So I'm off to Red River NM next week for a little heat vacation. Should I trailer the blackbird up there? (8500 feet)

 

Well the temp will be nice but your bike won't have near it's normal power. Can you handle the lack of power or will it just frustrate you to no end?

 

Even with FI? What do you think will the difference (est) in percentage of power loss due to altitude? I won't like anything below 75% normal power

 

Just off the cuff I would say that you would have somewhere around 80-85% power at sea level. There is an equation that you can calculate the exact amount, however I don't know it off the top of my head.

FI will lean itself out to match the oxygen content drop. However there is still less oxygen and now fuel per CC so there is less power. Carburation makes this worse becuase it doesn't reduce the amount of Fuel and the mixture becomes overly rich causing incomplete burn and robbing your bike of more power.

The only way to over come this effect is to run a turbo. Since the pop off valve is spring controlled it doesn't care what the outside pressure is, it will stay closed until the set boost pressure is acheived.

J

 

Just what I needed, justification for a turbo. I'd smoke just about everthing on the road except a turbo gaybus. Scary...