Bike Berry Flying Horse First Timer build

[Risingsunn]

Today the stars were in perfect alignment for me. I woke up feeling better than I have in weeks, things at work went exceptionally well, and I was able to get home a little early and enjoy a nice ride with perfect weather. The engine ran smooth as butter, no stutters or hesitations. With the rag joint balanced better, the chain stopped jumping and it was an awesome ride. Well, until I cornered a little too sharp motorcycle style, had a pedal hit the ground and got dumped on my ass, lol. Thank God I wore my leather jacket tonight and not my windbreaker. Any accident you can ride away from is a good one, though. But it was still a great ride!

THAT is what I got into this for. I love riding bicycles but don't have the endurance for 25+ mile rides (yet) and I love riding motorcycles but want to be able to enjoy the scenery a little more. And a motorbike is PERFECT for that!

Though I have lost quite a bit of low end power with the speed carb and 36t sprocket, I can live with that. I am sure things will get better once I am able to tune the carb after break-in but I like the fact that half throttle is about the perfect speed for me. I don't have to worry about blowing my engine trying to run 25-30 mph. The last thing I need to do to achieve (semi) reliability is to replace the chain. And as soon as I have a clue as to what jet range my carb should take after break-in I will get one ordered along with the jets from Pirate.

So to all you fellow MBers out there, happy riding...

 

[Risingsunn]

So I discovered something interesting today.
As I have said in my previous posts I bought a new speed carb from Lucky early bird on ebay, a replacement muffler from Bikeberry, and a 36t sprocket. I installed them all about the same time. I had noticed that I lost a bit of high end power and that it took a while to get going uphill. I credited that to the 36t sprocket and thought that the speed carb would make up for that.
So today I decided to stick the stock NT carb on my bike and see how it ran. I ran some tests on a 1/2 mile stretch of road in back of my house with a slight grade to it. Though it still didn't hit the higher RPMS like it did with the stock 44t sprocket, I noticed that it did go faster by 3-5 MPH (25 vs 30 mph)and hit top speed quicker than the speed carb on the uphill. On the downhill the performance was about the same. I tried everything I could think of to "tweak" the speed carb to go faster. I removed the air filter, swapped jets between the two, changed clip positions but nothing got it up to the stock NT performance.
I am rather perplexed. The speed carb was supposed to offer better performance than stock or at least about the same, not less. I am also almost done with break in and have less then half a gallon left. I am running about 35:1 mix right now and I don't think that when I move to a final 50:1 mix that it will make a lot of difference in the results.
Anyone have any insite on this?

 

[paul]

you will notice the change when the motor breaks in. all my life i had heard about motors breaking in on cars, motorcycles, atv's ect. i never noticed it on any except my 2 stroke bicycle engine. let it break in and then work on your modifications. when it breaks in it will have a new sound and be completely different. it was for me.

 

[biknut]

You won't gain any extra performance by just slapping a bigger carb on your bike if the carb you have already flows all the air the motor can use. A lot of times you actually lose bottom end by putting a bigger carb on without doing anything else to improve your motor's air flow requirments.

You'll need to increase your motor's ability to flow air. Think porting, expansion chamber, high compression, stuff like that

 

[Risingsunn]

Funny thing you should mention compression...
Today I decided to increase compression a bit. The gasket material I used was quite a bit thicker than the stock gaskets. So I trashed my homemade gasket and put a stock gasket back on. I also lapped the cylinder top and the cylinder head as per a couple of the posts here. Not enough to really make a lot of difference but enough to smooth both surfaces out. I also lapped the intake and exhaust ports on the cylinder since I was at it.
It SEEMS that it MIGHT have increased the bottom end power a bit, but it could be wishful thinking. It feels though like I have hit the proverbial brick wall when it comes to the hi end as it still tops off at about 30 mph uphill regardless of 3/4 or WOT. I am happy with it for now though and know that I will have to look into a new pipe and some other mods if I want more. Though I was under the impression that a stock motor should be able to reach 35. I am also going to be listening for any knocks or pings that may indicate the piston slapping the head.

 

[Risingsunn]

So over the last couple of days I have done a couple of 30-35 mile runs and I have to say I am now a firm believer in the "sweet spot" theory. I have to admit when I first started I wanted to be a speed demon. But after some good council and taking some longer rides I am happy finding that sweet spot at about 27 mph with half to 3/4 throttle and just cruising there. The bike just rides smoother and with less vibration and less chance of losing control. Anything higher than 30-32 and things start vibrating and rattling quite badly.

I am finally out of the break in phase and am running at a 50:1 mix. The speed carb now sits unused on my bench. The good ol' NT seems to just have more go power on my engine. I may put it back on later but right now I see no need, nor do I see a need for rejetting, I get all the performance I want with stock carb. I have ordered the final 2 parts to round things out. I am getting rid of the heavy duty house wiring in favor of a magnecore spark plug wire and am replacing the stock chain with higher quality one. After getting those switched out and broken in, I plan on shooting for a 100 mile round trip in the next month or so.

I also borrowed my buddy's compression tester and besides shocking the crap outta my leg from the plug wire hanging loose, the bike tested roughly 120-130 lbs. I haven't seen anything definitive on what the compression should be, but I think it's good, though I am still not happy with the cheap stock gaskets. I might have to invest in some thinner gasket material and make some better quality gaskets.

