Z3n's Project Barn

[augustiron]

I love the diversity of different projects with the strong common thread of "cool AF".

This is how I've been trying to curate the projects I take on as well, but too many friends are always in need of mundane tuneups, carb rebuilds and basic repairs that I want to take care of.
I love when I get to do cool projects on cool machines...

I do turn away newcomers with mundane work that can be done by others, but I have so many friends with land cruisers and motos they keep me as busy as I want to be (with my own Motos and cruisers filling the gaps)

 

[budman]

I love the diversity of different projects with the strong common thread of "cool AF".

+1

Super cool AF!

 

[Z3n]

Thanks guys!

I feel like I'm constantly pulled in too many directions but I've just kinda learned to lean into it. Plus it helps that I have other friends who also do project stuff so I can lean into that a bit.

Just trying to stay in the habit of doing things No major updates, just learned the hitch I ordered doesn't quite fit on the rig, so need to return that and get one that does fit, sigh. Maybe dampers tomorrow, but going dirtbiking first!

 

[Z3n]

Been a minute since I've made an update. I adjusted the steering box on the van, which improved the steering feel significantly and got rid of the dead zone, replaced a hose that was cracking. Got the wrong hitch for it, apparently the cutaways have a different frame design, who knew. Also figured out that it does run honest to god Dana 60s with the leaf conversion, which is why it rides pretty high. Have some Bilstiens and a steering damper to throw at it, apparently it helps make driving them a bit more relaxing. Need to do the front brake rotors at some point.

I also have my old Pontiac that I finally felt some motivation to mess with, snagged a new battery, discovered that the fuel pump wasn't triggering, started down the diagnostic rabbit hole, needed to update the ECU firmware, and rather than doing the thing I knew I should have done and let it sit, I checked the fuse that I thought controlled the fuel pump and NOPE that was the ECU fuse, so bricked the ECU. It's going back to Holley to get reflashed. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

I had a chance to head out to the dyno and pull a flash from an 2023 890 Adventure R (software revision, but same ECU architecture), and ran the new headers. Bike went to 18:1 lean across the midrange, so they definitely scavenge better, but was running up against a time limit and didn't have time to reflash and re-run the bike, so that'll have to wait until next weekend, perhaps.

I kept thinking about the electric project, but was feeling a little unmotivated by the whole thing - between needing to balance the crank, the chain drive being annoying, and the delay from the lash in the system, I finally just landed on "take the powertrain from the EM and throw it in the 300 chassis". Hate to take a functional bike offline to make this work, but sometimes you gotta do these things.
Tore down the EM:

Motor in the EM is a stressed member:

Fits quite nicely in the 300 frame:

Had to remove one of the lower engine mounting tabs on the 300 frame, but I can always weld one back in if needed, not the end of the world. I think I'm gonna have to mount the battery pack sideways for the initial prototype (I'll probably flip it around so the charge port faces away):

Need to design up:
A 13mm/17mm stepped swingarm bolt, with appropriate spacers to support the center section of the swingarm
A lower rear motor mount
Front motor mounts
Battery mounting bracket
A custom 428 rear sprocket
Mounting for the controller
Maybe some wiring extensions, but I think I can route it so that's not needed

My lathe didn't move with me, so once I've got the designs knocked out, I'll toss them over to my buddy and get the parts in the mail at some point

To close, the next dumb thing I'm thinking about. WA happens to be JDM heaven because of the easy imports, and while I do really love 4 door Skylines, I've always loved Rocket Bunny and their widebody kit, and I very much want to build one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx-ETIEeiIc

But of course, there's no way that I'd want to deal with a car motor, so it'd get a motorcycle engine. The current thing I'm mulling over is K1600 motor for better gear ratios but less HP, or R1 for an inline 4 flatplane motor that puts out more HP than the stock motor in the 240SX and weighs significantly less, but has a tight ratio gearbox that'll make it a little annoying to drive. Probably will go with the R1 to keep a 4 cylinder in it, but if the right K1600 comes along...

I love widebodies, dumb motor swaps, sequential transmissions, why shouldn't I build a widebody 240SX? Treat myself.

 

[auntiebling]

refresh me a bit... expediency aside what do you gain putting the drive system from the EM in to the KTM? the point of the ktm was to have gears + electric drive yes?

