old phart
02-19-2002, 11:14 PM
My motor mount screws came loose, and so I had to remove the engine assembly from the truck to gain access to the motor mount screws. Kyosho uses a different style of engine mounting. Engine is first mounted to a plate, and then the plate is mounted to the chassis. Different........
Anyways........... while I was taking the motor mount apart, I removed the tuned pipe assembly as I was going to Loctite everything that is metal-metal and the tuned pipe is multi-piece. I found two things. First, it has a removable baffle cone. The exhaust note is pleasingly quite this way, I suppose removing the cone would make it obnoxiously loud. Don't know if it would improve breathing/performace without an equal carb adjustment/change, but at the least I can annoy a PITA neighbor of mine!
But here is what I found amazing...... jammed inside the smallest part of the tuned pipe, was a triangular stone. It is a tumbler stone, used to polish metal. No doubt, part of the process of making the cast aluminum tuned pipes nice and shiny. This piece got wedged in the throat of the tuned pipe, and never got noticed and was assembled with it lodged in there. I ran 3 tanks of fuel during break-in so far. No wonder it seemed rather sluggish! I blamed it on the rich mixture for break-in.
Here is the tuned pipe assembly, in its component state:
http://www.fototime.com/929B7900A7C8C48/standard.jpg
Here is the stone that was lodged in the throat of the tuned pipe:
http://www.fototime.com/B3AAE19915E7AB7/standard.jpg
And here, you can see just how much it was restricting exhaust flow!
http://www.fototime.com/EA276CEE2EE9979/standard.jpg
I have a feeling it will be making lots more power the next time I run it!
:D
Anyways........... while I was taking the motor mount apart, I removed the tuned pipe assembly as I was going to Loctite everything that is metal-metal and the tuned pipe is multi-piece. I found two things. First, it has a removable baffle cone. The exhaust note is pleasingly quite this way, I suppose removing the cone would make it obnoxiously loud. Don't know if it would improve breathing/performace without an equal carb adjustment/change, but at the least I can annoy a PITA neighbor of mine!
But here is what I found amazing...... jammed inside the smallest part of the tuned pipe, was a triangular stone. It is a tumbler stone, used to polish metal. No doubt, part of the process of making the cast aluminum tuned pipes nice and shiny. This piece got wedged in the throat of the tuned pipe, and never got noticed and was assembled with it lodged in there. I ran 3 tanks of fuel during break-in so far. No wonder it seemed rather sluggish! I blamed it on the rich mixture for break-in.
Here is the tuned pipe assembly, in its component state:
http://www.fototime.com/929B7900A7C8C48/standard.jpg
Here is the stone that was lodged in the throat of the tuned pipe:
http://www.fototime.com/B3AAE19915E7AB7/standard.jpg
And here, you can see just how much it was restricting exhaust flow!
http://www.fototime.com/EA276CEE2EE9979/standard.jpg
I have a feeling it will be making lots more power the next time I run it!
:D