Yesterday, I took my Twin Peaks 800 to the local 1/8th mile dragstrip (Houston Motorsports Park) to see how it runs with the boondocker nitrous kit that I installed last spring. I made 9 passes (4 on motor and 5 on spray), and I was VERY impressed with my gains while running on the juice. Below is a brief review of my day at the track.

WEATHER:
Dang it was HOT! As I pulled into the parking lot at 5:40 pm, it was 96 degrees according to my truck's thermometer. I was sweating like a pig under my motorcycle jacket & helmet. It started to cool off around 8 pm, but I wanted to be at the track when they first opened (6pm) so I could make passes before it got crowded.

TECH INSPECTION:
As soon as I unloaded, I took my twin peaks to tech inspection and was told that my stock tires may not pass inspection. They said mud tires are not allowed on the track. I told them I had been to this track 3 times last year and always ran these same stock tires with no problems. He called another track official to come look at my tires and that guy told me to make a few runs and see how it goes.

ALL MOTOR PASSES:
When I made my first few passes, there was hardly anyone using the track and I had serious problems hooking up. I spun the rear tires about 100' on my first pass and had a lousy 1/8th mile time. I lowered the tire pressure from 10 lbs to 7 lbs and ran it again. This time it still spun like crazy. I spoke to a guy running a ninja street bike and he was having the same problems hooking up (which is very unusual for this track...maybe all the rain we had recently had something to do with it?). When I lined up for my 3rd pass, the track official (same guy who cleared me to run a few passes during tech inspection) firmly told me that I had to get new tires (he didn't say why). Thinking that he was going to ask me to leave the track, I quickly told him that I was going to make my next pass in 4wd and that I was sure I'd hook up. On that pass, I spun all 4 tires off the line. Doh!

I dropped my tire pressure to 4 lbs and ran it once more. This time, it hooked up much better (not perfect, but close enuf). My best all motor pass was 8.84 sec @ 72.67 mph with a 1.91 60' time and 5.54 sec 330' time. A year ago, I ran 8.7 sec @ 71.5 mph on this same track, so I was not impressed with this 8.8 second all motor pass. I'm guessing that my all motor time is a little slower now due to the heavier clutch weights that I installed for nitrous runs. Also, I gained 20lbs in the last year and that doesn't help my times any.

NITROUS PASSES:
Because of the traction issues that I had earlier, I decided not to spray right off the starting line. Instead, I waited about 100' to hit the button and then held on tight. My expectation was that I'd gain about 1/2 second using nitrous, so I was expecting 8.3-ish. Much to my surprise, my first pass was 8.0 secs. I was very impressed to have gained that much from nitrous! Ran it again and hit 8.2 seconds. My next nitrous pass was my best of the night as I ran 7.85 seconds @ 81.83 mph with 1.70 second 60' time and 4.93 second 330' time.

I followed that up with two more 7.8 second runs @ 82 mph. (7.86 sec and 7.88 sec) On my 7.86 sec run, I hit my best 60' time of the night at 1.69 sec and also my best 330' time of the night at 4.92 seconds. Needless to say, I was very pleased.

TOP SPEED RUNS:
During my all motor passes, I held the throttle past the 1/8th mile finish line to see what kind of top-speed I could hit (according to the speedo) before reaching the end of the track. I hit 83 mph on one of these all motor runs. I think my speedo is fairly accurate while running stock tires b/c the track recorded top-speed at the 1/8th mile mark is usually the same as shown on my speedo when I cross the 1/8th mile finish line. On my first nitrous pass, I held the throttle til I hit 88 mph (man, I was nervous holding it long!) and then I could hear the motor start spitting and sputtering like it was on the rev limiter. I checked my tach afterwards and saw that it hit 9200 rpms on that pass, which is where the rev limiter is currently set on my programmable Dyna CDI. I repeated these top-speed runs again on my nitrous passes and I continued to hit 88 mph and then the rev limiter would kick in. Needless to say, 88 mph is plenty fast enuf for me while riding on a utility quad. lol

CONCLUSION:
I was VERY IMPRESSED that my quad gained 1 whole second and 10 mph in the 1/8th mile while on spray! I was also happy to see 88 mph on my speedo (before reaching the end of the shut down area). I was not expecting that much gains from the nitrous.


I hope you enjoyed my write-up.

Happy trails...