A GEBE two stroke experiment...

Badmoon, if you're talking about adding nitro to a HT, you may cause irreparable damage. The quality of the engines are not that great.
 
Badmoon, if you're talking about adding nitro to a HT, you may cause irreparable damage. The quality of the engines are not that great.

Badmoon,

The difference between specs of the HT and commercial engines is substantial. in this case the major issue is the material used in the bore and piston/cylinders/rings etc.

Commercial engines are much more tightly designed because they are expected to run for long periods at full power with bulletproof reliability.

The Golden eagle kit that I run uses a Tanaka Purefire engine which is a commercial engine and designed to the relevant tight specifications. Even then I am running 50mls per 5 litres of petrol -a very weak mixture and when I doubled that I was running very lean

I would suggest if you are going to do this that you start very very weak on the NM. Given that most HT's run a 1/2 gallon tank I would say that per tank your maximum usage of NM should be 10-15-20mls and then check the plug often and keep an ear on the sound of the motor.

Understand this is completely your decision. I havent run this on a Chengine/HT so I cannot tell you what it will do and whether something bad will happen.

Jemma xx
 
NM

The other point to remember here is that Jemma is experimenting and is not using it flat out all the time as you increase the speed of any vehicle(bike) without making substantial changes to brakes and suspension or road holding capabilities the vehicle(bike may be come more unstable ) as has been mentioned before we need to keep motored bikes in a low profile otherwise authorities will end up legislating them with high $ law requirements and then it will cease to be a cheap hobby/form of transport and we will have lost a great way of enjoying our freedoms at a lower cost .
Roy
 
The other point to remember here is that Jemma is experimenting and is not using it flat out all the time as you increase the speed of any vehicle(bike) without making substantial changes to brakes and suspension or road holding capabilities the vehicle(bike may be come more unstable ) as has been mentioned before we need to keep motored bikes in a low profile otherwise authorities will end up legislating them with high $ law requirements and then it will cease to be a cheap hobby/form of transport and we will have lost a great way of enjoying our freedoms at a lower cost .
Roy

well... sort of.

I ran the whole trip flat out to see what I could manage. Since I have gotten back I have found that the pivot bolt on the springer was spinning around on its own and I think I have managed to partially strip one of the threads on the back axle :( which is really concerning me.

However, when I ride I stick to the rules of the road and the conditions and I dont do silly things. The one thing guaranteed to get us into legal trouble is barrelling down the pavement and hitting someone at top speed. A 200lb bike and rider combination hitting you at speed could do alot of damage.

While I personally like the idea of high performance modding these bikes (says lil miss nitromethane...), I would be lary at doing speeds approaching 60mph on them because if something fails at that speed you are gonna have real problems and you might involve others in the resulting accident.

The golden rules:-

1. Maintainence, Maintainence, Maintainence. check and double check everything - if it moves and it isnt supposed to move; locktite it, if it doesnt move when its not sposed to, keep an eye on it, then when it does, locktite it.

2. ride within your personal abilities and the conditions. Yes you can slap the throttle wide open on a wet road, but be aware the next thing you will be slapping is a nearby tree or your nextdoor neighbours brand new Chrysler.. with your head.

3. NEVER EVER EVER, repeat NEVER drink or take impairing medications before riding. That includes Codiene and other licenced painkillers. I know it should be self explanatory but Im putting it in anyway.

4. Wear a helmet/hard hat. Yes I know I didnt used to. I will now, because if my brain is smashed to smithereens or smeared over the blacktop like so much cream cheese I am no use to anyone. We all say it wont happen to us, and then it does, and the best we can manage are variations on the theme of dribble. I can assure you, while you may not see yourself as important or be concerned about your safety, your friends and family do and are!

5. Secure your bike... not only are these machines relatively rare, they are also in many cases expensive. they are also a self propelled weapon in the wrong hands. You can rest assured that the sort of person who will steal such a machine is not going to bother about safe riding. And who will get the blame? The MB community.

