Good to know. I know J. Rangel is a big boy, not to be disrespectful of him. He's the current Motorcycle Speed Trials record holder in M-AF/M-AG and MPS-AF in 3000cc class. This bike is stripped as light as he could make it by all appearances and the ride height looks stock and appears to be running ME880s on stock rims. I've reached out in the past with no response from him, but from what I was able to gather it's a 240 Carp kit and he had engine top-end issues one year.
3000 | M | AF | 176.933 | Ragle J. | Triumph | 2017 |
3000 | M | AG | 172.045 | Ragle J. | Triumph | 2016 |
3000 | MPS | AF | 174.914 | Ragle J. | Triumph | 2018 |
Then there was Disalvo's FIM record:
2012-08-30 | Jason DISALVO | Bonneville Salt Flats - USA | Triumph Rocket III | I.A1.A I.3+ 3000cc | 1 km: 174.880 mph
Mile: 174.276 mph | 1 km: 281.443 km/h
Mile: 280.470 km/h |
That's his entry in the books. That bike annihilated a cylinder in the attempt (look at the intake, it's unfiltered internally), compacted it with salt internally and destroyed the piston/cylinder liner, etc. They tried a car tire, 16" tires, and 18" tires. I don't recall positively which was used for the record, but I seem to recall the 18" being used. Looking closely at the photo, I think I see ballast on the rear peg mount arm, just behind his left leg. It's also a Carp 240 kit from what I've been told.
I have a trove of R3 on the salt pics I'm relooking to find what people have done. The Disalvo attempt clearly has a set of shortened rear shocks, and the front is dropped about 1" (look at top triple). Car tire pic, from what I'm told, basically acted like a parachute on the bike and killed top speed:
2 Very different setups, with 2 very different rider shapes and package weights of bike+rider, both achieved nearly identical speeds using almost exactly the same engine build.
So to me the big question: Was ~175 the grip limit of the ME880 or was it the power-limited terminal velocity? As I seem to recall from discussions with Bob, it was the grip limit during the Disalvo record, which is why I'm so intent on getting the 6x17 rim made rather than exploring adding power to the bike, I personally believe it has the power in the right place of the power band to crack 200 as is if it can put it down.
This is the gearing at 8500 Redline with the 240/50R16, peak power on Mufasa comes at ~8100 RPM, the dyno below was cut off early (can't find my 8500 print out at the moment). Assuming a worst-case 15% slip rate, at 8500 the bike will be going 185 mph which is "just" on the overrun portion of the power band, right at 250whp. I know the power band on the Carp 240 kit and it's less ideal for LSR, peaking out lower (usually below 8000) and falls off much faster after peak output, which is why I'm confident with the current build.
If it doesn't have the guts to get there, I can always adjust the cam timing, I'll have to review but I seem to recall using cam timing that was explicitly selected to preserve mid-range power rather than top-end, so I can shift the torque peak to the right pretty easily if necessary.