 

[Z3n]

The EM has a flywheel and clutch assembly, with a very nice set of power and throttle response maps. I’d like to have a transmission and a more powerful motor but there’s still good gearing options for this powertrain. The trials bike is great but I’ve got a pretty short inseam, and I’d like to be able to practice pivot turns and such on a full size dirtbike frame. I do trials for cross training around my house so this allows me the same cross training but on a full size bike. I’m also really curious how it’s gonna handle my usual trail riding stuff, as the trials bike isn’t the best for that

Basically, half of this is because I can, the other half is I’m curious how it’ll turn out.

 

[auntiebling]

right on. sounds fun

i have a plated husky te610 frame i want to put an electric drivetrain in so i can finally ride dirt. i might have my priorities backwards

 

[Z3n]

I'm a huge believer in electric powertrains, so IMO, you're doing great stuff by having a go at it. I've got a giant stack of Electro and Co parts that I'm not using now, I should throw a simple E-bike together...

This is my curse. Can't stop won't stop

 

[GPzPop]

Harbor Freight lift + Baxley chock for the win ! (I have that setup also)

 

[Z3n]

Very easy and works across all the front tire sizes, big fan!

No progress today, busy with day job and such. Perhaps tomorrow!

 

[Z3n]

Well, Imgur appears to be down, but I have the axle dimensions all sorted for the 300/EM swap, and the front motor mount prototypes are 3d printed and fit nicely. Remaining items on the 300/EM swap are: Design the battery mounts, which will confirm final design on the front motor mount assembly, figure out wiring locations, design some protective covers, get a rear sprocket made, and install a chain and the controls and it will be ready to ride.

I'd also like to rip together a direct drive bike for comparison, that will be much quicker than this build - many of the brackets I built before can be reused, there's a lot more space, and the overall design is much more straightforward. Hoping to have the e-bikes wrapped by end of January, then I'll probably do the trackbike in prep for March trackdays, and then the rally bike, because I can still cross-train on my 250 and don't need the rally bike built until March.

 

[Z3n]

And an update:
So this is what the front mounts look like when I prototype them:

The nice thing about PLA is that it's strong enough to hold up to this sort of test fit:

My friend spun up the stepdown axle for me - the EM is 13mm, I didn't want to modify the cases so I can put the trials bike back together someday (Nor was there really enough meat to drill things out), the KTM swingarm is 17mm, so I needed a 17->13mm stepdown axle with the appropriate spacers:

Got my TTR125 running again, just needed the shifter reinstalled. It's my "teach people to ride / play on a dirt oval" bike.

Replaced the damaged gauges on my friend's Kramer (shipping incident):

Also, I had the not so great experience of embedding a splinter of fiberglass about 5mm into my thumb and let me tell you I did NOT like pulling that thing out. Better than the alternative, but made me appreciate that I've never been shot by an arrow. The bike is extremely nice, though, cool to see the a bike so built for purpose. I'll steal some things from their design approach for the RC890.

I really like the positive lock in on the Kramer, but I don't like how long the reach to the bars is on the Kramer. You can see the difference here in tank sizes:

I don't like feeling stretched out on my trackbikes - from the video here you can see that I like being pretty tight on the bike:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-AT_OeDPd0
However, the current tank design doesn't really allow me to lock in well, so I'm gonna borrow the arc of the Kramer tank, which provides an excellent "positive" feeling for lock in, just in slightly different packaging size overall. It'll probably be about 30% shorter, but most of that will come off the front of the tank, and just a little off the back. Interesting how the design language of KTM is so present in the Kramer, which makes sense given their relationship (and that this is almost the same tank design as the RC8C). I've done some 3d modeling of the fairing designs as prototyping, but nothing that I'm entirely happy with yet. Turns out, translating an image from your head into physical reality isn't as easy as you'd think.

And finally, I'm getting my comparison bike together, which is a single speed, "traditional" electric. I wish I'd bought the gear reduced QS138, it would have made the packaging a lot easier here, but that wasn't the original intent behind the project.

I have a feeling this bike will eventually become my flat track bike if everything works out how I'd hope, but in the meantime, it'll make a good comparison for the EM-300.

I've sorta roughly settled on a schedule: Have the ability to roll around on the EM by the end of the month (although it won't be ready for actually riding yet), assuming the shipping gods are reasonable, February will be focused on getting the RC890 finalized (Exhaust, fueling, fairings), and then focus on the 350 in March. My wife wants to do some camping trips that would be a great testing ground for putting down some time on the 350 in April / May timeline, so having some deadlines on the horizon should help me keep things moving.

