Track Day

Yesterday I attended a twilight session at Hampton Downs racetrack.
I did three sessions out on the track at 15 minues each (22 km each)
Standard jetting except for 125 mains, plus 2 x ø20mm holes in the side of the NSR250 airbox.
0.8mm squish. 12.8cc combustion volume (to the top of the spark plug hole)
Running 95 RON and oil pump set to standard (approx 37:1 ?) on Castrol Power1 TTS fully sythetic oil.

The bike was slightly under geared for the track with standard gearing (15F 42R)
Speedo indicated approx 195 km/h at approx 12,200 rpm just before braking at the end of the straight for turn one. It was pretty difficult to take in these numbers with turn one looming :-)
Rear wheel circumference of 2010mm.

Plug chop photo below:

It actually looks slightly whiter in the photo than it does in real life, (on my computer).
I think that's about as lean as I would ever want to go.

I was typically changing gear at approx. 11,500 rpm.
Slight issue at very small throttle holding constant speed through sweepers.
[more to come]
Overall,.. extremely happy with it.
So cool to finally get my knee down on my own NSR250 again. (20 years later)

Oh, and also, the day before, I played around trying to calibrate the TPS.
But I didn't have any proper information to go by.
Calibrate TPS. <<== click here.
Perhaps someone can tell me the correct way to calibrate the TPS?

I put on the old damaged original fairings for the track day:

The screen is the one that came with my Chinese fairings. It doesn't really fit properly.
It distorts into a sort of "high rise" screen when forced to fit.

I ran out of time to play around with the different rear shock link plates.

Air Correction Solenoid - Air Filter

Today I decided to prise apart the little air filter that supplies air to the Air Correction Solenoids when they open up to allow for extra air flow into the carbs to correct for the effects of the power jets kicking in.

This is a little part that never seems to get much of a mention and is largely ignored I guess?
Probably because nothing ever goes wrong with it.

There was a small build up of lint on the side of the filter connected to atmosphere, but basically it was OK.
I was just curious to see what it was made up of more than anything else.

As can be seen in the picture, there are 2 circular filters. One is paper like, the other is kinda like synthetic wool or something?

In any case, it was easy enough to blow air through the filters, so I guess they are fine.

NSR250R Wiki created

Today I created an NSR250R wiki using Google "Sites".

https://sites.google.com/site/nsr250rwiki/

Maybe it will grow into something quite useful, maybe not.
Feel free to contribute.

Over time I hope to add most of what I have learnt about the NSR250 to this wiki for future reference.
And hopefully it will be useful to others as well.

NSR250 wiki
NSR wiki
Honda NSR wiki

<Edit 15/08/2021> Google sites are updating on 1st September 2021.
The new updated NSR250wiki is HERE.
The old classic site will still remain, but everyone should shift to the new site.

 </Edit>

Rear Suspension Link Plates. Part 2

Today I received 2 pairs of rear suspension link plates in the post.
I had them cut out of 6mm thick 6061-T6 aluminium by Fabrum Solutions in Christchurch, NZ.
The 4 plates cost NZ$160 ($40 each). The cut quality is pretty good but not quite perpendicular to the plate. It will be OK.

I used the files that I made available in this post.
I will play about with fitting them soon just for a bit of a play around.

One pair is just a copy of the HRC drawing on NSR-World.
The other is half way between the HRC plates and the stock MC18 plates.

Also, I am going to drop to 125 main jets (from std 128) and drill 4 holes in the air box and do some plug chops to see whats going on.

I took the bike on a ride with a friend (on a KTM690) last weekend but when I hit reserve tank the bike started to play up as though the jets were getting blocked or summit?
So I have pulled the tank off and checked things out, and pulled the carbs off.
There was a bit of "stuff" in the float bowls.
I have put an inline filter in the fuel hose as a result.

NSR250 TT-F3 cases

A friend put me onto a Yahoo! Japan auction that had pictures of a set of  F3 cases:

Quite nice pictures I thought.
The mods above are fairly similar to what I did.
I did not bother to fill in around the oil feed pooling areas
But these cases do not have material added on the left hand wall of the left hand reed block intake area.

Summer is coming. And thanks for the thanks.

Dyno testing at some stage
Well, not much has been happening with the NSR over Winter.
I was planning to do some dyno runs over winter, but I am yet to get around to doing that.

