Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
On The Road with Lou!
Welcome again, my faithful Blog followers to the 2016 version of my motorcycle adventure. As per usual, we'll start with a lengthy diatribe that is the pre-amble to the trip. It also makes the first pin on that little map above here start in Edmonton.
We had a very mild Fall & Winter due to an El Nino and as such I rode into late November of 2015 and was out again in mid-March having spent exactly 112 days out of the saddle. The Rocket was not the bike I remembered! It spluttered and spit, hesitated and surged, and in general was not performing well, except under hard throttle. When driven hard it performed like the good old days; screaming like a Banshee & pulling like a Clydesdale, but the writing was on the wall.
I had known for 2 years that an engine rebuild was in the works; 2014's pre trip workover had revealed an average 9% compression loss, and by 2015 it was up to 20%. Considering 2015 saw a 15 000 km year it was prolly 30% by now. I had been putting off what I knew was going to be a pricey endeavor, but the time had come. I had been squirreling away a few bucks here and there and had amassed the $5K we felt it was going to take.
I took The R3 into the shop in early-April for what should be a 2 week job. Naturally, the whole top end, plus pistons and valvetrain running gear needed replacement. Sadly upon full dismantle it was found that piston blowby from leaving it so long had also damaged the cylinder walls and the bottom end. Once the final tally was in, all replacement parts were gonna run $12 000.00+.
Uh Oh! Budget blown!
The search was on for a complete engine from a donor bike. The service Manager at Echo Cycle, Chris, and one of the owners, Dave, whom I have befriended over the years were certain they had a complete motor that came from a written off bike with extremely low mileage. Sadly, however, upon examining said engine, they found it had been scavenged for parts over time and was nowhere complete, and also severely damaged as a result.
They then explored another tip on a motor but found it had been improperly stored outside and had turned into a rusty mouse mo'tel.
Gradually the search expanded to cover the province, then Western Canada, then Nationally, then North America wide. Unfortunately, Triumph does not do crate motors. Things were looking glum! April became May, May was threatening to become June, I was wasting away our hot Spring in my stinky old Dodge Ram. Here is the only existing picture of it, sporting its winter hood scoop!
Then the Stars started to align. I have always said I live a charmed life, things just always seem to work out. Chris called me to say that another customer of theirs, a well-heeled Doctor, was trading in his 2008 R3 in order to get a 2016 one. Echo had turned wrenches on his previous bike for its entire lifetime and knew it was meticulously maintained. It only had 32 000 clicks! Barely broken in by my standards! (My R3 has 120 000+ kms).
At first, we thought it would be a candidate for the donor engine, but then Chris suggested I take the whole bike as it featured many upgrades. After much haggling back and forth I agreed to his proposal and took the '08 et al.
We moved many items over from my original Rocket 3 in order to preserve the lineage, this included: seat, all tins, speedo & tach, dog bones, saddle bags and litany of smaller items. The upgrades I got were a ported and polished head, Carpenter Racing pistons with a compression increase from 9:1 to 10.5:1, floor boards, K&N triple cold air intake, Barnett kevlar racing clutch, Power Commander & a super loud Vance & Hines aftermarket exhaust.
Also, and I must refer to this feature as a game changer; heated handlebar grips! Readers of my 2015 NOLA blog will remember my last day coming home in 4°C rain and wind was a real character testing experience. Eryn, my ever thoughtful wife, had purchased me heated grips for Christmas, but they are in the closet now as backup.
Echo Cycle ended up selling me this bike for $5500.00 plus took the old R3 as a trade in against the work already done dismantling it, and the work done moving the old parts over. In the end my venerable 2004 Rocket was reduced to a dwindling pile of parts, as evidenced by the following images.
I picked up my newly refurbished ride in late May. In addition to all of their previous kindness, Echo gave me a month to decide if I liked the Vance & Hines pipes, very loud in comparison to my previous aftermarket Jardine pipes which by themselves were very loud compared to the OEM versions. The OEM pipes made the Rocket sound like a sewing machine! It took a little getting used to, but I eventually kept them. They are good for a 15 rwhp horsepower increase all on their own.
Speaking of power, the new bike is a handful! Once everything was moved over from the old bike it was time for some dyno work to tune things up. By tweaking the fuel, air & spark delivery timings via the Power Commander it is possible to place the power & torque band anywhere in the RPM curve and determine the horsepower and torque outputs. At one point during testing the bike was clocked at 251 rwhp. Now that is rear wheel horsepower, after the typical 10% rotational and frictional losses, so that is closer to 275 shaft horsepower.
