So....... I had an epiphany last night. And a good one at that.
Yesterday, I REtimed my bike. I didn't have a timing light, but I did have a 360* plastic compass from my college survey drafting class I took a few years ago. Luckily, it reads 360* in both directions. So I pulled the primary cover off and set the piston to TDC, rocking the rear tire back and forth until I had the piston centered perfectly. I then taped the compass to the rotor on the crank and used white touch up paint to make a single mark on the rotor, 1 mark on the alternator at TDC and 1 more mark 34* BTDC. I then brought the piston around to 34* BTDC and then aligned my ignition rotor to fire right at the 34* BTDC mark fully retarded. The bike fired on the first kick and with the abnormally high idle, I obviously had made a significant increase in ignition advancement. Now, I don't have as much low end torque, but I do have significantly more mid range and top end revs and overall the bike pulls harder.
Since I've started on this bike I've slowly been getting it tuned better and better. Every couple of months I manage to squeeze 1 or 2 more mph out of my top speed best. My first attempt at trying to hit The Ton I only managed 87mph. I eventually improved that to 90mph, then 91mph and 92, and now it seems that 93mph is all I can squeeze out of this motor with the 21T front sprocket. Not a bad speed, and with it's current state of tune, it seems I can achieve that 93mph faster than ever, but that's it. Still not The Ton.
Sitting in the garage yesterday after my last top speed run, I was trying to figure
WHY in the World can I
NOT get anything better than 93mph? Even with a 21 tooth sprocket on there, I should have gotten
CLOSER to The Ton than just 1mph. Then it hit me all of a sudden and all the information started flooding in my head, like in the movies when a detective is just breaking the case!
CAMSHAFTS!!!!!My particular bike is an abominated red-headed step-child. Remember when I 1st started restoring this thing there was a lot of confusion as to what I actually had? "Its a Trailblazer. No, it's an Apache. No it has to be a Trailblazer. But it has these parts from the Apache." I finally came to the conclusion that according to the number stamps, I do in fact have a Trailblazer. But. BUT, this bike has
ALLLLLLL kinds of different parts on it that weren't issued on most RE/Indian models. The Trailblazer is supposed to be based off of the Super Meteor. BUT, my bike has a scissor clutch, found on the Connies. I also have a K2F mag, also not a SM issued part. On top of that, I also have the auto-advance on my mag which wasn't standard on ANY RE in '58 (to the best of my knowledge). I also have a dual instrument casquette, not issued on any of the RE/Indian models.
So there is only
ONE possible thing that is keeping my bike from hitting The Ton....... I have the super wimpy Super Meteor camshafts with only .3125 lift on the intake and exhaust! That's why in my videos it doesn't sound like I'm hitting 6000RPMs, because I'm not! These wimpy camshafts aren't flowing enough fuel and air to even
HIT 6000 RPMs. Which does theoretically prove my argument that I am in fact not getting enough fuel at high RPMs.
But I do have a trick up my sleeve.
My Chief came with a pair of EX2 camshafts, The "hot cam" set up for the US issued Connies and Chiefs. It basically uses a Connie exhaust camshaft on both the intake and exhaust sides. And what are the lift on these cams you might be asking? .328 Not crazy big, but
BIGGER than what I have in there now. My only concern is that 1 lobe on 1 of the camshafts has some corrosion on it. I'll take a Roloc disc to it and clean it up and see how bad the lobe is actually pitted. I think it's salvageable. If it's not, I'll just use the 1 good camshaft and slap it on the exhaust side. Might not be a huge improvement, but should make it run a little better.
Scottie J