Ideally, I would like to have an Ignitech ignition all set up before going to the dyno so I can make good use of the time. Also, I would like to organise two or three other NSR's to be at the dyno at the same time to reduce costs and increase fun.
For bore and piston safety, a pair of EGT sensors would be a "Nice to have".
(EGT = Exhaust Gas Temperature. Anything over approx. 1250 degrees [at a distance of approx 80mm from piston] is pushing your luck apparently)

Thanks for the thanks.
Initially this blog was started up just to keep a dairy of my progress. At the time, blogging was kinda new and cool, so I was keen to try my hand. However, it has developed into something a little bit more than that. Clearly there are a few people out there that have found it to be a useful online resource for their own restoration projects.

I would like to thank all the people who have sent me messages of encouragement over the past years regarding this blog.
It can be a bit of a hassle stopping right in the middle of NSR work to take photos and note down details. And then sitting down afterwards at the computer and trying to explain the actions of the day does take a bit of self discipline sometimes.
It really does help when people acknowledge your efforts. It helps to make it all seem worthwhile.

I will (anonymously) list a couple of these comments below:
1) TuckerBag, I have actually read your whole blog, kind of the inspiration behind me pulling my one out of storage.

2) I have visited your blog many many times during the restoration of my MC18-II. Searching the net in those days, your blog was the most helpful, with pics and nice writing. And bear in mind that I was visiting your blog every time I needed something. Thank you again and again TuckerBag.

It pleases me that this blog is inspirational and useful for some.

And to those that take the time to let me know,.. you're welcome. :-)

http://www.twostrokeracelab.com/

http://www.2strokers.com/index.php?topic=184.0

Some blog statistics

Back in 2008 when I started this blog it got about 200 visits per month.
This has slowly climbed and since about October 2011 it has been approx 1200 visits per month.
The best month was February 2012 with 1800 visits that month.

I "monetised" the blog; this placed adverts within it, and as a result I have so far made about USD$13.00
Google doesn't pay out until you get to USD$100.

Blogger Stats Page over all time

Wet Weight of 155kg. Speedo accuracy. 32,000kms

I took a set of scales up to Dave's today to do a full wet weight comparison between his MC18 R5k and my MC18 R6k.

First of all let me define "Full Wet Weight" for a road legal MC18:
1) Full radiator
2) Radiator overflow tank full up to the "Upper" mark
3) Gearbox oil full up to the dipstick
4) Correct amount of oil in the front shocks
5) Full two stroke oil tank
6) Full petrol tank when on the side stand
7) Full brake fluids (negligible)
8) New-ish tyres
9) No tool box under the pillion seat
10) All road legal gear: Rego plate etc. All lights. Horn. Rear view mirrors, and pillion pegs.
11) At least 3mm of wear left on all brake pads
12) All brake discs within wear limits
13) Standard battery. Not a lightweight Lithium-Iron-Phosphate or similar.
14) Kick start and side stand on bike.

Full Wet Weigh-in. R5k vs R6k

Dave's R5k is pretty much bog standard except he has MC21 crankcases and crankshaft which are probably very similar in weight to MC18 R5k.
My R6k has:
Supposedly lighter Chinese ABS fairings
Lighter mufflers that I measured to be 1.5kg lighter than my standard mufflers
Lighter MagTek rims front and rear
Dry clutch
SP front and rear suspension.

It must be noted that despite having a dry clutch and MagTek rims, the SP has more complex front fork internals and a remote reservoir on the rear shock.
The overall result is that a standard R6k is approx 1kg heavier than an R5k according to Honda.

Front Rear Total (R5k from manufacturer)
73kg 76kg 149kg
Front Rear Total  (R6k from manufacturer)
74kg 76kg 150kg

For Dave's R5k we measured:
Front    Rear      Total
79.5kg  77.9kg  157.4kg (8.4kg heavier than Honda's spec)

For my R6k we measured:
Front    Rear      Total
78.9kg 75.9kg 154.8kg (4.8kg heavier than Honda's spec)

That makes my R6k 2.6kg lighter than Dave's R5k.

So, lets add 1.5kg to my R6k weight to allow for standard mufflers.
Then in order for my R6k to be the standard 1kg heavier than Dave's R5k, this would imply that my fairings must be approx 2.1kg lighter than the standard fairings. This sounds about right to me.

