A Labor of Love; aka building a Rocket III Speedster

[Gerald]

Ok so step one of all this is freeing the beating heart from Mufasa and validating it's healthy.

I started stripping the carcass down today. I was trying to get to the cam cover so I could check clearances and verify the cams didn't fracture from the impact. Sadly...1 fing cam cover bolt (the last one, and sadly the hardest to reach) striped so.... I can't do that stuff until the engine is free.

Que me removing a bunch of stuff. Engine mounting bolts are all cracked loose but still in place as I'm not quite ready to pull it.

I did remove the crank cover and turn it over by hand, spins freely I can hear/feel the compression events so I suspect the rotating stuff is all ok, but there may be damage thats not apparent.

What I do know is I'm going to have to pull the head for inspection. I see some stuff unspecified for now suspect stuff...

Some pics:

8mm bolt for scale on the scratches the case took from the work of art foot peg rail.


Exhaust side, all ok over here. Red color on ports is RTV. Red color on valves is MMT not rust.


1 stubborn bolt stops this from coming off


Throttle Bodies are undamaged and removed


I think I could pull a rocket engine in about an hour at this point if cheese metal bolts don't fail....

Radiator, somehow, is sound still but it's bent. Won't be reusing it.

Cyl. head ports sizing and blending look awful good, salt leaves a mess. Hopefully inspection doesn't find any more major problems. Looking at pictures, scrapes seem to be minor, hope that's so.

 

[Claviger]

The port work is quite good for top end power, I'll give credit where it's due, Bob knows how to get air in and out. The only evidence I see of salt in the engine is a slight residue on the intake runner from when the bike got washed in #1, a very light mark. Good news is, #1 was closed and it mixed/pooled and was still sitting atop the valves so I could dry it before I turned the engine over. Being a mix of Ti, copper, and alu in that area, I'm not super concerned with it.

No leaking valve seals is also good news. I really wanted to get into the valvetrain today grrr..

I have a concern about the valve seats on the intake side (ti valves and beryllium copper seats, not exactly easy to replace) and the #3 cylinder wall. I see something looking through the intake port with #3 open that I can't identify, might be scratches, might be a trick of lighting but it looks like vertical scoring, won't know until head is off. To get head off, engine needs to be free so I can bully this bolt into releasing the cam cover.

I went and tried again to free the frame from my 2005 frame/engine. The **** left side swingarm pivot is stuck. I've twisted off a 1/2" breaker bar square head, twice now, trying to free it. Since I cant get it off, the frame is held hostage by the drive shaft coupled to the output.

I think I'm just going to give up and teach it a lesson with a drill bit tomorrow or Tuesday, I'm beyond pissed off with it. Flame didn't help, penetrating oil didn't help, a bigger bar didn't help, impact gun doesn't help, the problem is I need to avoid damaging the frame and swing arm since I need them.

There's always that "one" bolt that is just an a hole on big projects. In this case, it's one bolt per vin # lol.

 

[Gerald]

The port work is quite good for top end power, I'll give credit where it's due, Bob knows how to get air in and out. The only evidence I see of salt in the engine is a slight residue on the intake runner from when the bike got washed in #1, a very light mark. Good news is, #1 was closed and it mixed/pooled and was still sitting atop the valves so I could dry it before I turned the engine over.

No leaking valve seals is also good news. I really wanted to get into the valvetrain today grrr..

I have a concern about the valve seats on the intake side (ti valves and beryllium copper seats, not exactly easy to replace) and the #3 cylinder wall. I see something looking through the intake port with #3 open that I can't identify, might be scratches, might be a trick of lighting but it looks like vertical scoring, won't know until head is off. To get head off, engine needs to be free so I can bully this bolt into releasing the cam cover.

I went and tried again to free the frame from my 2005 frame/engine. The **** left side swingarm pivot is stuck. I've twisted off a 1/2" breaker bar square head, twice now, trying to free it. Since I cant get it off, the frame is held hostage by the drive shaft coupled to the output.

I think I'm just going to give up and teach it a lesson with a drill bit tomorrow or Tuesday, I'm beyond pissed off with it. Flame didn't help, penetrating oil didn't help, a bigger bar didn't help, impact gun doesn't help, the problem is I need to avoid damaging the frame and swing arm since I need them.

There's always that "one" bolt that is just an a hole on big projects...

Hopefully the cyl. is good, just a trick with lighting, seems like cyl's are extremely hard. Good side is if damaged, you can replace it without boring and sleeving. I've had good luck welding a good size nut on what wanting to take out, then let it cool, then an impact.. Best penetrant I've found is Kano Sili KROIL.

