To start out,back in February I acquired my first Banshee,1994 421 cheetah (about time). Got it from a dude that seemed pretty mechanically inclined, said he bought as a trinity big bore and with the help of FAST made it in to a cheetah 421...I asked him the compression of the bike and he showed me that it was 180PSI (holy sh!t), and he said he ran premium pump gas. I was a little surprised at this, as research on this forum has concluded anything over 165PSI on premium pump is a bad thing, anyways knowing there are more things than just compression that will dictate octane needed I took his word on it (it ran great!). Fast forward to March 6th, took it out for its first real rip at the farm. There was still some snow on the ground so it was hard to tell the true power of the machine, but Holy sh!t, it ripped! and ran MINT! Anyways now for the interesting part... We get out riding today, or well Sunday, let the banshees warm up and go out for some track time. I ran the banshee for probably 30 min of messing a round on a ghetto MX-ish track, she ran mint and the power was great. So now we are hitting the open fields after with 5" of snow on them (riding rural Alberta). Anyways she had balls and killer power, but once i hit 5th gear power band it seemed to fall flat on its face (almost like a 4stroke rev limiter) and stutter(think it might be pre detonation), Anyways after some figuring and listing me and my buddy discovered that the spark plugs were loose, like wobbly loose, WTF... We tighten the buggers back down and started her up again, the sound of the engine falling apart was gone. Anyways I take off and the same thing keeps happening(in every gear), it keeps falling flat and making weird sounds when the power hits. Get her back to the shop and pull the plugs and it turns the ground electrode one one of the plugs is almost gone and the other plug fully intact, but the center electrode looks pitted. Throw the compression tester on back at home and attempted to get a psi reading. One cylinder was 120PSI and the other was aprox 110PSI. Pretty close together I guess ( the tester may be off), probably not a hole in the piston.
Anyways buddy is getting a scope from work to check out the cylinders without taking off the heads to see if there is damage.
So my plan is to get some octane booster or a bit of VP race gas and mix it with pump gas and try it out Easter weekend and see what happens... Any input on whats wrong, what to correct or experiences would be extremely appreciated! Would like to have a running banshee to take out during semester break to St. Anthony lol. BTW on a semi limited budget, in collage and working at the hmedepot atm.
1994 Banshee:
Cheetah cylinders (stock from FAST)
Hot rods 4mil crank
Pro desisngs cool heads (no clue what domes)
Trinity 2 into 1 Carb
Trinity Pipes
V force reeds (number 2 i think)
Thanks!
Seth
(Don't know how to post photos of the spark plugs... will use the search in the morning)