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Wednesday March 10, 2010

Zodiac Racing Ready to Rumble

The Zodiac Racing team's race season is about to start for 2010 and with last year's spectacular progress at the end of the season they want to aim high. This year started with the good news that all the major sponsors will continue their support for the coming race season. So the name of their lead sponsor Zodiac International B.V., Europe's premier supplier of Performance Products for Harley-Davidson, will be flying on The Godfather VII again along with their other main sponsors Supertrapp - Performance Exhaust Systems, Accel Motorcycle Products - Performance Electronics, Spectro Oils of America - Top Motorcycle Lubricants and Kibblewhite Precision Machining Inc - Manufacturer of Valvetrain Components. The team is also going to rely on their valuable parts supporters again and for this season National Cycle has stepped in and developed a purposed build version of their highly effective VStream wind screens. This should make the rider Roel Koedam even more comfortable on the Top Fuel Harley and test the VStream technology up to 200MPH.... and beyond!

The first outing of the Zodiac Racing Team will be at Santa Pod Raceway's Easter Thunderball. The team has signed up for the Top Fuel class mainly to test the newly developed components that have kept Ton and Vincent Pels (T&V Racing) busy over the past winter and to find a baseline for the upcoming UEM European tour. But they will treat the first round of the British championship as a regular race to get in the pace of racing again and to give the 4 cylinder bikes a run for their money. T&V Racing was very pleased with the progress they made that last couple of rounds in 2009 and will try to keep this momentum going. They will start 2010 with a faster spinning supercharger that should give them 10% more boost. Also the fuel system setup is drastically changed and the team's aim for the Easter Weekend is to become competitive for the 2010 championship.

Last year has been used primarily for testing the new supercharged bike. But for this year the aim of the Zodiac racing team is the same as it has always been: To win the European Super Twin championship.

The team has a new complementary card made for the 2010 season, so please come by and pick one up if you have the chance.

See you at the racetrack!

Zodiac Racing's 2010 provisional race calendar:

2nd - 5th April Easter Thunderball Santa Pod Raceway, United Kingdom

30th April - 2nd May Kunmadaras Hungary FIM/UEM Round

28th - 31st May Main Event Santa Pod Raceway, United Kingdom FIM/UEM Round

1st - 4th July Nitro Nationals Alastaro, Finland FIM/UEM Round

29th July - 1st August Veidec Festifal Mantorp Park, Sweden FIM/UEM Round (1/8 Mile)

6th - 8th August Sunoco Drag Challenge Gardermoen, Norway FIM/UEM Round

13th - 15th August NitrOlympX Hockenheim, Germany

9th - 12th September European Finals Santa Pod Raceway, United Kingdom FIM/UEM Round

Thursday December 10, 2009

Zodiac Racing getting up to speed with the new bike

The contrast couldn't be any bigger between the first qualifying round of the 2008 European finals and the 2009 European Finals. Last year the new supercharged 1680cc Zodiac Top Fuel Harley exploded in spectacular way on it's maiden voyage during qualification. This year it ran it's first 6 second pass, a 6.85 @ 198.8MPH (319.9km/h) terminal speed at Santapod Raceway's European Finals first qualifier. The team's most important gaol for the 2009 season was: "make the bike run with the Big Dogs".

The team (Ton, Vincent and Roel) had been struggling for the first few races of the season, which again resulted in two more spectacular engine explosions and a lot of damaged parts. Due to all the mechanical problems they encountered, it was decided to skip two of the championship rounds and do some tests at a local race track instead.

Each time the design of one part was improved, the next failed on them. So going to races in Finland and Hungary with this situation was a bit pointless. "All the parts that are failing is stuff we bought" Ton said, "It worked on the injected bike, but it doesn't on the supercharged bike". After last year's explosion the rocker arms were already replaced with Ton's own design, but as always with developments of new supercharged engine fed with nitromethane, the next weak spot was found rather quickly. Now that the rockers could cope with the forces, the push rods were literally folding under pressure and at the U.K Main Event this resulted in an engine hydraulic which lifted the head. Stronger 1/2" diameter "thick-wall" push rods were installed when the engine was rebuild, but then during the second run of the test event at Drachten the lifters were failing. This again lifted the head with a loud explosion and by now Roel was wondering whether he should have extra hearing protection under his helmet.