 

[Claviger]

Should be here before the end of the week.


Should be here in about 10 days.

First priority is getting into Mufasa's engine and having a good snoop around everything. I'm going forward now regardless of it's health. Plans look like this:

• If the engine is healthy, I'll just go with it, this is my preferred outcome for a number of reasons, uppermost being the sentimental aspect of building a new bike around Mufasa's heart, yes I have silly sentimentality about Mufasa, and if I can reuse the whole engine I consider the bike rebuilt not replaced. Quickest/Cheapest option, least power.
• If the bottom end has issues, I reuse the head, valvetrain, and trans etc from Mufasa and throw it in/on a silver engine with some oversized 11.5:1 pistons for a roughly 12.3:1 CR and undisclosed at this time displacement. I think this will be much nicer to live with than the 12.5:1 pistons now ending up at 13.3:1 ish. There's a pilot I won't out that may end up contributing some good knowledge for this greater than 2294cc displacement option. This route plus an adjustment to cam timing will fix most of my reversion issues. Slowest and most costly option, middle power.
• If the bottom end is good and head is bad, I'll do the conversion to shim under on the silver head, valve guide trim to make room for the cam, transfer over the valvetrain, pick up some 10:1 Wosners and make a call to TTS. There's more than one way shove air in, getting another 265 head is nearly as costly as a full TTS kit and I'm not exactly interested in sending more $$ to that shop. Middle road for price/time, by far the most power.

Next is getting that mother copulating frame free on the 2005, stripping it, chopping bits off, and dropping the frame off for powder coating. After that I can start final planning/assembly. I'm really motivated to get to this point so I can meticulously overthink every little item

I am going to try to duplicate the underseat area being empty and free like the below bike. as well as exhaust mount and passenger peg bar removal. I like everything about this bike from the front of the seat backwards and it's my inspiration (though, ill be using a Carbon Dry fender and recovered in diamond stitched leather Roadster accessory seat as it's exactly right for my posterior).

The complex parts of it will be finding a home for the VCU (possible next to the PDM60 attached to the bottom of the tank), PDM60 (likely to end up attached to the fuel pump mounting plate under the tank), Battery (no idea where yet as it's a bit too big to stuff in a random spot), mo.blue (probably in the frame, tucked where coil #1 is stock) and the exhaust hangar (I'll probably use a carbonfiber hangar coming down off the rear subframe with an up-turned reverse megaphone ala modern sportbike style).



Next major item will be making a trip to Utah to get the donor bike, in September, but I can sort out a lot (all hopefully) of the salvage work before that.

 

[Gregger]

The port work is quite good for top end power, I'll give credit where it's due, Bob knows how to get air in and out. The only evidence I see of salt in the engine is a slight residue on the intake runner from when the bike got washed in #1, a very light mark. Good news is, #1 was closed and it mixed/pooled and was still sitting atop the valves so I could dry it before I turned the engine over. Being a mix of Ti, copper, and alu in that area, I'm not super concerned with it.

No leaking valve seals is also good news. I really wanted to get into the valvetrain today grrr..

I have a concern about the valve seats on the intake side (ti valves and beryllium copper seats, not exactly easy to replace) and the #3 cylinder wall. I see something looking through the intake port with #3 open that I can't identify, might be scratches, might be a trick of lighting but it looks like vertical scoring, won't know until head is off. To get head off, engine needs to be free so I can bully this bolt into releasing the cam cover.

I went and tried again to free the frame from my 2005 frame/engine. The **** left side swingarm pivot is stuck. I've twisted off a 1/2" breaker bar square head, twice now, trying to free it. Since I cant get it off, the frame is held hostage by the drive shaft coupled to the output.

I think I'm just going to give up and teach it a lesson with a drill bit tomorrow or Tuesday, I'm beyond pissed off with it. Flame didn't help, penetrating oil didn't help, a bigger bar didn't help, impact gun doesn't help, the problem is I need to avoid damaging the frame and swing arm since I need them.

There's always that "one" bolt that is just an a hole on big projects. In this case, it's one bolt per vin # lol.

Patience Grasshopper...
You're doing well. Keep up the good work and thanks for the updates.

PS. When you do finally complete this model of Mufasa, have you decided who will ride it on the flats? I always wondered why you didn't take it for the record run, instead of @Justdad. You both appear to be very capable riders.

