Yea I like the canopy idea. I talked to Eric and all the north and south are booked up since now you can reserve spaces, eeerrrggghhh. So we reserved the last 3 spaces, well 3 out of the 4 spaces at Dueces Wild campground. Erics checking on spaces available at another campground right next to South grounds. Ill text you Jens cell phone since I don't get coverage out there so we can keep ya posted in case something changes. Take care man see ya out there.

We ended up at Sand City, right next to Little Sahara Powersports. Not bad but the RR an showers are not close. Chris V, Lee, Stix, Adnoh were all here today and did some sporadic riding, but not all together. Kinda busy but the weather was great. The 670 is wicked, smells good too when following it, lol. So far only a 670 starter bolt loose, and I think all that power spun the tire on the bead a little. Stix is still tinkering, never ends. Adnoh, Lee and I just ride. Sand is not the best but been here when its been worse.

I stopped at Adnoh place on Tuesday and Wednesday and we removed and serviced both axles, knuckles had new bearings and seals, leak test, carb off and cleaned and installed a cool Rigid 10" light on the front. It was a long day, I have some pics I will post later of what the axle lube, or I should say the runny chocolatey mess that came out that. A huge shout out to Adnoh for all his help. One of the knuckle bearings was bad and we caught it in time. Also Mrs. Adnoh for that awesome home cooking.

My pilot ran awesome and I have not doubt its a result of the work we did. Lot of riding the next 4 days so hope to have some video.

Glad you guys having fun.Why is it so crowded? Because its the weekend?

[quote="redskinman"]Glad you guys having fun.Why is it so crowded? Because its the weekend?[/quote

There is a three wheeler gathering, and a lot of people are doing the weekend after snake hunt too.

Oh that's cool,would have liked to see all the 3wheelers

Yes same here one of these days I need to take my 3 wheelers and go to one of their meets.

I had a blast even though my ride was cut short. So when is the next ride???

Yes indeed I had a blast. I went down Friday for a day ride and all went well. The 670 was a wicked sounding machine to say the least. it amazes me how he got it together in such a sort time. Man has mad (in a good way) hacking skills. Man I love that sound. it just screamed "sand, sand, sand, I want more sand". He should have a TAZ plate as I have nick named it the tazmaining devil. Ez, Chris, Lee and I just rode and rode rode until it was time for me to go. We had some great mid range runs all through the dunes. It nice to meet new pilot/odyssey owners and ride.

Ez did come over to do some pre ride maintenance and glad he did as I needed some garage time. We had a blast with the exception of the the cv cleaning. His bike he cleans and lubes. I bet He and I went through a box of gloves. Ez did the majority of the work as I had cold ones and maybe one to many. When I went to assemble the first axle I forgot to put on the small clamp then forgot to put in the stop ring before putting on the big end boot clamp. I just had to laugh and start over and caught a little grief from EZ. Man it just don't get better than that, wrenching, cold ones, laughing and just plain having a good time Then set down at the table and have roast and real mashed potatoes. It was rough smelling it cook all day.

Well time for day 2 of riding for me so Sunday I went back down. My jetting for Friday was way off for Sunday so I just went with it. Toward the end of the day it was loading up bad real bad, wont do that again. It almost sounded and ran like I munched a reed so I will check and see. I did have one miss hap as a I had a run in with a razor and the razor got the best of me. Ez and I was side trailing and at a turn in the wood a razor popped out right in front of me and I hit it smack dap in the middle of the door. Thank goodness the razor had steel side doors and not nets or some one would have been hurt. I hit him about 20 mph and shoved the razor side ways about three feet. My front bumper and under skid just slid across the door. His rear tire caught my front tire and bent the rim and damaged a tie rod. The ball popped right out of it socket and bent the idler plate. EZ to the rescue in his rescue cat,tools,tire and H-20. An hour or so later of dune wrenching got it back to camp changed the tires to a stock front set and we went back out. Had a great time shooting the hills. Nothing like a row of pilots on there pipes. It's just not something that is seen that often at LS.

