Messages

1

General Two Stroke Talk / Re: A peek at the MicroBlue Technology in action

« on: July 04, 2010, 08:22:05 PM »

A "perfect finish" is seemingly impossible on a metallic surface with standard machine tooling. How is this done? And can it be done on a cost-effective basis? While it sounds intriguing, the technology doesn't have a future beyond sponsored race teams if it's prohibitively expensive. Not too many recreational riders and racers are going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a high-tech coating process.

Agreed... a perfect finish is not possible with standard machine tooling. It is a process using ceramic media and a special solution to superpolish the parts. You are correct that this process will not be for everyone as it will certainly be in the thousands of dollars and not the hundreds. Although some of the secondary benefits might change some recreational riders minds. Parts lasting much, much longer than stock could be a selling point to some folks.

But again, we are not so much trying to sell this stuff as tell you what we are doing. If someone is interested, they can decide for themselves.

I know the cross hatch is to retain oil, and the oil serves more than one function. Lubrication is the obvious one, but it also helps to complete the seal between the ring and the bore surface. No matter how good the machining (or coating) is, no surface is perfect, and the oil helps to seal those minute imperfections between the ring surface and the bore surface. So with so little oil, does this effect the ring seal?

Chokey, you are not the only one confused by this, honestly the first time I heard it I was the same as you, asking lots of questions. With that said, I have to tell you that I'm not half the mechanical guy that you are. I know some stuff, but when it gets a bit technical... I'm not the best guy to ask.

Our tests show that compression increases when the engine has been MicroBlue coated. It also pumps much more air which is why the bike needs such a large main jet. From everything we've experienced the seal is better. I don't claim to understand why it does, just know that's what we have found.

Hopefully this comes closer to answering your question... if not I'll ask Craig from MicroBlue to come on here and answer it for you.

LOL...well, it does kinda answer my question, but it also makes me have more...LOL

I take your word for it that compression increases, I just don't understand how. Even with a perfectly smooth bore surface, it just doesn't seem that the ring can seal perfectly to the surface if it isn't also oily, so I'm trying to wrap my brain around it, and thinking isn't my strong point. I also don't understand how a simple coating can significantly increase air flow?

I would love to hear from Microblue Craig, I could ask him questions all day long, as this sort of thing intrigues me greatly. I love this kind of tech stuff.

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: A peek at the MicroBlue Technology in action

« on: July 04, 2010, 05:15:20 AM »

Hey bud,
He does answer your question. It has also been posted before on how the micro blue technology works.
I think what you want to know, is that components of the top end are finished so that they are "PERFECT", and this is looked at under ultra high powered microscopes, and then these components are then coated. This allows the perfect ring seal with almost no oil. Also greatly reduces the wear on these components. Remember when John  said that you have to totally re-think the paradigm that has been in place for over 30 years. This is why.

No need to be a smartass, I was asking a serious question simply to learn. Obviously I didn't feel like he completely answered my question, hence the reason I asked again. Forgive me for never having heard of this process before...

A "perfect finish" is seemingly impossible on a metallic surface with standard machine tooling. How is this done? And can it be done on a cost-effective basis? While it sounds intriguing, the technology doesn't have a future beyond sponsored race teams if it's prohibitively expensive. Not too many recreational riders and racers are going to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a high-tech coating process.

3

General Two Stroke Talk / Re: A peek at the MicroBlue Technology in action

« on: July 03, 2010, 11:10:19 AM »

One of the functions of the oil in an engine is to help with ring seal. How does this "Micro-Blue" address that if you are running so little oil?

Chokey... please buckle your seat belt on this one.... the coatings require that you totally re-think the paradigm that has been in place for over 30 years. With that said, here we go...

When you MicroBlue a cylinder the bore must be perfectly smooth... NO cross hatching at all!

I know, I know... it sounds crazy, right?

But let's use this analogy to help you along, if you are water skiing on a choppy body of water, how well do your skis stay in contact with the water? Now what if that lake was smooth as glass?

Once you have your chrome smooth bore with matched rings MicroBlue coated, there is no break in! Best of all the parts last much, much longer than standard parts...

This past week we have spent at MicroBlue, learning more about the process and what's involved. It's been an amazing education.

Let's turn your question around for a moment and ask this.. what is the reason for the cross hatching in the cylinder?

As for pricing information and comparisons between stock and MicroBlue coated, these are in the works.

It has to be proven first, say in National competition.... 