Also pulled the ECU binaries for a 2023 KTM Adventure R, no major changes to the architecture. Need to take a look at the maps and see how they compare.

The Pontiac ECU is with Holley, and I'm starting to think that my issues with the Pontiac stalling were a combo of fuel pump failing and the battery being at the end of its life. Not looking forward to having to siphon out a full tank of gas but such is life.

 

[Z3n]

Did some work and got the EM ePure Race motor in the 300, at least enough to pop around the yard a bit:

Things remaining to do are:
Weld on lower rear motor mounts
Get the lower mounts done in aluminum
Design some armor for the battery so I don't dent the battery in a drop
Better secure the controller
Fit up the rest of the plastics
Fit some lever guards

I'll need to do a bit more experimenting, think I might want to drop the gearing a bit more, but as it sits, it's got a good amount of grunt and it drives nicely off the bottom. It's on a 11 tooth front sprocket from the factory so can't really go any smaller, any changes will require going up in the rear.

Weight is 217 pounds with a full battery, so a full +50 pounds over the EM. But I gained a much better chassis, suspension, brakes, and seating position. In the long run I'll build a bigger battery pack for it - My target max weight is around 240 pounds so should be able to do pretty decent with another 23 pounds work of cells - I think it'd make for a delightful woods bike in that configuration.

 

[Z3n]

And now for something on the other end of the spectrum - back to running the dyno!

Now that the E-nduro is rideable, and I'm waiting for the metal motor mounts to arrive, it was time to finish up some dyno work.

I reflashed a couple of 890 Adventure Rs with my "fix the base fueling" map, got positive feedback on throttle response and smoothness - the goal definitely wasn't to maximize power, but to maximize usability without sacrificing fuel economy, and just make the motor run a little happier. Minor changes, mostly around lambda targets and cleaning up places where the OEM maps got rough.

On my trackbike, I unfortunately had some issues with RPM pickups, so the HP output isn't correct, but the useful part of a dyno isn't the absolute number, but the difference between runs, so onward.

Dyno run video: https://streamable.com/4w8t0a

if you "stretch" the purple line so that it lines up with where the blue line drops off, you can infer the change. I'll need to go back and do some runs once I've got the pickup fixed to really see the difference, but the longer headers absolutely added a good chunk of power at the top end, although improvements in peak power probably need a bit of playing with timing to really maximize. My bike also has the Rottweiler airbox on it, which Andy DiBrino and EDR have said robs a good chunk of midrange power, so I was curious to cross check against my friend's new Duke trackbike conversion.

Dyno run video: https://streamable.com/dwfufg

For him, the goal was to see if we could make a Duke put out the power of a Duke R, and I did manage to identify how the maps are different, leading to this wonderful set of runs:

Red is stock Duke output with an OEM airbox, and a cat delete / SC Project exhaust. Orange is the bike hitting the Duke R power targets instead of the Duke power targets. There's a lot left on the table for the stock Dukes, all in software. This is the same bike, in back to back runs, with just software changes. We pulled the plate that you use to access the OEM filter, as that's where the rottweiler power plate bolts in, and ran it again. Open airbox in green, restricted airbox in red:

And finally, for the sake of comparison, my RC890 (red) vs his Duke 890R (green):

So, the nod goes to Andy and EDR - their recommendations back up what I tested here, I'm gonna reinstall the stock airbox and throw a power plate at it. I have a feeling I'll lose a little at the very top end, and frankly, on a trackbike, it's rare that I'm below 6k, but having the spread of torque start there will help with drive off the corners.

My friend ordered a Speedbox cam for his 890, so it'll be interesting to see what that does as well with the array of mods available.

Also, I know we're not supposed to look at absolute numbers but my curiosity got the best of me - it's a little annoying to do all of this work and end up at functionally the same numbers you ran before, so I did some quick math, did a little extrapolation, and realized that if the dyno is thinking we're hitting redline at about 9.4k, and the bike actually hits redline at 10.5k...putting out 66 foot pounds of torque at 8.2k RPM indicated would be about 1100 RPM below redline, so 9400 RPM. Peak power historically hit at about 9.7k RPM, so that's not super far off, putting me somewhere in the 115-120HP range, which means I'm hitting at about the same level as the Superbike Unlimited KTM 890 build. Can't help but be pleased with that, given that this one was mostly made by my own hand

 

[augustiron]

Nice.
How does all the ecu manipulation play out of the bike was to go to the dealer for warranty work?