The error in the two sets of bathroom scales that we used is probably less than +/- 1kg each.

I would still like to know:
.The actual, real, measured weight difference between my Chinese ABS fairings and standard fairings
.The actual real, measured weight difference between standard wheels and MagTek wheels.


How accurate is the NSR250 speedo?
Well, I find that in 5th gear at 10,000rpm the speedo indicates exactly 150 km/h
Now, with a rear tyre circumference of 2010mm, and standard 15/42 drive sprockets, your actual speed calculates out to be 146 km/h.
So I think that the NSR250 MC18 R5k/R6k speedo is approx 3% optimistic on standard gearing.
190km/h indicated is really about 184km/h

Today I clocked up 32,000kms on the speedo.

Quick Fang

This morning was a nice crisp fine Autumn morning so I thought I'd take the scoot for a quick fang.
I went out in to the shed and adjusted the rear brake lever position, the gear change lever position and lubed up the chain.

I went for a gentle spin up to Dave's. He was not home, but I took the front spark plug out just to see how it would read. The bike is currently on std jetting.

Not a good focus on the insulator but you get the idea.

I also took a few pictures of the bike while I was up at Dave's.

On the way back home from Dave's I gave it a good blast. Now of course, I would never speed on public roads. However, I would imagine just from the general vibe of the bike, that it probably pulls quite well up to about 190 km/h indicated with 16/42 sprockets. And I imagine that it would sound pretty sharp and crisp and have quite a nice bark to it with the free flowing mufflers as well; even though just on standard jetting.

The bike seems to run a bit better every time I ride it. It has only done about 70km in total since I got it going, so maybe the rings are "bedding in" or something.

I only rev'd it out to approx 11,700 rpm max, but it will definitely rev out past that.

I took the plug out when I got home, which is only about 1 minute from the motorway. Not quite a plug chop.

Plug colour after a fast ride.

For road use, I am pretty happy with the color of the plug. I guess it's about time to think about drilling a couple of 20mm holes in the top of the air box.

Overall I am extremely happy with the bike after a quick fang today. I still need to tweak the suspension a little and make other small adjustments, but overall there was a smile on my face today.

Oh, actually there was one thing that I was not super happy with: the handlebars set off into shaking about very easily if I took my hands off the bars.

New front fork fluid. Inlet chamber volumes.

Fork Fluid

When I initially assembled the front forks, about 5 months ago, I re-used the old oil because I was not sure if the fork seals were leaking or not.
I now know, after a few test rides, that the fork seals are sealing fine.
So yesterday I drained the forks of the old oil and left it overnight to drain fully out of the drain plugs.

This morning I put 374ml of the cheapest Automatic Transmission Fluid I could find in each fork.
Note: R6k takes 374ml of fluid (Cartridge), R5k takes 435ml of fluid (Damper Rod).

This stuff cost NZ$13 per litre from "The Warehouse"
"Synthetic Additive Formulation" = fancy stuff,.. NOT

I figure that I will have better suspension (on average) if I use cheap fork oil that I replace often, compared to  using top quality (expensive) oil that I seldom replace. I'm sure that a lot of people will disagree, but I am keen to at least try out the idea.

Inlet chamber

Also, one thing I thought about the other day:
The balance volumes that plug into the top of the reed blocks are different in volumes when the bike is standard.
However, I modified the crankcase volumes to be equal.
So,..  that means that I should probably replace the larger balance volume with a spare smaller balance volume.[edit] see below [/edit]
I have two spare balance volume units so I guess I will do it soon.

Standard inlet chambers with different volumes?

But HOLD ON  a second.

I just bought a syringe from my local rural supplies store for $2 and measured out the two balance volumes using ATF oil. See below:...

NOT what I had expected!

It turns out that the two volumes are close to equal, with only 1cc difference. 34cc and 33cc.

And the smaller looking volume is actually the slightly bigger volume.

So I will just leave them as is. The 1cc difference is possibly due to errors in my measuring anyway.

