.
as far as the cheating thing goes, some of this part swapping isnt cheating,
the rules say stock configuration, well the engines go into several
different model sleds so stock configuration can actually be different
between them im not sure this is still the case but when i last checked
if you bought a grand touring 500 it came with cdi "a" and rotary valve "b"
if you bought the z500
it came with cdi "d" that had 2 degrees more timing advance and rotary valve
"G" that had a few extra degrees of opening time. Now, depending on what
stock list you are looking at, it kinda leaves the field wide open to a
certain degree of what you can use. and I consider these all legal parts.
i guess when the rules were wrote they should have specified "stock
configuration as the engine delivered in the grand touring 500" that would
have limited the number of available "stock" parts
or they could have specified the opening and closing of the valve, they
could have specified maximum timing advance that can easily be checked with
a timing light at tech inspection.
There a lot of ways to actually cheat that are almost undetectable to the
naked eye,especially since a lot fo the parts available have no marking of
any kind, you have to get out measuring tools and guages to find them and
even then if you have to know how to measure it.
now i am saying i have never used an illegal engine when racing f500 but i
have raced other atvs in unlimited classes and we do all sorts of stuff, and
ill give you some examples of stuff that would be hard to find even with the
guages and tools.
order rings for an oversize piston and then carefully grind them so you can
get the ring gap almost to nothing, i dont recommend this for reliabilty,
but you can gain some serious compression from doing so, your basically
riding a coin toss on whether it holds together or not but i know some
people take the chance.
you can also alter the shape of the ring land area on the piston most of
these engines use trapezoid rings and you can increase cylinder pressure by
angling the ring land to further increase ring sidepressure, rings dont last
long at all doing this but for a few races you a serious hp advantage,
especially if you are combining the oversize ring trick listed above. and if
done right you can not see this with the naked eye were talking about 1-1/2
degrees on a surface thats only .090 deep.
Offset timing keys- rekey the flywheel
stretch the rods, undetectable if your good at it, easily found with nothing
but a dial caliper
replate the rings with a different material <- hard to tell if this has been
done
They left this door wide open and they should have gotten some ideas for
writing the rules form some experienced 2 stroke racers before publishing
them.
They could have easily slammed the door for any cheating after all this is a
FORMULA class isnt it.
they could have saved us some $ too by allowing aftermarket parts as long as
they fit within the specs.
example
rotax 494 engine
exhaust port opening
exhaust port closing
intake port opening
exhaust port opening
re-sleeving or plating allowed as long as port timing and bore match
original
rave cylinder acceptable with block off plate as long as it has been
resleeved with lower ports matching the specs stated here.
bore max
bore min
bore must be straight within x ( no tapered bores)
rod length center to center max min
*maximum compression tested at operating temperature x we all know there
is an average compression for these engines so when someone shows up and has
an extra 10 lbs its apparent that its been dicked with.
*maximum timing advance @ 6500 rpms x degrees this would eliminate cdi
swaps and timing changes etc.
I personally would like to see the rules actually tightened up like this, it
would make more parts available and level out the hp differences from the
new guys to the experienced guys that get a bit creative in the engine
building stage.
Dan Hester
From: Dave Phaneuf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: [F500] From the April Fastrack
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:02:49 -0500
Oh I understood the wording, it's just the tone of it.
They're trying to make it sound like the only engine
anybody could ever cheat with was a 494 rave.
That's just stupid, if people are inclined to cheat they
can do it with whatever engine they happen to be
running. With a little care none of it would show without
a teardown and detailed inspection.
The idea of being able to look at the outside of the
engine and know it's legal .....when pigs fly and hell
freezes.
494 raves won't solve any engine problems long term
( NOTHING will and no amount of online wailing will either )
but they would certainly about triple or quadruple the existing supply.
Dave Phaneuf
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