Post the Anglesey clean-up we investigated our firing on 3 cylinders issue, a quick check-up revealed very low compression in #2. The suspicion being that the engine had been damaged during the initial start-up issues.
Solution…fit our spare engine.
Heading for Silverstone with the replacement engine, what could go wrong?
Into qualifying and here we go again no top end speed – low end not too bad but top speeds down by 15-20 mph and once again fouling of #2….but this time with compression. We raced on but still the same issue…so frustrating!
Something odd….whilst checking that the lifting intake funnels where still functioning correctly (something else corrected after Anglesey) we noticed fuel droplets being blown out of #2. No choice but to carry on with race 2 but very much on a ‘Sunday afternoon drive’.
The only positive thing from the whole frustrating weekend was that even with 3 cylinders we managed to be within two tenths of our previous best time with the old GSXR but still way off where we need to be and still completely confused.
A quick check and we discovered once again #2 had a seriously fouled plug plus low compression, different engine same issue.
What has gone wrong?
We had great power on our first visit to the rolling road but now we are way down on power, constant fouling on #2 and something is eating our engines! The only conclusion was that a mistake had been made during one of the many updates/changes that had been made to the ECU map/settings.
Conclusion, it had to be the firing sequence, not the firing order but the timing of the firing during the R1’s ‘Big Bang’ sequence….after watching numerous videos made by people that actually seemed as confused as we were, finally a video from Yamaha that showed clearly we had it wrong – #2 was firing out of sequence…two clicks on the mouse and all sorted….simple!
However, on starting the R1 with everything firing correctly we still had a problem the fact that even with the change made the compression on #2 was so poor that it still did not run as it should, taking the head off revealed damage to #2 valve seats.
Two weeks later and with the head refitted the engine started first time and ran so smoothly, no lumpy tick-over, no popping back and the unique sound of the Big Bang was finally there!
Too late for Thruxton….having got the engine ready we still needed yet another visit to Jamsport’s rolling road to run the car under load and check power output at high revs etc, no point going to one of the fastest tracks in the UK without top end speed. So mis-out on Thruxton and get ready for Snetterton.