10,000 miles later... yup, after I rolled into work on Monday 6/20/16, I saw this on the odometer...
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I built it to drive, and drive it I do...and have done, apparently.
Here's the latest portrait of it, waiting out a rain shower at work, last Wednesday. I think you'll notice that the tailpipe is now a straight stinger, rather than the turn-down it had for the 2014-2015 seasons. buh-WAAAAARRRT! yup. still not as loud and annoying as several of the Harleys that live nearby.
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Its dirty pretty much all the time, gets a windex wipedown a couple times a year, and that's all it'll ever get. those motorcycle shocks up front still work pretty well, although the bushing surfaces are rather too narrow for the front end weight, and the bushings are beaten right out...
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I've gotten in the habit of flipping the drivers lap belt around the rear brake handle when I climb out (the shoulder belt goes right up over the roll bar), which means the seat belt latch tongue often hits the body...thus these many tiny dings...
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And, I can't keep mirrors on it...mirror brackets anyway. This is the third to have broken off (and this one was .188 thick steel!) due to vibration. Eventually I'll get the combination of mirror and bracket just right, and they'll last more than a year.
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It vibrates a LOT... the steering wheel is the major rattler now (big tolerances in the Speedway splined QD), I often find myself driving with my hands hanging off the top of the wheel, just to kill some of the rattle.
Oh this is weird...the passenger side front tire wears at twice the rate of the drivers side. yeah, beat's me too. so I just swap the fronts side-for-side at the beginning of the season.
It handles pretty well, and predictably (defaults to light understeer when pushed), and it brakes harder than any other vehicle I've ever driven, including my race kart. It's not track optimized, and after 10K + miles, I have rethought the idea of doing track days with it. Having driven it spiritedly on the road, I admit things do get rather more busy between working the rear handbrake and shifter - not to mention the slow steering (more on that later) and keeping up with the driver workload when trying to go as quickly as it seems capable of.
also there's that big gas tank up high, and I do get it up on two wheels a bit cornering hard.
That Slow Steering...yeah. the Porsche 924 rack is really too slow, even having shortened the MGB steering arms an inch, and its really easy to get behind on corrections during slides. You may remember the post I made June of '15 where I looped it into the curb and did the field repair with the passers-by supplied crowbar. a couple times since the same has occured - though, minus the curbstrike excitement. Nail it into a powerslide, tail comes out quickly, get behind on the steering and around we go, loop. If the slide angle is shallow, its okay ( and I look like a hero) but when the rear wheel gets way out there - like near or outside either front tire - its really hard to keep up with it, and once it starts coming back, there's really NO keeping up, it snaps right back, kind of like my race kart did. I've gotten it up on two wheels during that slide snap-back a couple times as well.
Have I mentioned that the B-3 is an Exciting Ride?
Regardless, even considering all those histrionics, its a stone blast to drive. keep it to a comfortable empty roadworthy (as in the viddy linked at the bottom of this entry) 60-70%, its big smiles and "wheeee!" Trust me, I'm an expert.
I have both MG Midget and Triumph spitfire racks to try, but that will require cutting and re-welding on the front structure a bit, and I'm not highly motivated to do that.
That bored-out engine. Ahrg. And I thought punching the engine out to 896 CC would be So Kewl...well, it sort of is. But, ever since then I've been chasing around a part-throttle detonation issue at 1/3rd to 1/2 throttle. it happens once I'm up to full CHT (350F) and like, stepping into it to maintain speed up a hill. Its been maddening. I know its because with the increase in bore from 826 to 896 CC the compression ratio jumped from 9.5 to 10.25 (about).
just over the last weekend I tried going back to XS750 needles, but with XS1100 emulsion tubes, and so far that seems to have fixed it, but I think I just have to break down now and drill out the break-away bolts that hold the ignition plate in place, so if I need to I can retard the ignition a degree or two. It runs the best now with the current jetting and I'm hopefully these richer needles have fixed the detonation, but I want to wait another week of commuting before I call it fixed.
I have to say, I really know quite a bit about CV carb tuning these days, and I have an absolute shit-ton of Mikuni BS34 Mk II carburetors and parts (two full working 3-carb racks, several boxes of parts, every jetting combo you could need).
Speaking of spares, I've also got another complete XS850 motorcycle (for the spare engine) another stock cylinder block, 4 cylinder heads...too much to list really.
So anyway, yeah I drive it a lot. Lately its been doing this thing where I feel heavy driveshaft vibration in right hand turns on the gas. but I think I know what's going on. I'll be out there tonight under it checking things out.
Pam and I - who are in the process of buying a house together , though that's a whole other trainwreck - took it to the vintage races at Thompson Speedway in Thompson CT last Friday...
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...and one of the best parts was the 11 minutes of free roadway we had on the ride home after leaving the speedway...raw POV video from the B-3 Cowl, enjoy!
http://youtu.be/xJknT6jIPDM
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