As the last post ended, I had to pull out the welder and fix the leak in the fuel pump housing. Even though it’s been a while since I welded aluminum last, the corner weld worked OK. There were a few little snags but after letting it cool down I put the housing under water …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #44: Fuel filter bracket’ »
While doing the tuning rides on the NC30, I’d noticed a faint smell of gasoline from the seat area. While there shouldn’t really be a way for fuel to get out of the system, that’s where the fuel pump housing is located, so I figured the smell was making its way out somewhere. There was …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #43: A small setback’ »
Over the past week, I’ve done a bunch of tuning rides on the NC30, logging data and tweaking the tables. Compared to the first run, it’s now fully rideable with only a few touchy points. The main task when tuning the fuel injection is to calibrate the “VE table”. VE stands for “volumetric efficiency” and …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #42: Tuning’ »
On Sunday, I rode the fuel-injected NC30 for the first time! It’s great to finally be at this point. Before I got to that point, there were a few final issues. After putting together, hooking up the fuel system, and verifying that all the sensors worked, I noticed that the throttle position sensor reported “20%” open …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #41: It moves!’ »
When the last post finished up, I had the link piece for cylinder 3 left. Since it’s basically just a longer version of the one for cylinder 1, it was pretty quick to get that done. With that completed, it was time to put it all together and see if it worked. Testing revealed …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #40: Finishing up the throttle linkage’ »
I cranked in another full day on the throttle linkage, and today went a bit more smoothly than yesterday. It turned out to be pretty painless to mirror flip the tabs holding the springs. Those were one of the first things sketched out in the design and often when you change things that far upstream …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #39: More throttle linkage progress’ »
Since the last post, which outlined the throttle linkage design, I’ve done some of the fabrication. Because the pieces are fully three-dimensional and not prismatic, it takes a bit of care to make sure that they can actually be fabricated. If you design some thing that has no parallel edges, it’s very difficult to hold …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #38: Fabricating the throttle linkage’ »
As mentioned in the last post, it’s time to start working on the throttle linkage for the NC30. The requirements for this setup is that it needs to be possible to adjust the throttles of cylinders 1,3, and 4 against the cylinder 2 throttle, which is attached to the throttle cable. Since the GPz throttle …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #37: Throttle linkage geometry’ »
After fixing the fuel supply line, I finally got the fittings needed to hook up the fuel pump outlet line, too. With a 150-degree fitting after the fuel pump, it routed perfectly between the fuel pump housing and the battery. Routing the return line was a little bit trickier. As shown in part 19 of …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #36: Idle tuning’ »
One of the few remaining tasks was to hook up the fuel line from the fuel tank to the fuel pump housing. This is just a short length AN-6 hose, nothing complicated, but I was not entirely certain that it would actually be possible to get access to tighten the AN fittings. After receiving the …
Continue reading ‘Microsquirting the NC30, part #35: Fuel supply line’ »