That all sounds intriguing, but it still didn't answer the question that I asked. I know the cross hatch is to retain oil, and the oil serves more than one function. Lubrication is the obvious one, but it also helps to complete the seal between the ring and the bore surface. No matter how good the machining (or coating) is, no surface is perfect, and the oil helps to seal those minute imperfections between the ring surface and the bore surface. So with so little oil, does this effect the ring seal?

Not trying to be critical, trying to learn.

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: A peek at the MicroBlue Technology in action

« on: June 30, 2010, 06:47:12 PM »

One of the functions of the oil in an engine is to help with ring seal. How does this "Micro-Blue" address that if you are running so little oil?

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: What's stopping.....

« on: June 11, 2010, 07:07:22 PM »

2s 244 six vs. 454 : WWW.SNOWGOER.COM  "Why 2-Stroke Direct Injection Is A Big Deal".

Don't see the article?

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: 500 2 strokes always were slower then 250 2 strokes!!

« on: June 07, 2010, 05:48:46 PM »

Well hell, a four-stroke only fires 0.5 times per crankshaft rotation, so a 250F should actually be called a 125F by that logic?

Please tell me what the number of firing events per crank revolution has to do with displacement?

I was merely pointing out the fact that a single rotor Wankel in fact does not fire three times per crank rotation, it fires once. And that's why many experts agree that a single rotor Wankel can be compared to a single cylinder engine, rather than a three cylinder engine. Again, I said NOTHING about displacement.

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: 500 2 strokes always were slower then 250 2 strokes!!

« on: June 06, 2010, 06:08:24 PM »

By producing the 300 cc WANKEL engine,it was debatet what it realy was,because it fired 3 times in one revolution so some people claimed it was therefore a 900 cc.

That's actually not true, although many people believe it to be so. A single-rotor Wankel only fires once per eccentric shaft (crankshaft) rotation. The shaft rotates three times for every single rotation of the rotor. That's why a single rotor Wankel is comparable to a single cylinder reciprocating engine.

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Technical / Re: Cracked wheel?

« on: June 06, 2010, 05:54:16 PM »

What you have for a rim determines the different types of spokes you have-lefties and righties,inies and outies etc.What sachs said about taping the spokes together is a good idea-I'd never heard of it-but even if you're buying new it would help you keep straight which go where and you could untape and replace one matching one at a time in your hub.

When I replace a wheel, I tape all the spokes where they cross, then just cut them all at the nipple so I don't have to loosen every nipple to get the wheel apart. The spokes and nipples are trash anyway...

Then just set the hub in the center of the new wheel and start replacing spokes. I always do my first four sets ninety degrees apart, that way they hold the wheel and hub in place for the rest.

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Technical / Re: ATF as gearbox oil?

« on: June 02, 2010, 05:49:27 PM »

When you were a chemist you didn't inject the results of your labours into your veins did you Fox?

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General Two Stroke Talk / Re: Fuel injected two stroke Husky sm 125

« on: June 02, 2010, 05:48:32 PM »

But you talking about a 4T engine, 4T engine is easy to apply EFI to as each phase of the cycle is distinct and you have 720 deg of crank rotation to play with.
A 2T engine has at LEAST 2 phases of the cycle happening at any 1 time, which does not give much time and needs a lot of computing power to go from say 3000 up to 9000 and back to 3000 in the blink of an eye. EFI is 'dumb' ie you have to tell it what to do, a carb is smart it will work off engine demand and throttle position. Will will have 2 distinct progams for off and on pipe, and high rpm/low throttle situations etc etc etc.
Then there is the decision to DI or replace the carb with an injector. Putting a throttle body in place of a carb is relatively easy  the DI is much more complicated and expensive. Japanese factory's lost billions of YEN in the GFC they are just not prepared to spend the money.A contact in Japan went to Hammamatsu and was talking to a few Suzuki engineers at the new gixxer 1000 launch a few of them would love the opportunity to build another RG500 street bike, they were confident they could meet emissions targets etc etc but management crushed the idea.

If fuel injection systems are fast enough to keep up with 15,000 rpm 4 cylinder sport bikes or 20,000 rpm 4 cylinder F1 engines I see no reason why they can't handle my single cylinder 9000 rpm 250 two-stroke.