With the Finnish UEM round only one week after this test, it made no sense to go there. The team was able to build up the #2 engine for the third round of the championship at Mantorp Park in Sweden, as this engine was just about to be finished. The lifters were manufactured in house this time, and the cam follower was fitted with a bronze bushing instead of the conventional needles. This turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle. Now there were no parts in the exhaust valve train to "let go", causing the exhaust valves to stay closed, which in turn caused the engine to hydraulic. They had to redesign the lifters a few times, but the lifters kept operating the valves and the bike made it to the finish line. So for the first time, Ton and Vincent could start tuning the bike instead of picking up pieces. In the end it only took the team 5 passes to become competitive from that point onwards, making huge progression with each run. They missed qualifying by only one tenth of a second in Mantorp's strong field and in Hockenheim, during the spectacular Night Show with over 50.000 people in the grandstand, Roel ran a 7.23 at 312km/h (194 MPH). For the first time the bike ran reasonably clean with bright header flames from start to finish line.

With the bronze bushing of the new cam followers now seizing and with the UEM Hungary round only one week after Hockenheim, the team had no other option then to head home and hit the drawing board to fix this last "little issue". Based on their own lifters and with the experience of the few passes they made, Ton redesigned the cam follower once again. And after analyzing the data from the passes in Hockenheim, the gearing and fuel system was changed and the team headed for England with good spirit, confident a six would be possible this weekend. The weather was excellent with a corrected altitude of 25 feet under sea level and the Santa Pod crew prepared the track surface to a standard we have not seen for several years. The first run caught Roel by surprise as for the first time the bike got "loose". He quickly shut and opened the throttle to get it back in the groove and get rid of the excess wheel spin and from then on the bike accelerated hard to the top end..... 6.857 @ 198.8MPH (319.9km/h) finally succes, everything stayed together! Now they could start tuning the bike. Due to the extensive checking of the engine the team had to skip the second run on the Friday, and continue on the Saturday. With a little extra ignition timing and some more fuel pressure, the bike ran it's best increments until the 1000ft. There Roel had to shut the throttle as his opponent decided to cross the center line and threw the timing reflectors into Roel's lane. After analysing the data of the run, the fuel pressure was upped again and the engine was given 2 degrees more ignition timing, for the last qualification run. But that did not work. The bike slowed down and they had to go the other way. The team qualified number 5 in the ladder and had to race against Ton's old bike now owned by Dutchman Job Heezen.

For the first elimination round on Sunday they put in less fuel with a higher percentage of Nitro. When they fired up the bike to heat it up, the engine sounded very strong. They had to do well as Job Heezen on Ton's old bike was capable of doing 6.60 second passes. When it was their turn both bikes fired up, did their burn out and went to the start line. At the green light Roel Koedam left 0.022 second quicker than Job Heezen but with Job's 6.6817 @ 212.9 (342.6km/h) and Roel's 6.7981 @ 205.2MPH (330.2km/h), Job went over the finish line 0.096 second before him.

Although Roel lost the team left the Pod with a very satisfied feeling that they would be very quickly ready for the 2010 season. They just will make some small changes in the valve train and produce new, stronger valve tappets with over-sized needle bearings.

See you at the racetrack!

The Zodiac SuperTwin Top Fuel drag racing team is proudly sponsored by Zodiac International B.V., Supertrapp Exhaust Systems, ACCEL Motorcycle Products, Spectro Oils of America and Kibblewhite Precision Machining.

The Zodiac SuperTwin Top Fuel drag racing team is proud to use products from Zodiac International B.V., Supertrapp Exhaust Systems, ACCEL Motorcycle Products, Spectro Oils of America, Kibblewhite Precision Machining, Performance Machine Disk Brakes and Wheels, Goodridge Fluid Transfer Systems and Flexion/Gates Belt Drive Systems.

