So in the last episode we heard about Derrick’s search for his deuce. The story continues, again I will interject thoughts and explanations in brackets []:
From Derrick:
“Ok, so I rode it for the summer of 2003 stock. I started putting on chrome parts to make it look like I wanted it to, new front wheel, handle bars, foot pegs, grips, swing arm, FAIC pipe, it looked a lot better but I couldn’t do anything about the color (teal). [For our tech readers the FAIC pipe is a ‘Forced Air Induction Collector Header System’ Basically what that means is that the pipe has a pass through built into the side of it that sucks air in and helps to pull the exhaust out. It’s a strange looking pipe, with an opening that faces forward and one that faces backward. It ain’t pretty, but it does do a great job of evacuating the exhaust. We found that we could get an increase of up to 10 HP just by using this pipe.]
The summer of 2003 ended and I had put 1000 miles on the bike. Bill [Stefinsky-Hemi’s chief builder] tore it down and made it a 95" Hemi. Poof, just like that, the warranty was voided! We put it together, it ran but it was so out of tune that it was a joke. The fuel injection system had no idea what to do with this sort of engine modification. We knew this would be the case so we bought a Screaming Eagle Race Tuner Kit. The Problem was that we didn’t know how to use it, nobody did. Fuel injection in Harleys was new. If you did more than put pipes on, nobody knew how to tune it, Everyone that made big horsepower numbers all did it with a carburetor. [For our not-so-technical readers, both a carburetor and a fuel injector are ways of delivering gas and air to your engine. You need the proper ratio of each for your engine to run properly. The carburetor was the standard for 70 plus years and uses a simple mechanical system to balance these elements. When you want to make changes you replace “jets” which allow more or less fuel to enter the induction system. A fuel injector is infinitely more complicated. In your car, you have a fuel injection system that is controlled by a computer. It senses conditions around the vehicle and automatically makes adjustments to the fuel/air mixture. Because the technology is new to Harleys, the computer inside of them isn’t so advanced. You have to tell it exactly what to do, and you need a laptop to do it. It doesn’t self adjust so you have to create air/fuel curves that change at different RPMs of the motor]
It was a week before Daytona Bike Week and we loaded up the trailer with my bike and all the stuff for the booth, hooked up the van and I drove across the country by myself to Virginia Beach to tune the bike. Virginia is where Gordon Rudolph and Jeff Keater live and Jeff had just purchased a dyno that we were going to use to tune Gordon’s carbureted bike, and my injected one. [A dyno is short for “dynometer” which is a machine that you put your motorcycle or car on to tune it. The basic idea is that you run the bike at different RPMs while a computer tracks it’s horsepower and torque numbers. You analyze the performance of the engine and then make tuning adjustments at problem areas to try and make the bike run better.]
But like I said, we had no idea how to use the race tuner to tune my duece. When I got to Virginia we started reading and learning. Back in the day you used to be able to call Harley’s tech line, (now if you don’t have a dealer number they wont talk to you) so we would read from the manual and try things out. If we had a problem we would call Harley. Soon we knew more then most of their tech guys. By Tuesday of that week, they were unable to answer our questions, so they started calling the people who designed the Tuner, and got back to us when they could.
By Wednesday we knew that we needed to start dyno tuning if there was any hope of getting both bikes running for Daytona. We started with Gordon’s carbureted bike and that went smoothly. We got unheard of HP numbers from a 95" Harley. We pulled 130hp out of Gordon’s bike!
Next we put my bike up there. Pass after pass, run after run, we kept getting it a little closer. Like I said it was way off when we started, stuttering, spewing and ragged. The program that we started with was for a 62hp 95” Harley. This kind of stock program was not going to work for our Hemi headed bike. We kept working until 11pm, making adjustments, navigating the interface, and tuning the bike. We put the bike up for one final run of the 13 hour day and we got 127 HP! The only 95" bike that we knew of that was making power even close to that was Gordon’s. The fact that my bike is fuel injected is unheard of. We can’t even believe it. The Lab rat is officially named.
We got up Thursday morning, loaded up, and hit the road for Daytona. Mom and dad were driving the motor home down from Chicago, and I was supposed to meet them in Daytona to set up the booth on Friday. We had our own little convoy going from Virginia Beach-two motor homes and the van, all pulling trailers. When we left it is cold and raining, but by the time we got to North Carolina it was snowing. I was on the walkie talkie with Jeff saying I know it is getting bad but I can’t stop because I have all the stuff for the show and my parents are meeting me there tomorrow. He replies that I shouldn’t worry, and that he has driven through much worse stuff than this. A little while later, a full on blizzard hit. There were more cars in the ditch than on the road, and we were going 25mph when I heard ‘Hey Derrick?’ on the radio. Jeff says, ‘It is getting pretty bad, we are going to stop at the next gas station for a while.” I say, ‘See you in Daytona!’
I drove all night only stopping for gas, and made it just before mom and dad got there from Chicago. Gordon and Jeff got there on Saturday, just in time to go to the shoot out! Every year, there is a dyno shootout competition. Bikes compete in different engine classes and the bike that makes the most horsepower wins. That was the year that speed TV was out there shooting and they picked up on the fact the 95" class was the one to follow. Both Gordon and I were interviewed and we both ended up on the program. I finished 4th and Gordon finished 2nd. This was supposed to be a street bike class and the two bikes that beat us were trailer queens, they were race bikes. [“Trailer Queens” are bikes that you can’t actually ride. You put them on a trailer and pull them to competitions. They make a lot of power but you can’t actually use them on an everyday basis. Hemi has always prided itself on making bikes that are riders] Gordon was so pissed that he challenged the shootout winner to a race for money. The guy got all excited and said, ‘Where do you want to race?’ Gordon replied, ‘Let’s ride our bikes down main street and around town a bit then come back to this road for the race.’ The winner quickly said, ‘Oh I cant do that.’ and walked away.”
Next up.. The race suit is finished!
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