Ace UCE project.

[Lwt Big Cheese]

Ride someones iron barrel.

 

[ace.cafe]

I suppose it wouldn't lead to a legally saleable product but I would be fascinated to find out what a developed UCE motor would produce with a good quality flat slide carburetor bolted on and all the EFI gubbins stripped off.

Chasfield,
Really, the main improvement would be reaching higher revs than the EFI controller allows with it's rev-limiter. If the rev-limiter can be adjusted or overcome, and the mixture settings are able to be programmed, then the EFI can be a good option.
If not, then a good carb is a "work-around" plan.

I like carburetors, in fact. But if we could use the EFI system that is currently on there, and make it do the things we want it to do, then the overall package becomes less costly than changing to a carburetor.
I have my mind open to both possibilities.

[gremlin]

Where did we get the idea that the bike is not in closed loop operation at higher speeds?

From the abundance of soot no doubt !   

[1 Thump]

I suppose it wouldn't lead to a legally saleable product but I would be fascinated to find out what a developed UCE motor would produce with a good quality flat slide carburetor bolted on and all the EFI gubbins stripped off.

It should not be hard to do. The basic framework is available.

http://www.hitchcocksmotorcycles.com/carburation-carburettors

"This kit comprises of a 32mm Amal MK1 Concentric carburettor and filter, ignition box, magneto flywheel and extractor, petrol tap and adaptor plate, spark plug and all necessary wiring, cables and gaskets etc. "

[iron.head]

If taking the carb route than we can directly use wiring from Classic 350 which runs on a carb. We have open loop efi in our C5's in India as it does not have the oxygen sensor. A different mod for the ecu might be needed as current setup is open loop. I had a chat with a service person at RE and he told me that the con rod has been recently modified to strengthen it. Another forum member Randhawa told me that this mod was highly needed for C5 and that the new con rod is highly durable. The crank was also balanced last year to reduce the vibrations. Crank and con rod is available as a single part here and new one costs around Rs 9000.

Few more changes have been done which include new wiring harness which has better quality connectors, front disk brakes from brembo, etc.

RE has officially declined to sell the parts needed to convert open loop efi to closed loop in India. Conversion to carb/closed loop efi would have otherwise costed anywhere around Rs 15000/Rs 20000. Our bad luck!

[Ducati Scotty]

Any progress Ace?

[ace.cafe]

Unfortunately, no.

I'm stuck waiting for people to get to my project.
But I will update when I get some word.

[agram]

According to at least one fellow at Hitchcocks I spoke to on the phone with last night, they're working to make a new Power Commander which can override the rev limiter AND access and adjust the timing. Apparently it's in testing, and it is more than just a software update (IE, will be a new box).

It was mentioned that the UCE timing has much room for improvement, and that the current crankshaft would probably be quite fine with another 1000 RPM. This seems right to me, although I'd love to hear your opinions on this.

I found that interesting. Have you heard anything of this? It seems that one of the bigger hurdles to the ACE UCE project might soon be a thing of the past.

[Ducati Scotty]

Agram, any admission from Hitchcock's about the PC problem reading the Enfield's RPM correctly?  It'd be nice to hear official word they know it's wonky.  The fact that they're building a whole new one may indicate that.

scott

[ace.cafe]

Any part of this project that is available from somebody else is something that I can use, and don't have to make.
I'm all in favor!

Bring it on!

[Ducati Scotty]

Any progress or are you still waiting for the shop to find some time?

Scott

[ace.cafe]

Any progress or are you still waiting for the shop to find some time?

Scott

There is a little bit of progress.
I'll be talking to the head of the shop tonight or tomorrow about the next steps.
Once we make some decisions on that stuff, I'll make a report.

[ace.cafe]

Okay, well I wasn't able to get my discussion today with the shop, but we have had some email discussions.

Basically, we want to use the valve train parts that we use in the Fireball. Beehive springs, Fireball spring retainers, etc.
But it will need to use new valves which are appropriate for the UCE. These valves will be specified to have a slightly larger diameter head for the intake, like the Fireball, which will allow the port profile in the bowl which we want to have. The valve stems will be a length which we will specify to ensure that the  rocker/valve wipe geometry is correct, without any excessive side-thrust which might cause the early valve guide wear which has been seen in some UCE bikes. We will make sure this is correct in our modified heads, so that will not be a potential issue with our stuff.

We will address the valve lift issue. How we will actually do that is still undecided. Both cam and rocker modifications are under consideration. The final valve lift figure will depend on the port flow behavior at various valve lift heights.  Our valve spring configuration allows a max lift of up to .500", if we should desire to go that high.

The exhaust cam auto-decompressor will be retained to protect the sprag.

We will be making an oversize piston for this system. The bore size is yet undecided, but it will be at least one overbore size bigger than stock, so that we can bore/hone correctly for the new piston.  If we feel we need the bigger bore to load up the port demand higher for flow, we will size for that.
The piston crown will be set to achieve squish/quench with this chamber shape properly. Compression will "gingerly" be moved up as far as we can get it, while still keeping the ECU working for us without pinging.
The valve relief pockets in the crown will be deep enough to deal with whatever lift height we decide upon for the valves.

Hopefully the Power Commander bugs can be worked out, so we have some more freedom to move the rpm limits higher. We'll see how that comes along.

[wokka]

According to at least one fellow at Hitchcocks I spoke to on the phone with last night, they're working to make a new Power Commander which can override the rev limiter AND access and adjust the timing. Apparently it's in testing, and it is more than just a software update (IE, will be a new box).

It was mentioned that the UCE timing has much room for improvement, and that the current crankshaft would probably be quite fine with another 1000 RPM. This seems right to me, although I'd love to hear your opinions on this.

I found that interesting. Have you heard anything of this? It seems that one of the bigger hurdles to the ACE UCE project might soon be a thing of the past.

If this is the case, Wayne has been damn quiet about it in all of our discussions.

I hope they do the right thing and offer a swap to those of us that bought the current power commander paperweight

[ace.cafe]

If this is the case, Wayne has been damn quiet about it in all of our discussions.

I hope they do the right thing and offer a swap to those of us that bought the current power commander paperweight

If it's safe to pull an extra thousand rpm out of this bottom end, then that's a pretty good amount of hp increase available there. I'm not sure I'd push it all the way to 6500rpm for a street bike, but 6000 might be nice. That's just ~10% more than stock. It's easier to hit the ton with a decent gearing when you can reach 6000.