Photos courtesy of Ivan Sansom and Rose Hughes.

Monday May 4, 2009

Zodiac Racing ready for the 2009 European Championship

After a somewhat earthshaking introduction of the "The Godfather VII", as both cylinder heads were blown of in its first shakedown pass late last year, the team is now ready to take up the challenge of the 2009 European championship tour with the new bike. There are still gremlins that need to be sorted out, but at Easter the team visited Santapod Raceway to test the newly designed engine parts and apart from some minor issues, everything seemed to be working like what they had hoped for. And at the start of the season, the team is happy to announce that Kibblewhite Precision Machining, Inc. has joined the team's very loyal sponsors Zodiac International, Supertrapp Exhaust Systems, Spectro Oils of America and ACCEL Motorcycle Products. The team have been relying on Kibblewhite valve train components with great success for as long as they run Nitro Harleys and now KPMI have decided to increase their support for the Zodiac Racing team.

Vincent, Ton and Roel introducing the new bike

It was back to the drawing board after the first shakedown pass of the new Zodiac Top Fuel SuperTwin bike last year, as things didn't go entirely as expected. Still in it's experimental black bodywork, a huge engine explosion blew both the cylinder heads off at the hit of the throttle in it's first trial. Fortunately all safety features worked as they should, and damage was solely mechanical. Still a lot was learnt from it and over the winter new cam profiles were designed in conjunction with Andrews and new rocker arms were designed by Ton and manufactured by Puma Engineering, to withstand the increased exhaust pressure of the supercharged engine. On top of that a new state-of-the-art fuel management system was installed to more accurately control the fuel pressure of the BDK valve. Flexion came with a new Gates Poly Chain GT Carbon, to get maximum reliability out of the primary drive and a complete spare engine was also manufactured over the winter along with extra spare engine parts. Finally a lot of effort was put into new body work and the cosmetic aspects of the bike to give it an appearance that is worthy of the name "The Godfather VII".

With all the new parts in the bike it was setup fairly safe to do some testing during the Easter Thunderball at Santapod Raceway. Modest boost, ignition timing and nitromethane percentage were put in for the first pass of the season, with the objective to get some data and see if the new engine parts would be able to cope with the harsh environment of Top Fuel drag racing. With the tricky track conditions in the cold and damp weather (at least no snow this Easter!!), the throttle was modest as well when leaving the start line and Roel was able to feed the throttle slowly as the bike started to gain some speed. No big numbers on the scoreboard, but the bike did run in a nice straight line and the skies were lit by the header flames from the exhausts for some 400 feet. Around the eight mile the bike lost its power so Roel shut the throttle and coasted past the finish line. Back in the pit the team found that there were still some issues with the rocker arms as they seized on the axle, causing all the push rods to bend. But the rocker arms themselves were still in one piece. The team decided to skip the second qualifying round to double check the whole bike and found that everything was in good condition and prepped the bike for the next day, eliminations. With the fuel system altered a bit and the idle set a tiny bit lower, the bike was fired up the next morning after some hilarity about a loose connector. All was checked A-OK again and so they prepared themselves for first round to get some more data. Roel was up against his "old racing buddy" from back when he was running 4-cylinder bikes, multiple UK champion Steve Woollat. After a long smokey burnout from the T&V powered twin, a small fuel leak was detected and Vincent immediately signalled Roel to kill the engine. It turned out to be a good thing to quit the engine, as now the rocker arms and shafts that gave trouble in qualifying could be examine after very little stress. Again the seizing marks were present, so some modification was clearly needed for the rocker arms.

The rocker arms are redesigned and altered in some small areas and team Zodiac is confident the modified items will be up to the task for the season opener of the European Championship, The Main Event at the famous quarter mile of Santapod Raceway. They will probably need a couple of runs to find their base setting, but with a little luck, and weather permitting, they hope to run all 4 qualifiers. It will be tough to qualify with 12 Top Fuel Super Twins entering the event to try and get a spot of the 8-bike field, but hopes are high!

See you at the racetrack!

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