[edit] Ah,.. a bit of a mistake in my thinking here.
These "balance volumes" are actually just upstream of the reeds, so do NOT form part of the crankcase volume.
These volumes are sometimes blocked off in race bikes as they mainly affect low to mid-range I believe. [/edit]

Emulsion tube upper section missing

I have known for a little while now that something is wrong with my pair of carburetors.
I have been using Paul's set of carbies just to get me going.
Today I pulled Paul's carbs off my bike and did a side by side comparison to see if I could spot any differences.
I did spot a difference.
My carbs are missing the brass inset that goes on top of the emulsion tubes and sticks up into the main throttle body by about 6mm. Maybe this could be called a "needle shroud"?

As it happens, I have a fair few spare carby bits lying around, and that includes a couple of these brass emulsion tube uppers.
I will put them in and re-assemble, and hopefully the carbs will be fine.
Fingers crossed.

6:30pm
I have re-assembled everything and gone for about a 20km spin up the road.
Basically the carburation seems to have come right with the emulsion tube uppers in place.
So the bike is now basically finished and all the parts are my own.

I will need to make some tuning adjustments to get the bike running really well.
Maybe jetting and a bit of timing with an offset woodruff key?
This will happen when I get in the mood. Coming into winter, it's not ideal timing.

As it is, the bike revs out to about 11,200 rpm before it starts to sign off.
There doesn't really seem to be a strong hit around the 7,500- 8,000 rpm mark either which seems a bit odd.

So the bike is now running OK and is made up entirely of parts that are owned by myself.
I could easily do the paperwork and pay the money and have the bike road legal tomorrow.
I won't though as it is almost winter.

But basically, apart from a bunch of minor stuff that may never get completed,.. the bike is finally completed.
2 years, 11 months and 8 days. Let's call it 3 years.

However, the bike may be completed, but the "project" is not.
I still need to play around with the ignition advance and the jetting and get a dyno run graph posted up.

Mufflers

Yesterday I went around to a mates place. He had a bunch of old 2-stroke mufflers.
He was able to hobble together a couple of end cans for me.
Slightly big bore, which is kinda OK by me and a little bit short I guess.
Carbon-Kevlar outers. One can has a "TYGA" emblem riveted onto it.
They weigh in at 440 grams each compared to standard cans at 1150 grams each.
That's a saving of almost 1.5 kgs.

They don't quite match up with the 3 holes on the attachment plate at the end of the stinger pipes on the standard pipes. I will slot those holes with a file tomorrow and fit the mufflers.
I have removed the muffler support brackets as these cans are so light that I hope that they can just be bolted onto the stingers and have enough support just from that.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they end up being a bit too loud, but I guess I will find out tomorrow.

OK, it is now tomorrow, Monday, and I have fitted the new mufflers. The bike is definitely louder, but it is not as bad as I had feared. I'm pretty happy with it actually.

The old standard mufflers have an ID of approx 25mm and there are about 4 sequential sections to the inner path at slight angles to one another. 295mm long from stinger plate to end of baffle tube.
These new mufflers are just a straight through ID of 32mm. 225mm long from stinger plate to end of baffle tube.

Pipes, gauges and fairing fix-up.

Two months since my last post. Well overdue for an update.
In early April I got my parts from Yahoo!Japan auctions.

2 exhaust pipes
Speedo cable
A broken set of dash instruments that I just wanted the mini wiring loom off.
A tool box (for holding puncture repair equipment)
Rear seat lock actuator
Engine Kill switch
Pillion footpegs

They took 7.5 weeks via sea freight, just to save a bit of money (compared to air freight).
Total cost was NZ$488.
Total of Yahoo!Japan prices bid was approx $190
So $300 basically went on Japanese internal freight, international sea freight (approx $160?), and Gary's commission.

Parts from Yahoo!Japan auctions, sea freight.

I took the pipes to Rotorua to get them dipped in a caustic sloution at Kiwi Metal Polishers

They also polished up the chrome on the stinger pipes. NZ$126.50 in total.

The pipes weighed 9.6 kg before and 8.6 kg afterwards.

[Edit] The 9.6 kg measurement included the cardboard wrapping which I later weighed at 0.95kg. So basically no weight lost due to caustic dip [/Edit]

The pipe that connects to the LH Top cylinder and exits out the RH side of the bike weighs 4.24kg

The pipe that connects to the RH Bottom cylinder and exits out the LH side of the bike weighs 4.35kg

I weighed these accurately, so I can compare against after market pipes at a later date. :-)

Pipes after being cleaned

I painted the pipes black with paint that is used to paint those efficient log fires / pot belly's. ($30 for 1 can). Apparently "VHT" black paint does not handle the heat so well and discolours with time to have a slight whiteness to it.