We had great camp/dune talks and learned a few things from Lee. It nice to get a different take on things from a Honda engineers perspective. What a great guy. Stix finally, I think got his jetting to an exceptional level on the 500. big shoot out to "H" and speed for there work on his Engine. It sounded real good. dbloudharleys since of humor was gut busting and fun to be around. Nice to ride with him and hope to in the future as well.

All in all it was a great trip or trips in my case. Thanks, EZ for the cold one and rescue,Stix and dbloudharleys for the burger and Lee for the parting gift. By the way in order to get a parting gift you must attend. The parting gift is a hush hush unless your where there. As a rule it should be kept that way. You want one come and get one. Since chis v had to leave I will share if need be.

Any way got a few pics of the DCP damage to share and the torgue clutch held up so far.

chris, EZ was talking about a ride before it get real hot. I'm a day tripper so when ever for me. Nice job on your install and keep us all posted on revision as you go. It for sure will help others on there 670 install. Also include a pro and con for each so other can make a choice to do it or not. keep up the good work.

Sorry I missed this trip,been nice to meet you.Stix says you really know your stuff.Sounds like you guys had a good time

Just got home and unpacked and unwound. Good to meet Lee,got to hear some good Honda stories from him. Thanks lee for the wheel studs, always good to meet new ODY/Pilot enthusiasts. Wife and i stayed until after everyone left and made one last ride. I can tell you the Hoserized,Speedchaserized 500 Engine screamed one I got it jetted, thanks you guys for doing an excellent job!! Ha just when I think I have a good understanding of jetting, Adnoh enlightens me to even more knowledge, much thanks to him. I was running rich for most of the ride as not to melt a piston on my new Engine, once I loaded clutch from 7700 rpm to 7000-7400rpm and removed tha airbox lid I was wheelieing off the burms, I think this 500 really likes to be run at 7k, gonna try 6700 ish next time. Good food,sand,suds and friends made the ride excellent even though we had some pretty high weather temps during the day for a couple days. The sand was excellent for most of the time due to high winds, also due to high winds came high fire dangers. There was a few burning out of control a few miles to the west of us, they burned for 2 or 3 days and were still going when we left. EZ has some video to upload and here are some pics.

more pics

Wheres the pink pilot?

more pics

Cool pics, just got home from driving straight back. Was welcomed by an IRS letter saying I owe em 33K, lol. Did a part time job that paid $840 dollars and IRS said I got 84,000. I'm sure I'll have to jump through all their hoops to show I'm right. I'll post up the video in a few days.

Looks like you got some nice air on that jump,youve got the suspension for it.Is that light on the bumper a new addition?

Yeah im sure the IRS is gonna mess with you and you'll probably get 3 different answers from 3 different people on what to do to fix it.
Looking forward to the video

That was EZ in the jump pic. I hit it with Jens '90 stock and bottomed out all travel, OOOHHH my back, hehe. I think I had the LED light when you were here, It has to be removed for transport and since the Engine quit, I don't think I ever installed it.

Like Dave Chappell says, just tell the auditor, " Im sorry, I didnt know I couldnt do that", lol

Oh yeah I can see that now,wheres your jump pic?

I was the photographer this weekend so no pics of me jumping however EZ should have some good vids of me, and DBHarley jumping that same hill.
I think we all have enough dune pics but I always try to shoot some various pics for the forum members to be able to view,we all like pics right?!? Ya know hey look what we did! haha.

Stix

Can i get a pic or two of how you arrange two pilots in that trailer?

and what what the security system that you had set up?

