I agree a "Pure Spec" works. A team that KNOWS that another team has a clear HP advantage is left playing the high dollar game of sending a engine off in the current MA format. Hence why I'll keep in Club level knowing my spend goes waaaaaaaaay further.
I also would like to see that sheet lol. But for sure I am interested in the differences between your old bike (feel and times) and the Ape.
So all this dancing around, does it mean cheater motors or just carefully assembled/select fit (which can entail lots of expensive trial fit work)?
The latter has been around forever. I remember my dad, back in the early 70's, measuring the weight of pistons and connecting rods to get matched sets.
There was mention made in the RA broadcast that one of the riders in Jr cup couldn't hang onto the lead group coming onto the back straight and indicated that he didn't have as much motor as the front runners. That doesn't show me that there are cheater motors, since it could be that his motor was tired, he wasn't getting a good drive out of 7, his gearing was off or his bike wasn't tuned right. I know that back when WERA still had production classes, my Hurricane was way slow compared to the others, but it had 18,000 street miles on it with the original top end.
MA approved Flash or Spec ECU with MA provided tune are the only options as far as I understand the rules, so tuning shouldn't really be a factor. Can't remove metal anywhere from the engine and gaskets and bearings must be stock. I'm no expert but I'm still wondering how there could be more than a 1 HP difference in a 50 HP bike?
Production tolerances are much tighter than they were in the 70s. I am not saying there is nothing to be gained, but it won’t be nearly what it was back then.
I thought slotted cam gears were allowed. Setting valve clearances and cam timing are probably the main adjustments to adjust the power curve.
And just as many excuses. Once showed up to a race weekend with my very fast (MX) nephew with a bike still in the crate. I assembled the bike, set it up right there in the pits and still got protested. Hell it was a KX65 running in a field of mostly KTM's.
It says they are in the rulebook, but they must be approved parts. On the approved parts spreadsheet, there is no mods allowed to the Kawi 400. Clear as mud? It does say only stock gaskets, so no thin head gasket or base gasket.
In our case it may have been our broke selves showing up in a beat up old pickup and parking amongst the motorhomes that did it. Nobody ever figured out to just watch and see how he rode and just assumed he was on a cheater bike. Heck if they just listened to how the boy wrung out the throttle it might have given them a clue. good times. it broke my heart when he gave it up to fly through the skate parks on a bicycle instead.
Who getting 50hp out of the engines!?!?!?!? After putting an exhaust on ours we had a tune done in Phoenix. I'm completely dyno ignorant so can't speak intelligently on the matter. However our tunes are 44hp ish with a minor difference between two bikes which I'm ok with. After reading the shiny pages we are down on power from what others are getting. I was told it was variances of the type of dyno and whatever or however it was performed. The bikes performed very well at the GNF amongst it's competition. Limiting factor was my kids getting swallowed up in knocking the poop out of each other and different riders instead of working together. At the end of the day, if teams are shelling that kind of spend to gain a advantage in a entry class with "stock rules" to gain a competitive advantage, well----that just ruins the spirit of competition. Clever interpretation of the rules will always be part of the game. It's just a game I'm unwilling to play nor will put my finances in jeopardy to be competitive. Tough pill to swallow being priced out of the game sitting on the couch watching all this go down.