Carpenter Bikes

[zenbiker]

The Carpenter bikes are powerful and fast as hell. I had the 240 job done on the 2077 R3 I owned. After about 7000 miles the bike had a bent INTAKE valve which Carpenter fixed for $2400. A short time later the bike would not start easily and was breaking up terribly. I actually gave the buyer back $2500 for his expenses to diagnose and fix the problem. Interesting that Carpenter had to MAKE a replacement valve because Triumph only sells valves by the set!
Carpenter could, also, never seem to get either the AFR or timing spot on. The bike always pinged until I brought it to someone who could download the ECU program and tune it.
Carpenter is a true MASTER mechanic and but not problem free and quite expensive.

 

[zenbiker]

2007 Rocket 3

 

[Tripps]

Interesting, I've had 15,000 trouble free miles, fingers crossed.

 

[TURBO200R4]

I know of another carpenter rocket that messed up in the valve/cam area it was repaired for a bundle.

 

[mexican]

Hope mine dont break

 

[Dr.D]

So far so good on my Lush bike.

 

[steve59]

What had me concerned was the gearbox. with my bone stock 06 the tranny sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil going into second gear and the thought of adding more power...well the tranny was a big reason I traded it back to the shop I bought it.

 

[Idaho Red Rocket 3]

Very happy with my Neville Lush 200 HP kit. Very reliable and street-able power.

 

[Claviger]

So far so good on my Lush bike.

Very happy with my Neville Lush 200 HP kit. Very reliable and street-able power.

The Lush kits are designed for street use that can be drag raced, not drag racing that can sort of tolerate street use. I'm confident both of you will have long life from your engines.

What I consider design flaws are all documented in my "New cams new thread" thread. All of this stuff is fine on a drag bike, but will eventually rear it's head over time on a frequently ridden street bike.

- Cheater cam lobe nose design (sharp nose profile to rapidly open/close and lengthen peak lift at the expense of longevity)
- Too much valve spring pressure due to using a cheater cam (required to maintain valve control at high RPM with a cheater cam)
- Valves getting beat to **** because of the above two issues (this is why they have so much NVH issue)
- Way too high dynamic CR (I had 265 cranking PSI)
- Regrind cams (Not necessarily a problem, but some have failed)
- Valve spring harmonics causing the shim to wear the Ti retainers (A problem also seen in his busa engines)
- Too small a cam for the compression ratio (with better pistons CR could be lower and achieve the same power with better NVH)
- Janky cam chain adjuster (the shoe is unnecessary if you use a proper adjuster)
- Too much material removed in ports during CNC porting causing low air speed in ports below 3000 RPM (this is why it makes bad power under 3800ish and has reversion issues)

The uncataloged Weisco pistons are quite good though. Not sure if everyone gets Weisco or if some bikes are JE.

There's no good reason for the Ti retainers other than, he has them in stock (same part he uses on Busas). Custom tool steel retainers are only a bit heavier and vastly stronger and more wear resistant.

Finally, the tune...it's hard to tune right when your on a jury-rigged dyno that has no load cell,