I understand that the Japanese companies aren't going to invest R&D funds for bikes they don't even sell in their largest market anymore, but that's strictly economics. I just don't think I believe that their are any valid engineering reasons why FI is excessively difficult for our two-stroke MX bikes. The Bimoto V-Due was Direct Injected, and aside from some minor mapping issues it was nearly ready to go when Bimota ran out of money. They were a much smaller company than any of the OEMs and yet they made it work. They solved the fuel atomization issues and the piston cooling issues associated with DI on a high-rpm two-stroke. They simply bit off more than they could chew by also simultaneoulsy designing and building their own engine from scratch, which ultimately bankrupted them. A major manufacturer would have had the developmental resources to see that project through to fruition. I have read from more than one source that at the time of it's pre-pro debut, even though it still needed a little more low-speed mapping fine tuning, the V-Due engine had the highest specific output of any production motorcycle ever made at that time.

11

General Two Stroke Talk / Re: Fuel injected two stroke Husky sm 125

« on: June 02, 2010, 04:29:28 PM »

What you seem to overlook is sleds and outboards have one thing in common. Constant throttle opening. This makes open loop EFI a doddle.Sleds have a CVT which allows a narrow band of rpm but a wide range of operating speeds. Outboards are off or on, like the 50cc Aprilia Orbital scooter.
The ECU will have trouble coping with, off/on part throttle applications not to mention the hot/cold pipe. Not unless there is a massive jump in affordable computing power.

totally agree. from what i can see ( which isn't much really lol ) you'd have trouble getting fast accurate info to the cpu, what would you use for sensors? oxy sensor? not on a 2t, MAP sensor? don't think that would work either what then some sort of airflow meter na we're not in the 90's lol
A dirt bike is totally different to an outboard or a sled in the way we ask it to deliver it's power.
When you can make a carb or variant of it work so well then i can't see efi or dfi anytime in the near future.
just my 2 cents

So, FI works just fine with the constant throttle transitions of a four-stroke MX biked (without an O2 sensor), but it for some reason will be completely flummoxed by the constant throttle transitions of a two-stroke MX bike? Please explain why?

12

Technical / Re: What two stroke pre mix is best?

« on: June 01, 2010, 08:11:10 PM »

I use AGIP KART , it's very very good oil and so is CROSS 2T. Much better than the chainsaw stuff.

You sure? I jetted the bike for Agip mixture and it seems fine. But what about protective qualities. Somewhere in the forum there was an article abot semi-synt . It is supposed not to boil out the cylinder, but to crack and form heavy, hi-viscosity esters, protecting the engine

Petroleum-based oils will not form esters when heated. Only castor will do that.

13

Technical / Re: Detonation.

« on: June 01, 2010, 08:08:24 PM »

Is this not what you said?

Yep, i'm about to say that again and again. Thin gasket never leads to detonation.

Seriously? You really believe that? Because I have personal experience with a thinner head gasket on my KX putting the engine over the edge and causing it to ping on 93 octane. I had to run 100 octane with the thin head gasket to not have detonation. Replace the head gasket with the standard thickness gasket and the pinging goes away. Imagine that...

Many modern two-strokes are right on the verge of detonating right off the showrrom floor, and it takes very littel to push them over the edge. Anything that raises compression increases the possibility of detonation.

14

Technical / Re: cylinder wear

« on: May 31, 2010, 01:08:11 PM »

You mean, plating some Nikasil onto the cylinder?? But in our country no one does re-plating! The nearest country in Europe doing that is Poland.
Nikasil seems fine. It should be a bit blue inside, shouldn't it?
wHAt about buying a sleeve?

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize you lived in Europe.

I guess in that case the decision would be based on cost. How much difference in price would there be bewteen installing a sleeve and buying a new cylinder?

While I never recomend a sleeve over a re-plate, if re-plating is not an option and money is an issue then a sleeve is the next best alternative, as long as you can find a GOOD machine shop that can bore it true and match the ports properly. If not, you're better off buying a new cylinder.

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Technical / Re: Detonation.

« on: May 31, 2010, 01:04:09 PM »

Not really!!! They're so thin, let's count:

A usual gasket is 0,45mm thin. My lower gasket is made of magazine cover and it's 0,27 mm.
the hight difference is 0,18 mm only. Multiply it into Pi and a sqr of half bore and you get 0.6 cc as a difference. Huge, isn't it...
That Doesnt really change anything. Maybe the compression will be 11,3 instead of 11.
When someone cuts the cylinder head, they cut a 1 mm of metall! That can make difference!

While I certainly agree that cutting 1mm off the head will make a much greater difference, we weren't talking about cutting the head, now were we?

Is this not what you said?

Base gaskets don't really affect compression - i counted! The only affecting thing is  the head gasket.