| Author | Message | ||
     Jerseyguy |
First off, congrats to all who raced and performed so well and to Buell for a great first major effort with the 1125. I just can't figure how that pod came off like that and it's been bugging me all weekend. I watched the pit stop over and over and I just don't get it. When I crashed my 1125 at NJMP at nearly 130 last fall The pod took the brunt of the hit and stayed nearly intact.  Nothing behind the pod was even slightly damaged or loose including the mounting bracket. I realize that there's considerable wind force and vibration at Daytona but it can't be more than a crash can it? It seems like it's either one of two things. A mechanic really screwed up or the bike had some trick bodywork that didn't hold up. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Steve- An Anony post in one of the threads says Danny's bike had a problem with the aftermarket bodywork: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/discus/show .cgi?tpc=158664&post=1396193#POST1396193 | ||
| P_squared |
Aftermarket bodywork that for whatever reason wasn't completely attached correctly before the race. I'm sure the crew is kicking themselves in the @$$, repeatedly & HARD, but in the immortal words of Forest Gump, '$h!t happens.' All things considered, I thought it was a good showing overall & can't wait to see the results the rest of this year. | ||
| Jerseyguy |
Thanks guys, I hadn't seen that post. It just broke my heart to see them fumbling in the pits like that. | ||
| Slaughter |
Yeah - that bodywork requires relocation and remounting of the radiators. RMR has a season of endurance racing that same setup last season - so who knows what actually happened. I feel bloody awful for the poor folks in the pits with the cameras running and now the duct tape and zip-ties are being monday-morning-quarterbacked to death - though we ALL felt their pain while it was happening in real-time!!! | ||
| Ebear |
Well , for one thing , I'm sure there was alot of testing on the cooling effect of the pods.....but how often were they tested at close to 200 miles per hour after being taken off numerous times? I watched Shawn's team doing EXTENSIVE modifications to theirs but realize sticking out like they do and the side drafts being presented to them must cause extreme loads to their mountings. | ||
| Doerman |
I notice when working on the Liberty Waves 1125R machine that whoever had the pods off before had not put them back correctly. All the torx bolts were on. But the clips were not properly snapped in place. So I put them on the proper way and put locktite on the torx bolts to be on the safe side. I also noticed that a fan mount was loose. You really have to watch it closely when working on them to get the snaps aligned so the pod openings are flush. At high speeds maybe those misalignments put additional loads on the system that is was not designed for. | ||
| Indy_bueller |
The fiberglass of the aftermarket bodywork is very thin and flimsy. The wind resistance pulled the attachments through the fiberglass, and that's how the pod came off. The same thing happened to James Gang in the MotoGT race. I bet you will never see it happen again, if it's any consolation. | ||
| Hughlysses |
The $10k question is does the aftermarket bodywork work better (is it more aerodynamic) than stock? The aftermarket pods look like they reverse the airflow through the radiators- air flows from the inside of the bike towards the outside and exits on the sides of the bike. IIRC Buell spent a lot of time developing the stock configuration where the air flows from the outside of the radiators towards the center of the bike and exits above the rear wheel. Was it just coincidental Danny's bike was fast, or did the aftermarket fairing play a part? | ||
| 186bigtwin |
Don't know how a pod falls off, but it sure did. I wondered from the first time I saw an 1125 why did they stick the radiators out on the side in the breeze, yes I know that it cools better out there than one stuffed up behind the forks, but you have to admit it's not helping the aero package. A thought to ponder and I know this won't effect Buell design but, do any of you remember the Britten race bike, it was a V twin and had the radiator under the tail section and it worked beautifully. Hell you could drag one of those bikes out of a museum and it would be faster than any bike in the race we all watched, it was "only" 998cc's of course it only weighed about 320lbs. just an observation. don't everybody get mad...... | ||
| Diablo1 |
A thought to ponder and I know this won't effect Buell design but, do any of you remember the Britten race bike, it was a V twin and had the radiator under the tail section and it worked beautifully. Hell you could drag one of those bikes out of a museum and it would be faster than any bike in the race we all watched, it was "only" 998cc's of course it only weighed about 320lbs. just an observation. don't everybody get mad The Britten did not start out as a street-bike. It was a racing only prototype with no consideration given to either mass production, cost, reliability, or practicality. And how fast did the Britten run at Daytona? The Aprilia was clocked at 185+ trap speed during the DMG 200. The Buell 1125 was likely close to that.} | ||
| Court |
The Britten, and I was there at Daytona when it ran, was gorgeous but would have been left by any of the bikes in the pack last week. The pods enhance, not detract from the aerodynamics of the package. Remind me to tell you sometime where that idea for the radiator under the seat came from . . . . hint, it was part of a design years ago by a starving young American engineer who designed a bike for a large foreign firm and that design element was never incorporated in the production bike. It was an elegant design. A friend of mine has a Britten and it is still a gorgeous thing to look at. | ||
| 186bigtwin |
Diablo 1, you are right the Britten started out a a race bike, and yes it could only go around 185mph, same as the aprila. Of course that engine is 12 years old now (not making top speed excuses), but the radiator placement still puzzles me? It shouldn't have been that expensive to locate it aft and route cooling air to it. These things aren't made for two up riding anyway really. Do you agree? | ||
| 186bigtwin |
Court, does your friend ever crank up his Britten? Is it rideable? | ||
| Court |
I don't know. The last time I actually saw it was at the Guggenheim "The Art of The Motorcycle". His name is Jim Hunter and Vickie and I had dinner with him, his wife and Kirsteen Britten one night. I don't think he rides it. There is, in one of the Britten books, a list of where the bikes are. | ||