Eventually we detuned it down to 224 rwhp to make it more reliable and rideable, and to reduce stress on drive train components. I had done some gentle mods to my previous R3 and it had Dyno'ed at 147 rwhp so we had added a full 33% extra get up and go! It was noticeable upon the first twist of throttle, and it took some getting used to. Also R3's come from the factory with a 7% detune in gears 1, 2 & 3 in an effort to eliminate wheelspin under hard acceleration and the Power Commander removes that. The bike is a handful now, especially in the wet!
With great power comes great responsibility!
Here is my final dyno run:
The owner of Echo Cycle owns a R3 modified for drag racing. He spent $85 000.00 on engine mods that ultimately output 550 rwhp, over 600 shp! Each cylinder has its own turbo charger and the whole engine is super charged, plus a compression ratio of 13.5:1, only runs on nitro methane + nitrous boost. Everything has been replaced with either racing grade or custom machined parts. Runs high 9's at 135 MPH.
With great power comes gre...........................you get the picture!
(Note:) Just before departing on this trip I had Echo do a little fine tuning of the injector maps to clean up some flat spots in the under 3000 RPM range where the motor stumbled a bit. As it turned out we needed to remove fuel across the board at almost all RPM's, I thought it smelled like it was running rich. It turned out the previous owner had it tuned to be as loud as possible, leaning it out may have dropped a few ponies, we didn't do a full Dyno run, but it also knocked many dB out too. It also completely eliminated the embarrassing pops and backfires during compression braking when the exhaust was rich in unburned fuel. In short, it fixed many problems in one fell swoop, and it will prolly help my gas mileage too.
So, bike taken care of, we needed a destination. You will hear this repeated numerous times over the next weeks but a bike trip is about the journey, not the destination, but having an ultimate goal in mind at least gives direction.
I am not sure where I heard about it, but The Inside Passage piqued my curiosity, I sent away for a brochure from Alaska Tourism. The IP as we'll call it is the leeward side of the Haida Gwaii Archipelago (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands) that hugs the west coast of BC, Vancouver Island being one of them, and then going all the way up to Anchorage. (Generally speaking, I love the word Archipelago too!) Here is the Wikipedia article on the IP.
You can take a ferry from Seattle, WA all the way to Anchorage. AL, or you can drive it, maybe! The route is made up of highways, lesser roads, and island hopping car ferries. It looked like a great adventure. My Brother in Law Bill, who joined me for a few days last year on my NOLA trip, will be again serving as my wingman. His other duties will include early morning revelry, at a time known as The Crack of Bill, or The CoB!
Last year, after knowing each other for 50 years (my whole life!) we decided to go on our first road trip together but faced the challenge of combining our riding styles. He likes to be on the road by 0600 and stop early afternoon before it gets too hot. I like to be on the road by 1100 and stop before Happy Hour is over. In the end, we compromised on a 0900 departure time and everything worked out. Bill was only able to spend a few days with me as his time in 'merica was limited, but this year we will go the full distance together.
In the days leading up to my departure, I started thinking about the Arctic Circle and The Arctic Ocean on the James Dalton highway again. To call the JD a highway is generous, it is, in fact, the haul road owned by the Alaska Pipeline for R&M of same. It is, ominously, a 666 km road, about 25% paved, that would take an intrepid motorcyclist all the way to Prudhoe Bay where he might stick a toe in the Arctic Ocean. I tried in 2004 on my trusty (and crusty!) 1988 Suzuki Intruder 1400. Here is my Intruder getting a pre-Dalton check-up at Northern Motorsports in Fairbanks.
I have a trip blog under construction on this site about it. Not to be spoiler but I get stopped at the halfway point with a flat tire and come home on a flat deck through a forest fire! It's a good read.
There are a couple of tour services that run between Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay, and I (or we)(Bill reading this will be the first he hears of my plan) hope to be on one. They run a very limited schedule so I am not sure it'll work out.
Barring that, the Arctic Circle is about 300 km from Fairbanks, about 80% of that paved, and could be a single day round trip (especially starting at 0900!) so it would be cool to get an updated picture of me and The R3 there. I was there once before.
Many stars will have to align to make all those things happen, but remember, we are leading a charmed life!
I see I have rambled on excessively here, but it is a good story. After slightly mixing up my departure dates I was up at the crack of Lou (1030) Sunday August 1st morning and packed by 1130. I thought I was leaving the day before so I had already gathered all my gear. I shot a departure video and split.
Please see Day 1 for that write-up. Thank you for coming along for the ride again this year!
- comments
Leah Paton Hey Buddy, safe travels:)
Fred Keating Here we go again! I'm anchored in my armchair and ready to roll with you!
Wicksey My mid-morning coffee just got good again.
Cheryl Renzenbrink This sounds like an amazing trip, have fun and drive safe!