Since I see you on that other forum also, I believe you would be aware of the cam/follower drama happening on the 790/890 engines.

Are you aware of or taking any countermeasures on this issue for your quiver of bikes?

My 890 is still under 2k miles and resting for the winter. I have the forks and shock off for a rework and would love to take any preventative steps to lengthen the life.of the cam now while it's still new.

One very vocal poster states good results with cryo treatment....

 

[Z3n]

Nice.
How does all the ecu manipulation play out of the bike was to go to the dealer for warranty work?

Since I see you on that other forum also, I believe you would be aware of the cam/follower drama happening on the 790/890 engines.

Are you aware of or taking any countermeasures on this issue for your quiver of bikes?

My 890 is still under 2k miles and resting for the winter. I have the forks and shock off for a rework and would love to take any preventative steps to lengthen the life.of the cam now while it's still new.

One very vocal poster states good results with cryo treatment....

The flashing software I use generates a valid checksum for the ECU, so it should be effectively undetectable, without KTM running a separate back end check on the checksums. I do take backups so I can reflash to the original ECU config if needed, as well. I doubt anyone would ever know, especially considering the range of versions of the firmware I've found.

I've done a bunch of the new model 890s now, let me know if you'd like your ECU reflashed

I'll tear my bike down and take a look at the cams at some point, I think it's definitely a supply chain issue with KTM cam hardening. I'll probably get mine WPC Treated when I have to adjust the valves - MotoIQ knows their stuff and speaks highly of it, I did it on the CBX, and it made a massive difference in rotational friction on the engine assembly as whole, even with it assembled with thick assembly lube. I'd prefer it for things that have plain bearing lubrication, due to how it interacts with oiling systems here. Info from MotoIQ here: https://motoiq.com/what-is-wpc-treatment-and-why-do-we-use-it/

I'll probably do the followers and cams. If I had the top end of the bike apart, I'd do the valve springs and valves.


So I discovered that sadly, the interpolation I assumed doesn’t work out the way I thought, but so it goes - did another run and discoverd that while I had gained a small amount of power, it wasn't the amount I was expecting. That means next up, it's time to start messing with torque monitoring maps and timing, as I think the end state here is that the bike is pulling power at the top end because it views itself as putting out sufficient torque due to the internal fuel injection calculations. Fueling is pretty spot on now, though.

Brown is with the headers without fueling correction, red is the corrected map. This is probably why the Akra map is known for running so rich, I added a _lot_ of fuel to get it in the range. Also, if people are flashing the Akra maps, running them immediately on the dyno, without letting the bikes self correct for awhile, it's probably making things pretty wonky. I really wanna see if I can find someone with the Akra map on their bike in the PNW, so I can pull their ECU tune and see what changed.

Tried my hand at wrapping some stuff, made some mistakes but learned a lot. Much prefer doing this to painting.

 

[augustiron]

Let's talk via pm or text about the reflash stuff...

Curious for sure, and hesitantly interested

 

[Z3n]

Been ripping around in my friend's car a little and it finally inspired me to get the Pontiac back up and running. Did some crimes to the floor of the trunk (easily fixed with the welder, although I'm probably just gonna make an access hatch for future fuel pump changes):

Turns out the spade connector on the negative post was just pinching the connector between the insulator and the spade connection, not actually clipped on correctly. I had that work done by a shop, but I've made that mistake myself, can't be too mad about it. Did 6k miles like that before the insulator finally gave up the ghost. Car's running again, need to fix the brake booster, and we're back in business - replacing the vacuum booster with an electric brake booster from an Accord, so I can eventually build some ITBs for it.

And for something completely different - I have some friends who do pump-foiling, and one of them asked if I could help build a mobile dock for them. Figured it was a chance to get some TIG time, so we cut some stuff up and I did some welding and while I'm still far from those who taught me how to weld, I think this will hold up just fine.

I also finally caved and ordered an Einstar 3d scanner, should show up soon. Have the metal motor mount for the EM / 300 conversion, just need to install it. Also a 63 tooth sprocket for more pickup - progress, bit by bit!

We'll see how much progress gets made this week!

 

[budman]

You are one busy dude.

The E bike thing is very cool.

 

[Z3n]

Someday I'll figure out how to turn it off, but I was talking to my dad and he's turned 70 recently and said to me "oh, there's still so many ideas and projects I want to make real", so I've got at least that long still in me, probably