What Does Harry Barlow do to the Engine?

Id like to know, with some amount of detail, what Harry Barlow does to an RD400 engine to get it to produce over 70hp. Can anyone who owns one give us a little insight?

 

Easy- it's Nitrous Oxide. Not for the RD. He huffs a bunch of it before he starts porting and building pipes.

 

Harry's back in the US from this evening until May 4. Call him up and ask him. Allow some time; he REALLY likes to talk about RD's. He's at my place in Port St. John FL.
321 639-7417

 

Hey thanks alot. I just finished my F500 RD400 yesterday. It looks really good. The chassis is pretty well developed. Im going to be looking for some more power pretty soon.

 

Honestly, there's nothing particularly fancy or shocking in the motors - there's just nothing done wrong, either. It's just a litany of little things done correctly and a good set of pipes that adds up to outstanding performance. Bob Macauly was checking out the cylinders on the 400 at Savannah, and can vouch for the fact that there's nothing particularly trick in them. The only machanical issues I've had in four years are two rocks sucked into the carb bashing up the crown, a piston ring pin coming lose, and a fouled plug when I was jetted WAY too rich.

Can't argue with results like that.

 

And what an important point that is! I've seen many examples where bikes worked poorly not because of what HADN'T been modified, but because of things that never should've been done at all. Exhaust ports cut higher than a TZ, inlet ports enlarged until the piston skirt catches in them, gigantic intakes on engines with little or no real transfer work, 8:1 compression ratios on a 2 stroke, hogged out exhaust ports, etc etc etc.

 

Chris is right, he was nice enough to let me take a good look at Harry's fine work at Savannah, high quality fine detailed careful work.. nothing wild, nothing "exotic" just really nice very openand very fine workmanship.. this is NOT to say that there was not some very special details .. they are very subtile and what Carl says is exactly right,, more people do harm then good by "backstreet lore" tuning and porting tips.

I do not own any parts that Harry has built, but from what I have seen he does FINE work and it is worth what he charges or more. undertsand that he sells a package, it is fast and it works,,