Pipes ready to be painted

I applied 3 thin coats. Each coat only took a few minutes to dry enough for the next coat to be applied.

Nice.

An original fairing in the foreground

I had to make up a foam rubber surround to seal off the light from the headlight. Also, I had to make up an electrical lead to power up the the park light that pushes into the headlight body.

Foam rubber held in place with clothes pegs

I glued the foam rubber in place using Bostik "Titan Bond Plus". This glue is supposed to work well on ABS plastic which is what these fairings are made from. There are a few bits and pieces on the fairings that are glued on in China using a poor quality glue. So I used this glue on quite a few of these bits and pieces just to improve the fairings a bit.

I attached the mini wiring loom from the broken set of instruments to my instruments on the bike and finally got the temp guage and tacho working. I also lubed up the speedo cable and attached that to make the speedo work.

I am about to fit the rear seat latch and pillion pegs.
I will then be able to make the bike street legal, although I may now leave that until late Spring (October 2012)
The only other major thing left to do is to trouble shoot my carbies and get them working properly so that I can give Paul his carbies back, along with his pipes.

Another PGM-II and a short ride.

I currently have three PGM-II's in my possession.
One I just bought very recently off TradeMe.co.nz for $60 delivered, including a wiring loom.
The other two PGM's are Paul's, and I have to return them in due course.

I fitted my new PGM and went for a 50km ride.
The bike seemed to run really well, but my 3 gauges are not yet working. Not having an operational tacho makes it a bit difficult to see exactly what is going on.
At least I can be fairly sure that the PGM is working properly.

Some things that became apparent on the ride:
1) The LH Rear View Mirrror mount needs a bit of a bend so that I am not looking at the road near the rear tyre.
2) The gear change lever needs to be adjusted down a bit
4) The suspension is set up too hard in the rear (everything is currently max'ed out) and especially the rebound needs to be a bit faster.
5) Slop in the throttle cable
6) Fitting the steering damper is probably a good idea too.
7) Both clutch and front brake levers need to be angled down a bit. This might not be possible with the front brake as the front brake switch spade connectors are already hitting up against the fork, but,..
8) I would be a lot happier with slightly higher bars, just for better comfort. This will also allow me to angle the front brake and clutch levers down a bit more
9) The speedo unit wobbles around a fair bit. Once I fit the speedo cable, this will probably calm down a bit, but I need to investigate.
10) On the ride I hit reserve tank; both petrol and oil.

Overall, the above factors made it difficult for me to get "dialed in" to the bike, and really enjoy the ride.
The gear changes in particular were a bit rough. Hopefully this can be sorted out by a bit of clutch adjustment and adjustment to the angle of the gear change lever. However, I think it may yet turn out to be a "characteristic" of the dry clutch that I am just going to have to adapt to.

Overall the bike ran well and it is great to be actually riding the bike, rather than working on it.

New Battery and it goes again.

Today i stuck some aluminium foil tape to the inside of the belly pan fairings to hopefully, at least partially protect the fairings from the heat off the exhausts.

I also fitted a new battery: A YuasaYTX4L-BS at NZ$ 70.00 including GST from Bayride Yamaha.

After adding the acid to the battery I put it in the bike and tried kick starting it.
The bike fired up first kick.

At the moment I am not sure if the bike has an intermittent fault or whether the problem was a poor battery.
Time will tell, but for now it is going. :-)

But just for the record, assuming that the bike is now running reliably, it has been 2 years and 8 months.
It is not road legal yet, but I have parts coming from Japan (sea freight) that should get it road legal in about 6 weeks.

Fairing fitment then engine stops.

Today I spent pretty much the whole day fitting my fairings to the bike.
The fairings are the ABS chinese ones that you can get these days and need a bit of "adjusting" to get everything to line up properly.

I used a grinding stone on the end of a Dremel to open up some holes to take rubber grommets.
I had to drill some holes and rivet on the Dzus  brackets.
I also had to open up the holes were the rear vision mirrors attach.
The RH rear side fairing has a push in spigot for a bung in the tank that is just too big to actually push in
The LH rear side fairing was totally missing the push in spigot for the tank bung. So I will have to sort these out in due course, but it is not a show stopper for now.
It didn't seem like it was going to be a big task, but it sure took some time.
Probably the worst fitting parts are around the rear brake lights. Especially the piece with the seat latch keyhole in it.
Somehow I doubt that the people that make these fairings have actually tried to make improvements to the way the fairings fit the bike.

