Anthony might be on to something here... maybe this is a good place to share stories of a previous frustration that turned out to be something minor, a mistake you or somebody else made or just one of those "If I had only known" this, that would not have happened.
There are no problems with these machines that somebody else has not experienced, the more that is shared the less the unknown and that can be a big part of the issue.
BTW I am not saying that it is not OK to vent a little now and then just keep in mind that it can have an effect on other people especially when you are also asking for help. Those that do research their problem sometimes end up adding to their bad state of mind by reading old posts from people who have gotten more emotional than they needed to.
As if their angst is going to fix thier problem faster or get them better advise.
Just imagine somebody coming to you for what ever it is you do filled with frustration, bitterness and preconcieved notions... they have a problem they cant figure out and they want you to tell them how to fix it... on your own time I might add... one click of the mouse and poof they are gone with their problems. I have to do this here sometimes... now if I could do that at work!
Edit post button could be used more often I think!
Ray
OK, me first.....
I spent three and 1/2 days this past weekend working on 2 1/2 motors. We got the motors apart and cleaned the first night and I decided to go ahead and tap out all of the case holes because someone (ATK) had used the permanent type of red loctite to build them with. I broke a 5mm tap off in one of the scavenge pump cover holes. You want to talk about a pain in the butt! I tried to back it out but no luck. I let it sit while I worked on the other motor. These were both high end motors with 6mm + strokers (498cc & 505cc). We assembled the other motor and went back to trying to get the broken tap out. We ended up drilling out the back and knocking it out from the scavenge area. We drilled and tapped the hole and plugged the backside and continued on to building the motor. I now had 2 motors assembled and had finished the other 1/2 motor and we started doing timing checks. Nothing would come in line! Having never gone for big timing numbers that these big motors need, I was lost on how best to get them in time. What was worst is that I couldn't even get them to normal specs (106/106). I called the masters and did a little brain storming. I was running out of time as we had spent a day and half trying to get these two big monsters in some sort of cam timing. I finally ended up moving the cam idler gear one tooth to get both cams to 106 on the 505 and then due to time constraints just advance the intake to 108 and buttoned it up. The 498 motor (with Falicon crank) was driving me nuts. I finally figured out (on my own) that the Falicon was 3 degrees off on the TDC bolt and once corrected on the timing wheel lined up for 105.5/105.5. Due to no more time left I advanced the intake to 107.5 and let it go.
Well yesterday they dynoed the 505 in a motorcycle and got some ridiculously low numbers even though the bike smoked the tire on the dyno and had to be strapped down again to control the rear tire. It also shut down at about 8300 RPM. (Tim as thinking it would peak about 9800 with the lower timing numbers and we set the rev limiter to 10,200 in the map.
The possible solutions are a slightly spun flywheel (advancing the ignition timing), corrupted Hex Code in the ECU & a possible bad ECU. These have all happened to other motors with other members. We also noticed that the AFR was a little too high (lean) at around 14:1. They were using 110 octane race fuel straight from the can. Another thing was a Power Commander being used with an unknown map in it. (This will be zeroed out on the next runs). It will be used on the dyno to make easy changes.
So they will check the above and try again. It is very frustrating to spend some serious money and only get normal numbers. Per Timbo this motor should at least see about 52 HP with these numbers and about 5-7 more with the right timing numbers.
Back to the drawing board..............
Yea my dog is used to it.I will be cussing dog just looks up for a minute and goes back to sleep!Always calms me down.