| 186bigtwin |
Court: That's too bad, what a beautiful piece of work, too bad developement didn't continue, I guess sometimes when the general dies the army loses purpose. Don't know the details but if developement had continued it would probably still be a pain in Ducati's side. Don't you agree? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Hmmm. Did that start with an "RC"? | ||
| Jerseyguy |
Indy - Thanks. I guess that answers my question. 20/20 hindsight: Maybe he should have stuck with the stock pods and a custom belly pan/lowers that didn't support functional parts of the engine. | ||
| Redbuelljunkie |
Court- trying to wrap my brain around this one: The pods enhance, not detract from the aerodynamics of the package. I guess I need more information because this seems to suggest an 1125R is more aerodynamic with the pods than without them. It would make sense that with the side-mounted radiators the aerodynamics are better with the pods, but I don't see how an 1125R would not be more aerodynamic with conventional radiator placement (behind forks)- that's a dead space whether rads are there or not. | ||
| Davegess |
The 1125 has had extensive wind tunnel work going back to the what is really the first version of it the Buell developed VR that never saw the light of day, details in the book. Erik has been thinking about this for 20 some years and is very good with aerodynamics so I suspect the bike is “right” just the way it is. In addition to the airflow you have the overall design of the bike. First by putting the radiator in front of the engine you make a longer bike and push the heavy bits, the engine and rider farther back thus negatively effecting handling particularly on the all important exit of corners where you don’t want to lift the front end. On inline fours the package with the radiator in front is shorter but wider than on a v twin so the engine weight is still very far forward. Second the area behind the front wheel is a terrible place for a radiator as the wheel and forks create a huge amount of turbulence and make it hard to push air though the radiator. The side pods thus allow the center of gravity to be moved forward and improves the cooling so a smaller radiator is needed so the weight is less. In addition a large frontal area is trumped by drag, if you use the large frontal area to reduce drag you can end up with a slipperier bike than a small frontal area with high drag (see the Buell RR1000) Part of the side pod package is dumping the heated air out the back in a low pressure area to improve the airflow over the bike. WWII fighters actually used the hot air exiting the radiators to give the plane a tiny bit of boost. So removing the pods would reduce the frontal area but that does not just automatically translate into lower total drag. There are folks on this board who can give you the math; in fact it has been done so if you search the archives you might find the formulas. They just make my head hurt | ||
| Hughlysses |
WWII fighters actually used the hot air exiting the radiators to give the plane a tiny bit of boost. Specifically the P-51 Mustang. The well-designed belly scoop on the Mustang brings in the air, slows it down in a diffuser section before entry into the radiator and oil cooler, where it picks up heat, then exits through a variable rectangular "nozzle" at the rear which speeds up the heated air giving thrust.  It worked with the original Allison V-12 but it worked even better with the Rolls Royce Merlin V-12. Evidently the heat balance was perfect so that the thrust from the radiator was maximized with the Merlin. I figured Buell had done something like that.  | ||
| Davegess |
Those pods are brillant in several ways. I comp[are them to the whale tails on the Porsche 911. Kinda weird looking but hugly functional and it is hard to argue with that. | ||
| Redbuelljunkie |
Sounds like good theory to me... but leaves me wondering why the race teams are removing them. | ||
| Hughlysses |
Peter- That goes back to my question above. The fastest bike out there (Danny's) had aftermarket bodywork on it that evidently reverses the airflow through the radiators, throwing all Buell's aerodynamics work out the window. Is it better, or not? | ||
| Davegess |
That is a good question. the stock pods have a couple of functions one of which is move heat away from the rider and this is not needed on a race bike. I suspect Buell has done testing but we won't see the results here. If everyone starts using the modified pods that might tell us something. | ||
| Elvis |
The Buell fairing seems to maintain the flow pattern of the pods:  It will be interesting to see if RMR switches to this fairing at some point. They probably used the flexiglass fairings because they were developing those bike before the Buell fairing was available, but RMR has at least one bike with the Buell fairing:  | ||
| Firebolt020283 |
so the fairings that higbee uses is a buell part and not an aftermarket part like the rmr bikes? I think the fairings that higbee has on his bike look like the whole body work goes together were as the stuff eslik had doesn't. | ||
| Elvis |
I don't know any more about the Buell fairing than I've read on here, but I believe it is available through Buell racing as a Buell part (for $1800? . . . or am I confusing with the race pipe?). Here's some discussion of the IMS display: http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/messages/290 431/421246.html?1229285643 | ||
| Hughlysses |
This was the best shot I could find of the radiator setup on Eslick's bike:  You can see the radiators where the air exits from the fairing on either side. | ||
| Buellracerx |
The buell fairing is available, & the difference is just that the buell race fairing just maintains the stock airflow (in & thru the bike) vs. the flexiglass kit, which has reverse airflow (in & out the side of the pod) of course higbee's bike(buell fairing) is going to look better, since it retains the stock airflow and doesn't have big vent holes in the sides of the pods the problem w/ the flexiglass kit is that it provides no mounting system for the radiators. in the stock setup, the rads are floating in the plastic pods. if there is a similar mounting system designed for the flexiglass kit (would require redesign of side fairings) or perhaps different radiators with holes, rubber grommets, & bolts through them to eliminate degrees of freedom but allow for vibration dampening, then the system would work beautifully (& cooler) than stock. |