Anyway here are some pics of the bike with the fairings fitted.
Note that I forgot about the front radiator surround. Ran out of time for it today.

I finished working on it approx. 8pm and I thought I would take it for a spin up to Dave's about 10km away.
I pushed it out of the shed and gave it a kick.
It started and ran for 3 seconds and stopped. It then would not start again.
I was pretty tired, so I just pushed it back into the shed and thought that I will look into it tomorrow.

But after a few minutes, I just couldn't resist a bit of a tinker.
I removed the rear fairings and played around with the TPS plug and also pulled apart and re-twisted up a wire to wire connection on one of the PGM wires that was done in a bit of a hurry when I was swapping PGM's a few days back.
I also put in a fully charged battery from a FXR150. It is a bit too tall to enable the riders seat to go on, but I was still able to connect it up and give the kick start a good kick.

Well the bike fired up and ran sweet.
So I re-assembled the rear fairings and swapped back to the old battery, which doesn't seem to hold its charge all that well, but does still basically work.
The bike still fired up easy enough and ran well.

So I grabbed my helmet and took off up to Dave's just taking it pretty easy. It was now dark
At this stage the rev counter, Speedo and temp gauge are not working.
I need to seal up around the headlight as some light from the headlight leaks back into the riders face at night.

The bike ran well to Dave's where I stopped and had a bit of a chat.
Left Dave's at 10pm and got about 1.5km down the road and the bike stopped as if the kill switch had been flicked.
In the dark I was able to give the TPS connector a bit of a squeeze. But to no avail.
I pushed the bike back to Dave's. This was a bit of an up hill mission.
I left the bike at Dave's and he gave me a ride home in the car.

Got home 11pm and wrote up this post.
Not sure what the problem with the bike is.
It sure was a disappointing end to a reasonably productive day.

All I need to get a Warrant of Fitness (M.O.T, Inspection) is a speedo cable and a park light.

Engine running properly at last.

This afternoon Paul came down from Auckland with a spare PGM-II, a spare set of carbs, a spare wiring loom and a few other bits.

We were about to swap the carbs over when we realised that first we really needed to get the PGM connectors properly sorted.
So we put the bike in the van and headed around to Wob's, as he had an old F3 loom that we could salvage the correct connector plugs from. After a little while, the connectors were fixed, but the bike would not start.

The spare PGM-II was installed and all of a sudden the bike would start reliably with a kick start. Cool.

The bike was now running, but still wasn't quite right. It sounded as though it was too rich and was burbling and not free revving.
We swapped out the carbs and the bike ran beautifully. Even though two tubes to the air valves were not connected.

We connected up the two air valve tubes and plugged in the original PGM-II. The bike ran about 95% sweet. However, it was just noticeable that it wasn't revving as cleanly as it had on Paul's PGM-II. The fact that it ran this well at all was a bit of a surprise, as it was previously not running well at all on the original PGM-II, but now with Paul's carbs on it seemed to be running only slightly rough on the original PGM-II.

We re-connected Paul's PGM-II and the bike ran beautifully again. So clearly my original PGM-II has a slight fault but not bad enough to prevent the bike from running about 95% sweet. Odd?

So at the end of the day, there were 3 main things wrong with my bike when first assembled:
1) Sheared Woodruff key on the flywheel
2) Slightly faulty PGM-II
3) Something not quite right with the carbs. This is yet to be determined. (ended up being missing needle shrouds)
But also the seemingly good battery was just not up to the task and the kill switch had been previously modified so that the connections were backwards. Who would have thunk it. A bit of a torturous combination of problems to overcome, and that's putting it mildly.

But at least I now have the bike running properly. Excellent.

Note that someone had previously tried my original PGM-II on his bike and had reported back that it worked fine. This lead me to believe that there was nothing wrong worth my PGM-II. However, I am sure that if that someone tried it again, with the knowledge that it isn't quite right, he would notice the difference.