*rant mode: off*

Jemma xx
 
It has puzzled me a lot, why some engines,more notably 2 strokes it seems, are hard to start.By that I mean 5 pulls or more,even at 30 degrees C,that means more than 20 compression cycles,ignition does not change,nor does the mixture,so what's going on?

Mixture changes with temp because air becomes denser. I live in alaska and own several snowmachines. They generally start first pull in very cold temps ,because they are jetted for it, even tho both are 5 years old.

Ether strips oil off the cylinder walls. On my diesels at least I use a rag and soak it with a little gasoline and place it on the intake. The compression ignites the gasoline vapors easily which in turn ignite the diesel and you got yourself a runnin motor.

Im very interested in your future posts on this subject. I have several hundred gallons of methanol. I wonder if I can make my own nitro. For those that want to mess with nitro I use chem gloves, a chemical apron and eye protection just for the methanol. Chemicals can be nasty so be careful.
on edit: I found some more infoz on this. Looks like nitro and methanol arent related. However I did find some infoz that were disturbing.

snippet "Nitromethane as a fuel additive.

We are sometimes asked about adding nitro to gasoline or methanol. This is possible and it has been done successfully. However, there are a number of problems that make this impractical. These include the corrosive nature of the combustion gasses after nitromethane is burned. This process produces large amounts of nitric acid, which is not only corrosive but toxic. To prevent serious corrosion, a thorough flushing of the fuel system and motor is necessary after use. While it burns slowly, there is also the danger of explosion when nitro is used. Another issue is solubility. If you are running methanol, there is no problem as nitromethane and methanol mix freely. But nitro does not mix easily with gasoline. So, if a nitro/gas mixture is desired additional chemicals must be added to prevent separation."

This looks bad. I wouldnt suggest doing this.
 
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Well....

An update. I went out on a run today and the bike seemed a little off colour (admittedly not helped by the thing not wanting to idle at a reasonable speed due to a short tanaka throttle cable).

I just pulled the plug and its almost black in colour - the engine is smokey and having shone a torch up the exhaust port it seems slightly scored in there. The latter I am not too concerned about since it seems very light and is not cross to the pistons running (ie its not something thats got out of place and scored things).

I have a few tanks worth of the nitro mixture left - suggestions.. do I bin it and go back to normal fuel or should it be ok to run the rest through and then go back?

Im a little worried because I need the bike to be running - its my only viable means of transport at the moment.. :cry:

Jemma xx
 
So I am a guy who started running a mixture of NM in my gas/oil jug back in 2003 when i had the original GEBE Zenoah "strato charged" 25.4cc engine.

My buddy (a fellow motored biker) suggested that if we mix a little splash of NM 15% in our 1 gallon mix tank it could improve top speed and throttle response of our engines.

"CRISPER THROTTLE? LETS DO IT!"

I noticed that it did make starting the engine a little harder (which is a game I could very well do without), however there WAS a clear higher top speed, and crisper throttle response. That Nitro seemed like it made my engine wind out a little more. I never had a problem with that and I never kept track of the "amount" per gallon.....just a "little drink" is all i put in.

I thought Id share some of my observed pros and cons of nitro.

Pros:
1) It gives you crisper throttle response
2) It does make your top end faster
3) I ran my engine WOT for 5 years...no seizes.
4) It is pink in color
5) It smells so sweet.
6) Throw a shot or two into a gallon...you should be fine.

Cons:

1) Shelf life is 7-12 months.
2) It breaks down regular 2 stroke oil.
3) It is designed for Alcohol applications not gas.
3) It will make you go through a tank of gas faster than without it.
4) It makes your engine a little harder to start
5) It costs $15 for a 1 gallon jug.
6) It comes premixed with oil too, so you have to stay sensitive to your existing oil/gas mixture. It will add more oil to the existing ratio.
 
By your description you was running R/C fuel not nitro methane in you engine.

RC fuel is a MIX of synthetic and/or castor bean oils + methanol + 15% to 40% nitro methane, and come in a variation off colors yellow, pink, blue, whatever.

Can't see what a small drink of that will do to your engine.

Felipe Cobu
 
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