Dynojet Research Inc Rider Dustin Schaller Sets new 174 mph Speed Record at Bonneville Salt Flat

Ever since I have been riding motorcycles there have been a few milestones that I wanted to accomplish before I could no longer swing a leg over one. I can now scratch riding at Bonneville Salt Flats off that list. I have just returned from the 2007 Speed Week event which netted us quite a bit of data, headaches, experience and oh yeah, a speed record!

Dynojet has had a relationship with FL Racing (Rod Falkner and Paul Livingston) for quite a few years. These two guys are basically extreme motorcycle enthusiasts with a knack for going fast and setting records. They brought their first bikes to Dynojet to have us install and tune each one before they went to Bonneville. This has resulted in a number of records and a basis for not only a good working relationship but also one of camaraderie.

Before Speed Week of 2006 they brought us a 2004 Turbo Honda CBR600RR. Did I mention it was the day before speed week! We had a few hours to tune this bike and run it on the dyno for the first time before Jason McVicar would be riding it wide open across the salt. The bike’s fuel curve was a long way from optimal and after installing 2 Power Commanders (one for the upper injectors and one for the lowers) bumping up the fuel pressure we still could not get the fuel curve where we needed it to be. The setup of the bike was far from optimal but to their credit they built this bike in 10 days. That’s a week and a half to custom fabricate a header for the turbo, custom fuel tank, water intercooler and modify the suspension. This is not something I could fully appreciate until later (we’ll get to that in a minute). So off to Bonneville they went and after a couple shake down passes they left with a record of 155mph, a top speed of 201mph and a blown engine. The first 600cc motorcycle to go over 200mph.

Dynojet requested to bring this bike to the Indianapolis Dealer Expo where we could display the bike at our booth. A few months after the show was done the bike was sitting at Dynojet just staring at me, begging me to make it right. A quick call to Rod and the project was on. My first plan was to get the bike running, get the fuel curve correct and run it. I was intending to fund this project out of my own pocket so I was thinking of the cheapest way possible to get this accomplished. After my boss, Michael Belcher, interjected with what I was doing the project was raised up about 100 notches and we were on the path to make this bike the best it could possibly be.

The engine had stuck a ring undoubtedly due to running the bike wide open for 5 miles at 15:1 air/fuel ratio and needed a complete overhaul. Custom pistons, rods, new plating on the cylinder, and a refresh of the valve train and the engine was complete. We went over the entire bike replacing all the fittings, cleaning up the wiring, and basically making it what we felt was a proper race bike. This is where the appreciation of how this bike originally came together in only 10 days came into play. We had about 6 weeks to finish this project and although most of this time was waiting for the custom pistons it still came down to the wire.

After breaking in the engine the initial pulls at 15lbs of boost netted us 230hp. Not bad for only 600cc. Actually, maybe it is bad. No one has ever made this much horsepower as far as we know with only 600cc and we had no idea where the breaking point would be of this engine. Try as we might we could not get the boost to come down and we were out of time.

Since this was going to be my first time at Bonneville and a newcomer to SCTA I would have to get my D,C,B licenses before I could go over 200mph. Instead of abusing the turbo bike I decided to bring a 2007 CBR600RR that Dynojet had around for testing to get the initial runs taken care of. Paul Livingston from FL Racing talked me into using this bike to try and break their record of 165.9 set in 2004.

My “rookie” run was to stay under 130mph and let me tell you, that is about as fast as I wanted to go. The salt is definitely one of those scenarios of “you have to be there to really understand”. With no reference to speed and the bike wallowing around like you were riding in a torrential rain storm I was unsure of wanting to go 200mph. After some time to gather my thoughts (5 hours to be exact) I was up for my next pass. This time I could go up to 175mph. Since this bike was only set to go 165 I figured I could open it up and see if my man hood was as big as my throttle hand. For some reason this run did not feel like I was going fast at all. That engine was singing for 3 miles and we ended up going 165.3mph, just .6mph off the record. After downloading the data from the Wide Band Commander and PCIII we found the bike was running rich so we were sure we could go faster. The next run we only ran 158.8 which was baffling until we realized that on the first run we had a 8mph tail wind and this run we had a 6mph head wind. After some gearing changes and some more tuning of the PCIII we were up to 162mph with a head wind.

Since our main goal at Bonneville was to get the first 600cc motorcycle in the record books over 200mph we packed up the production bike and pulled out the turbo. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit nervous waiting to unleash 230hp on a surface that should have me installing spikes in the tires for traction! I figured I would go easy and just get the bike up to the point where it would start building boost and just feed it in slowly. Up to fifth gear and 130mph and everything was good. Now time to start letting it rip. On the dyno the boost comes in nice and gradual. At the salt, where there is little to no traction, not so much. At 9000rpm the boost starts to build and before I knew it I was sideways for a good 500ft trying to get the bike under control. Once it was good and straight I fed in more throttle now up to 160mph but that was all it had as the bike started cutting out. I shut it down before the 3 mile marker.

The data did not show us any signs of what could be wrong so we decided to make some fueling changes and try again. Unfortunately we had the same running issues except that we went 164mph which qualified us for the record. We were off to impound scratching our heads. You are allowed 4 hours to work on the bike after your qualifying run but unfortunately this was the end of the day and we had to be out of there in less than two. During the initial inspection of the bike we found a kinked fuel line which we were hoping was the cause of the issue. Thanks to help of some other racers we were able to find a solution and get the bike back together in the time allotted. Although I was eminently discouraged while in impound Paul put it all into perspective for me. He mentioned that there were racers out there that have been trying to get into impound for several years and here we were on our first attempt, first day on the salt and we’re at impound. Ok, so I guess not too bad for a rookie.

Since qualifying runs are given a priority each morning we were set to make an early morning pass which is always better for horsepower. The bike definitely seemed to run better but not what I had expected. 174mph and we had just gotten the record for 650 MPS-BF class with a combined speed of 170.03. Definitely a good feeling to have the record but to only go 5mph faster than a production bike was not even close to what we had expected.

I decided to cut our losses and head home while the engine was still in once piece. After looking at the data the most throttle that I ever gave was 60% and at 12000rpm and yet we still did 174mph. With this bike running correctly 200mph should not be an issue at all.

After inspection of the bike back at the shop we determined we had a bad ignition coil. Now we are off to the Bub Nationals to hopefully achieve the elusive 200mph barrier.