Mis-firing problem solved

The mis-firing problem has been found. (but other problems remain)
The Woodruff key locating the flywheel had completely sheared.
Hence the timing was out on both cylinders.
It looks as though I probably did not do up the flywheel bolt tight enough?
Number  "4)"  in the previous post says that I checked the flywheel was located properly. All I did was look to see if I could see the Woodruff key. I didn't actually remove the flywheel. However, if the Woodruff key shears, then all looks OK until the flywheel comes off.

I took the bike around to Wob's to let him hear it run and see what he thought.

After thinking about it for a while, wondering what could make it mis-fire on both cylinders, it seemed likely that the flywheel was not located properly, and upon inspection, it surely was not.

We cleaned off the faces of the Morse taper with Brakleen and put the flywheel back on with a new Woodruff key.
This time I used 3 dollops of lock-tite and did it up nice and tight.
I am used to flywheel bolts having a spring washer, but my setup at least, does not have a spring washer.

Anyway it fired up and ran quite good for about 10 seconds and then dropped onto one cylinder, then stopped.
I got it going with a push start down the hill, and it ran really well, but would keep dropping onto one or zero cylinders, especially at low revs.
I inadvertently pulled a few wheelies in first gear as both cylinders fired up all of a sudden at high-ish revs. Kind of fun.
I will look at it again on another day.

At least I finally got to ride the bike today. It was quite a good feeling. And for those brief moments when it was firing on both cylinders it really did seem to be quite powerful.
Today's session was far from the ideal running in procedure, but I seem to have gotten away with it for now.

Also, we looked at the wires going into the PGM as whoever did the wire splice had made a bit of a mess. One female connector pin in particular was the wrong type and did not click into place properly on the wiring loom plug. I really need to fix these connections properly.

Engine runs rough

At the moment, the engine runs really rough. It was putting out a dense grey smoke but this was because I had set the oil pump up WAY too rich. After setting it properly, the smoke levels returned to normal immediately.
It struggles to rev and huffs and puffs and misfires.
It appears to be running on both cylinders. But running really rough. It will not idle most of the time. Certainly not ride-able.

Initially I thought it was electrical. I pulled apart all the connector blocks and sprayed them with CRC and/or BrakeKleen and/or contact cleaner. I think I have probably done this to each connector block at least 3 times now. I also made sure that the battery was good and fully charged up. I could see spark at both spark plugs and both plugs were getting wet.

1) COILS, CAPS and PLUGS
I checked the resistance of the plug caps and it was zero, so I bought 2 new NGK caps/leads at NZ$42 each, with an inbuilt 5kOhm resistance.(NGK TB05EMA)
This made no difference.

Note that NGK plugs with "R" in their description (such as BR9ECM) means that the plug has an inbuilt 5kohm resistance. I am not too sure if you are supposed to use a 5kohm lead with a 5kohm plug, but that is what I am doing until I learn otherwise. NGK link.

I checked the resistances at the coils and they were zero across the terminals and about 3.3kOhm to lead end.
This gives a total resistance of 3.3k + 5k in the cap = 8.3k.
I know that 3.3kOhm seems a bit low across the HT coil, but a friends bike that was running sweetly measured the same.
I even swapped coils/caps with him, and still no difference.
I got a new set of NGK BR9ES plugs at $8 each and tried them. No difference. (The BR9ECM's were $25 each; I ordered 2 but then the bike shop rang back later and said that they would rather not get them in as they would have to buy a box of 10 and they didn't want to have 8 plugs sitting in the warehouse for ever. Welcome to New Zealand.
I set the plug gaps to 0.6mm
I also checked that the grounding of the earth wires on the wiring loom was good.
I unwrapped the front 2/3rds of the wiring loom and checked that it was all OK.

2) PGM II
I put my PGM on my friends bike and it ran OK. So I guess My PGM is OK

3) TPS
I measured the resistance across the Throttle Position Sensor (both ways) and made sure it made sense.
It varied from around 3kOhm to 5 kOhm from memory.
The power valve drive motor behaves properly with TPS connected and disconnected

4) PICK UPS
I fitted the flywheel pickups and wires from my spare engine. No difference.
I checked that the flywheel was on properly and couldn't float around on the crank giving bad timing signals.

So then I thought, well maybe it is carburation:

5) CARBURETTORS
I fitted a set of carbies from a friends bike that was running OK. No difference.
Both his and my carbs are set to standard settings with slightly different needles BPJ/K instead of BPG/H) and his float level was set to 16mm instead of 13mm.