 

[Claviger]

There were a number of major reasons but the main one is experience on salt, originally I'd planned on riding the H2 for my licensing passes once the NA Rocket 3 record was in the books. The curtailed event ensured that wouldn't/couldn't happen.

 

[Gerald]

Should be here before the end of the week.


Should be here in about 10 days.

First priority is getting into Mufasa's engine and having a good snoop around everything. I'm going forward now regardless of it's health. Plans look like this:

• If the engine is healthy, I'll just go with it, this is my preferred outcome for a number of reasons, uppermost being the sentimental aspect of building a new bike around Mufasa's heart, yes I have silly sentimentality about Mufasa, and if I can reuse the whole engine I consider the bike rebuilt not replaced. Quickest/Cheapest option, least power.
• If the bottom end has issues, I reuse the head, valvetrain, and trans etc from Mufasa and throw it in/on a silver engine with some oversized 11.5:1 pistons for a roughly 12.3:1 CR and undisclosed at this time displacement. I think this will be much nicer to live with than the 12.5:1 pistons now ending up at 13.3:1 ish. There's a pilot I won't out that may end up contributing some good knowledge for this greater than 2294cc displacement option. This route plus an adjustment to cam timing will fix most of my reversion issues. Slowest and most costly option, middle power.
• If the bottom end is good and head is bad, I'll do the conversion to shim under on the silver head, valve guide trim to make room for the cam, transfer over the valvetrain, pick up some 10:1 Wosners and make a call to TTS. There's more than one way shove air in, getting another 265 head is nearly as costly as a full TTS kit and I'm not exactly interested in sending more $$ to that shop. Middle road for price/time, by far the most power.

Next is getting that mother copulating frame free on the 2005, stripping it, chopping bits off, and dropping the frame off for powder coating. After that I can start final planning/assembly. I'm really motivated to get to this point so I can meticulously overthink every little item

I am going to try to duplicate the underseat area being empty and free like the below bike. as well as exhaust mount and passenger peg bar removal. I like everything about this bike from the front of the seat backwards and it's my inspiration (though, ill be using a Carbon Dry fender and recovered in diamond stitched leather Roadster accessory seat as it's exactly right for my posterior).

The complex parts of it will be finding a home for the VCU (possible next to the PDM60 attached to the bottom of the tank), PDM60 (likely to end up attached to the fuel pump mounting plate under the tank), Battery (no idea where yet as it's a bit too big to stuff in a random spot), mo.blue (probably in the frame, tucked where coil #1 is stock) and the exhaust hangar (I'll probably use a carbonfiber hangar coming down off the rear subframe with an up-turned reverse megaphone ala modern sportbike style).



Next major item will be making a trip to Utah to get the donor bike, in September, but I can sort out a lot (all hopefully) of the salvage work before that.

Good find, one unit to perform all those functions with a wiring base. Never thought of a common air intake manifold system, do you think it will handle the different intake pulses and not affect air flow/distribution?

 

[Claviger]

I'm moving away from a shared plenum, the reversion issues are much worse in a shared plenum than ITBs. While it's cheaper to go plenum, I don't think I'll have the results I want.

I have, however found some super interesting filter/velocity stacks recently. I need to inquire if I can get a set with 62mm mounting flange as they only offer 55mm off the shelf.




Today I got more garage space freed up, and received the newest addition to the family, 1985 GPZ900R for restoration! I have some very fun ideas for this bike.

On the topic of the build, I worked through my final body harness wiring diagram today. I still have to tackle the ABS control unit's wiring. Power, Ground, and wheel speed is easy enough, but there are a number of other wires that I'm not sure of yet.

By using the mo.blue to control the body harness items like lighting, it frees a ton of IO on the Nexus R3, leaving plenty of channels to expand the system as I find new things I want to add to it (like quickshift up/down, etc).

EFI Hardware will be the source for most of the sensors and probably the actuator for the dbw throttle.

 

[Claviger]

Couldn't go to sleep without making a little headway.

Forks/Triples removed, swingarm pivot bolts loosened...engine comes free of the frame tomorrow, then the teardown begins.

Fingers crossed I do a whole lot of "huh, nothing to see here"...

 

[Claviger]

It's official, the Rocket 3 Roadster is a classic, just 5 years after the production ended a proprietary, required item is unavailable.

These bolts are unavailable, not good since they're made of chinesium and use reduced depth hex sockets, aka easy to strip/damage. I don't think I've ever seen a set that weren't damaged a bit during removal.

Going to see if ProBolt can make some that have a hex head or dual drive. They already make the smaller Triumph version for other models, like the 955is.