Heres some pics of the piggy back set up Im using, there is a winch in the top of the trailer and it gets power from the pilots battery. If you look at pic 1030910 and 1030905 you can see I also ran a 2-1/2" schedule 40 plumbers pipe across and under the pilots frame to take some of the stress off the winch. Pertty simply set up. Let me know if you have any questions about it. The cable lock is made by Kayak or Alarm It, cant quite remember. Heres the website http://alarmlocks.com/ . I run the cable through both our pilots frame then around the RV's axle or something then route the cable inside the RV's window with the box inside so if the cable is cut it will sound the alarm. Let me know if you have any questions.

more pics of pilots packed sardine style

The good:

I had a great time meeting new people and riding on sand again (it's been 20 years).
EZ did a great job snagging 4 camp sited all together and he did the leg work figuring out our options.
He didn't get a big ass shade tree but all in all he did a good job (the place was butt full).
I got a kick meeting Chris and dbloud.
And Stix provided entertainment wrenching on his Pilot most the weekend (Or we entertained ourselves ragging him).

I had an interesting discussion with Adnoh about setting up a piston.
He was explaining the process to measure the rod free play and the angle of the cylinder to the crank axis.
Then using this information in deciding the clearance from the piston to the cylinder.
It occurs to me that this is the process we use in our CAD system to create tolerance dimensions to make sure parts fit correctly with production variation.
Interesting discussion that I'm sure I will put to use soon.

When I took my family for the first time to a POOA ride my wife asked me if I met these people on line.
Yes.
So how do you know they are not going to murder us and steel our Pilot?
Now its a tradition, first question after I meet a new group - did they murder you yet?

I have ridden with the east coast guys at the old POOA east coast jam.
I have done Badlands in Attica Indiana with the mid west crew (hey when is the next ride?).
Now I can say I have ridden with the rednecks in OK.

The Bad:

Some how a few weeks ago when I started thinking I wanted to make this trip it sounded all good.
At the time Hoser was giving reports on his Big West Trip 2014.
Sitting at my desk I wanted a to do something.
Call it my small west trip.

I spent 3 days total driving 1000 miles each way to ride for 3 days.
On the way out I started to wonder if I was an idiot (probably am).

After the fact I can say it was worth it.

The ugly:

All was not peaches and cream.
On Saturday evening we went out for a ride but 5 minuets in to it while climbing a small dune it sounded like there was a box of rocks in my Engine.
I turned down hill and coasted to the bottom, Engine died.
A quick inspection showed the crank had a definite looseness, rotating the driven clutch back and forth there was a clunking.
And very little compression.
My impression is the big end rod bearing is gone.
Ez gave me a tow back to camp then offered me a ride in the Wildcat.
Thanks and thanks.

I want to do a pressure test before I open the Engine up.
There are several ideas as to what happened.
I was traveling light, towing the small trailer with the pilot (mini-van with a small p) so I did not take much gas with me.
So I purchased gas there.
The Engine let go on the first ride with that gas.
I still want to check the alcohol content of the gas, it may have upset the jetting or created predetonation (I wouldn't know what it sounds like in a 2 stroke).

Or Adnoh suggested the piston may have separated.
There is a small bead of something caught in the spark plug.
Looks like a hot shard of aluminum was bouncing around in there.
He has some great pictures of what this looks like in his Engine rebuild tread.
The predetonation could be a contributing factor to this.

My favorite theory is the big end bearing seized.
I had thought the driven was acting funny on the ride prior.
My impression was it was not back shifting as fast as it should.
The Engine would bog on the longer up hill sections.
Also on this run I was wide open most of the time just trying to keep up.
This may have been the warning that I was too dumb to listen too.

I did take a quick look last night with the bore scope.
The top of the piston looks complete, no hole.
The surface looks covered with something, I cant tell if it is pock marks from spalling (predetonation) or chunks for stuff embedded in the aluminum.
Looking up the exhaust port the skirt is intact on the exhaust side.
The cylinder wall shows damage above the ports, like something got caught half in half out when the piston swept by.
If I have time I will try to take some pictures.