???)  I am at a loss to explain why it doesn't run properly.
A) Maybe I have made a mistake during engine assembly, but I can't think what.
B) There is no little tacho wiring loom in place, but I seriously doubt that not having the tacho wired up would cause any problems. I actually just disconnected it on my friends bike and it did not affect how it runs.
C) Maybe there is some random problem in the rear part of the wiring loom?
D) I will check the compression on both cylinders tomorrow, just in case that sheds any light on this problem. It feels like good compression with the kick start.
E) I guess it could be a leaky centre main bearing seal, but this is brand new, so seems unlikely. But I guess I will have to do a crankcase pressure test the way things are going.
F) I am running V-Force III reed blocks. I doubt these are the cause of any problems?
G) I am running single ring Wossner RM125 pistons. They have a shorter skirt, but still block the exhaust port entirely at Top Dead Centre.

It is really quite frustrating to have such an elusive problem right at the end of the complete rebuild of this bike. But I guess this can be viewed as perfectly normal?

It goes!

Today I replaced a needle valve in the RH carby before fitting the carbs.
I fitted the two stroke oil tank and exhaust pipes.
The thermostat octopus arrived from Yahoo!Japan via Gary Gower and I fitted that and the radiator and the catch tank.
I put the tank and seat on and after about 6 kicks it fired into life.
The smoke was more grey than blue and very dense out of both pipes. It remained this way for the first two runs of about a minute each at low revs just above idle, then it stopped and wouldn't go again. Probably fouled plugs? Not too sure. Hope the grey smoke doesn't mean water in the system.

Just after first engine start-up

First impression of the dry clutch is that it sounds really crap. Even more so when the clutch is pulled in. But I will come to appreciate it over time I am sure. :-)

Spark at plugs & PV movement. Wanted Parts list.

I finally worked out that the engine kill switch on my bike is wired up completely wrong.
The switch is open when set to "run" and closed when set to "off". This is the reverse of what it should be, and lead me to think that the kill switch wires should be open when trying to set the power valve to the "Hi" position with the TPS disconnected. Wrong!.

In order to set the power valves, you must have the Kill switch set to "run" and this means that the two Black and Black/White wires should be connected. Then with the TPS switch unplugged, turn on the ignition key and the power valve pulley will rotate to where the computer thinks the fully open position for the power valves is. Now you can adjust the cables so that the power valves are exactly in the fully open position.
Note that the TPS connector block is a mongrel of a thing to pull apart.

Finally, after a bit of head scratching due to the incorrect kill switch leading me astray, I have been able to get my power valves operating correctly and now have spark at the spark plugs.

There is now light at the end of the tunnel. I just need to source a few little bits and do some minor work and it will be finished and working.

Things I need to source:
00) Correct kill switch! 03/01/2012 in the post.
01) Mini wiring loom for tacho/temp gauge. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan) 02/04/2012
02) Rear bottom fairing mount bracket.
03) Speedo cable. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan)02/04/2012
04) Radiator cap 06/01/2012 Arrived in post from Paul along with kill switch.
05) Pillion foot pegs. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan) 02/04/2012
06) Upper front RH side fairing mount that also supports small two-stroke oil tank 02/01/2012
07) Dzus fasteners for fairings. (Have fitted some but need more)
08) Rear seat latching mechanism. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan) 02/04/2012
09) Front Park Light and wires. 22/04/2012
10) Radiator bottom bracket. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan)
11) Brake hose clamp on bottom triple clamp. (bidding on Yahoo!Japan)
12) Front brake reservoir mounting bracket.

Things I need to do
1) Tape up the wiring loom after having pulled it apart for thorough inspection 02/01/2012
2) Fit new carby float bowl seals. 04/01/2012 The leaks basically stopped after having petrol in the bowls for a few days.
3) Fix broken air valve wires (green connector block)
4) General assembly of carbs, two-stroke oil tank, radiator, thermostat and radiator overflow tank and exhaust pipes. 04/01/2012
5) Make the fairings fit. Not a small job.

Unfortunately, it is the holiday period so it will take a bit of time to get this sorted out. Maybe about another 2 weeks. There is now nothing but some assembly time stopping me from firing up the engine.      :-)