 

[Risingsunn]

Today I attempted the grand daddy of all rides for me, a 100 mile round trip ride to a local town and back. I have done a couple of 30 mile trips and a 40 mile trip yesterday up the mountain pass with a 10% grade just to make sure the bike could handle it. It did though slowly and with a lot of pedaling. I took it easy without going over 25 most of the ride there and took a few breaks to let the engine cool. I made the 50 mile trip there in about 2.5 hours. As I was cruising back I noticed that the bike wasn't handling the hills as peppy. About half way back the bike started losing a lot of power and picked up a squeak that I hadn't hear earlier. The squeak turned into a knock so I stopped altogether, about 25 miles from home. Thanks to generosity of a stranger with a pickup, I got a ride home. After resting for a while I decided to see what happened. The cylinder looked none the worse for the wear. But the bottom piston ring was broken. That would account for the loss of power and the squeak. The piston shows quite a bit of discoloration though I dont know if it would have any affect on performance.
I pulled the snap rings and the wrist pin and popped the piston head off. The bushing under the wrist pin were completely destroyed. I haven't dissected the engine any further and am not sure if I need to.
So I guess I have few questions. First should these be covered under BikeBerry's warranty? Second is the bushing even replaceable by the average joe? Finally would the broken piston rings cause any major damage though I didn't see any?

 

[Mannhouse51]

I've never seen a bushing on the rod like that. I know the OLD engines used to have them but now about everything uses a needle bearing . I'm confused seeing as your motor is a flying horse. I;m hoping someone else will chime in and shed some light on this.

 

[Greg58]

I thought all the newer engines would have needle bearings also, my 2010 grubee has needle bearings. Maybe 2door or one of the senior members have an idea.

 

[Risingsunn]

So Bikeberry has opened up an RMA for me. I have to say that I am impressed. I was actually going to send them an email tonight offering to buy the piston rings if they would RMA the bushing and ship it together. But they have stepped up and have RMAed the piston, rings, cylinder body, and bushing! I was hoping that going with them would be a good decision and so far it has. Between the muffler and these other parts, I have saved close to $100 in replacement parts. I wish the parts didn't break in the first place but crap happens.
It didn't sound like the remains of the bushing did any damage so I think I got off lucky.
Looks like it's back to break in again mileage again. It's all good though, the weather down here is getting warm out and the miles will go by fast.

 

[crassius]

agree, not even sure if the needle bearing will fit those old rods

 

[Risingsunn]

So today I decided it was time to tear down the motor and clean out the remains of the brass bushing before I get a he new parts in. Quite a learning experience!! I think I enjoyed tearing it down as much as riding it. I even picked up some some grease to make sure everything was well lubed. Honestly the process was not half as hard as I thought it would be. I had to trash the stock gear case gasket since it fell apart on removal but made a replacement using the better quality gasket paper I picked up before. Once I got it all back together I could tell that it was smoother than before. I am wondering how much, if any, they grease these at the factory. I can't wait to get the new parts in. I really hope it runs better than it did when I first got it. I am thinking about taking apart and greasing up the hubs and gear case on the bike now.
EDIT: Here is a picture of what I cleaned out. Felt like panning for gold in the oil. Now that I taken everything apart, they actually did assemble everything correctly from the factory. I also took the time to read up and port both the intake manifold and exhaust pipe for better flow. Here's hoping it will make things a bit better.
With tax season here and a nice refund check coming in the mail, I am once again contemplating a new pipe. Though I am still torn between the Arrow Torquer of which I haven't heard a lot on, the SBP Xchamber, or the cheaper BGF Voodoo. Any ideas?

 

[Risingsunn]

I am getting beyond frustrated with this whole experience. What started out as so much fun has turned into just one gigantic headache.
Check my post on TRYING to get correct parts from Bikeberry on this damn thing....

http://motorbicycling.com/showthread.php?p=465700#post465700

 

[crassius]

just took a closer look at your cases - did you add those screws holding the main bearing in, or did they come that way from the factory - never seen that before

and I agree that getting parts off the inet has become very difficult with all the new changes from different factories

 

[Risingsunn]

They aren't screws. The best term I can think of to describe them are crimps. They tapped into the metal around the bearing and sealed them into place.

 

[crassius]

yes, I see it better now - they're called swedges to expand the metal a bit for a tight fit, in the first pic it looked like 2 of them had screw heads on them : )

I hadn't seen that done before either.

 

[Risingsunn]

Thank you for reading this journey of mine, it has been a lot of ups and downs, but it's time to end this thread. The motor that I started with is no longer serviceable, Bikeberry could not find the correct parts for it and was not even a true Flying Horse to begin with. I may begin a new thread with whatever brand/model motor they sent me but I no longer trust them to be honest with the true make of motors they send. I have 2 other threads on the issue that I am also going to end and have one big post on what REALLY happened with Bikeberry and and how they may be misleading their customers (you and I) in what they sell and could be violating several trademark laws to boot.

 

[16v4nrbrgr]

Did they sell you one of their other kits that are lower priced as the Flying Horse to you?