Gilroy Indians
Sturgis 2008 was great. We all had a nice ride there and back. Best parts was NO PROBLEMS! While there, I happened across
52/52 Performance Tuning. Those guys were really accomodating at testing my '03 Powerplus Chief. Below are the test results.
We also had an opportunity to check out some of the new "Brand-B's" (eh-hem, H-D's). The stock screaming eagles are rated by the manufacturer at 85 hp. In my opinion, they don't have nothin' on the Indian PP100 engine - especially when I lean mine out to where it needs to be.
Posted 11/17/2008: After checking the carb out, I discovered the HSR42 was running the OEM 98 needle in position 3 and a 165 main jet. The needle was changed to a 97 to richen it up the low end (to 1/4 throttle), the e-clip raised a notch to lean out the mid range (1/4 to 3/4 throttle), and the main jet leaned out to a 160. This proved to be a bit too lean on the main, so I changed it back to a 162.5 and this seemed to help immensely. Engine is making lots of power, and I'm going to run it this way for a while.
Posted 1/6/2009: After four years, I finally finished the tear-down on my original 2003 PowerPlus 100 engine. You know, the one that was knocking really bad. What I discovered was rather interesting. The flywheels were 0.005" out of true. Not a deal-breaker, and certainly less than the go-no-go limit of 0.008". The cases were made by Mansfied. So the insert looked to be solid. The male rod bearing was very loose. So after splitting the flywheels, it was discovered that the male rod bearing cage was gone! (The sides of the cage were still there, though). Obviously, the crankpin is a total loss as well. I'm speculating that when the flywheels slipped out of true, the oil passage became blocked and the rod bearings dried up and failed.
Posted 9/30/2009: The other night I was riding home and the engine sputtered out. Just before began to fail, I could hear a change in the pitch of the valve train clicking. Immediately apparent on side-of-road inspection was I blew apart the front cylinder pushrod. The pushrod was made by Andrews, as evidenced by the gold colored aluminum construction. Later teardown of the cam chest and rocker box revealed that this push-rod was the only part that failed in the valve train. Cam lobes, lifters, valves, all appeared good. Thankfully, this is an easy fix.
