Good day guys, and welcome to another episode of the A DB podcast. We're chatting today with our technical editor, Matt Boyd, but we do apologize for the audio quality. We didn't shoot this underground or under the water. It was just while we were on the road in the car, so apologies for the audio quality. It's a really awesome podcast. Bodie gets a chance to talk about how to make an 85 cc motocross go even faster and how he's doing it. For the fastest kid in Australia. So tune in guys, and apologies again for the audio quality. We promise it won't happen again. Or maybe it will. It just depends where we're on the road at the time. Anyway, have a listen all. All right. Matt Boyd, a DB's technical editor. Welcome back to the A DB podcast. It's good to have you back on. And today we are gonna talk to you about, uh, some of the engines you are building because we are getting lots of people contacting us. You are getting lots of people contacting you about having you build their engines because one of the guys you're building engines force Steph, uh, who rides uh, gas. Gas. He is a, um, Aussie champ. And he'd been kicking ass on one. So let's kind of get into it'cause everyone wants to know how you make an 85 faster or how you make a 1, 2, 5 or a two 50 faster. Where did it all start with Seth's 85? Uh, well, you know, we've been in business for over. 20 years now. Uh, sorry, probably longer, but, so we've, we've built a lot of engines. We've built a lot of bikes, a lot of stuff over that time. Uh, we've had other guys in the past that we've, you know, built engines for. Seth is kind of our latest, um, superstar. Uh, there's nothing, Seth hasn't won. On an 85 in Australian motocross and Supercross. Yeah, so he's kind of, uh, I guess showcased a lot of our work in the recent years. Uh, there's been other guys in the past. Um, yeah, my sister was Australian, you know, she was a women's champion. She'd won state national women's races and championships. Uh, it feels like a long time ago now, but. Uh, we've even won Australian championships in flat track. Uh, even we have probably a good handful of Australian championships in Supermoto as well. So it, it's just Seth Thomas is our current 85 superstar and, uh, he's really showcasing what we can do with a bike, uh, currently. Okay, cool. So your job is essentially to make bikes go faster. You are a motorcycle mechanic and you have all the facilities. We use your, your facilities all the time, dynos, everything else. It's very convenient for us as a magazine testing bikes, but uh, you've got all the tech and all the facilities to make a motor go faster. But just break it down for us. Simpletons, I assume there's some cylinder work done, especially with the two strokes and the small two strokes. What on earth are you doing to make an 85? The fastest outta your garage than anything else in Australia? Well, I mean, firstly, I'm not, probably naive to say that nobody else in Australia can do what I'm doing. Uh, you know, I'm sure someone's out there. There's probably some old guy that has played with two strokes his whole life. That's, that's an absolute guru. I just happen to have a, a guy that's, uh, currently really, really, really good riding my bikes. Uh, but it's not as simple as like, this isn't drag racing, right? It's not the fastest bike that wins. It's not always. We made X amount of horsepower to that bike. So that's the one that's gonna win. You need a bike that's rideable. You need a bike that is reliable. Uh, you need a bike that can go faster on a track, and you need a rider that can ride it. So it's kind of a package there. It's not just as simple as make this thing faster and it's gonna win. It's, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Uh, I've got guys who. Say take a two 50 F for example. I've got guys who you know, that are 55 kilos that want the most aggressive, fastest fight they can possibly have. Do I necessarily agree with them needing that? No, but that's what they want. And then I've got other guys who are finishing in the top five in MX three. So if I take a guy like, uh, Riley Burges for example, he is a current MX three guy. That's, yeah. He's up in that top 10 in MX three every week. Uh, I built him a bike. He come back to me and said, this is too fast. Uh, he actually wanted it tailored down and, and smoothed out because he didn't think he was gonna be able to do 20 minute mos on it without getting up, without getting worn out. He actually was faster on the bike when we mellowed it down and dropped some horsepower out of it. So. You have to be versatile with what you're building. You know, you need to know what you're building. You need to know what you're changing and why. What it does, it's not as simple as let's make ports bigger. Uh, you know, bigger ports doesn't necessarily mean the faster engine you need to build the bike. You need to build a bike so that the guy that rides it can ride the fastest. Okay, so. Get a bit technical for us and without obviously giving up all your trade secrets, but we wanna know some of the detail.'cause like you said, most of us will never be able to replicate it anyway without all the facilities that you have. But get a bit technical for us. What internally are you doing to make these bikes faster or stronger or just better performance in power across the rev range? So I'll take the 85, 65, 85 1 2 5 2 strokes. Uh. There is, you know, changing port heights, uh, port durations, how long ports open and are open and closed for at what degrees they open and close. Uh, that changes, you know, the power of the bike. For instance, if you lift the roof of an exhaust port, that will generally give the bike more peak horsepower numbers. It'll give a bit more over rev, more RPM at the top of the rev range. But in most cases you'll drop bottom end. So you've gotta find a happy medium there. Uh, unfortunately that sometimes, uh, results in trial and error. You gotta figure it out. You gotta change these things. You know, we, uh, a lot of it for us has been. Testing. You stick a bike on the diner, you take it off, you change something, you put it back on, you run it again. What's the difference? Okay, we know lifting the boost port did this, uh, we know, you know, this duration or this width on the, uh, exhaust port did this, this was negative, this was positive. And then you start to tailor and move things around that you can start going into different carby sizes. Different carby shapes, whether they're oval, whether they're round, uh, different reblock. It's really, it, it gets quite, quite complex, especially when there's several, uh, reblock brands and designs out there. Uh, like and then exhaust. How does an exhaust work? Is it better for bottom, mid top? Does that match the, you've built, uh, compression ratios. Um. What fuel the bike's gonna run on. You can't run the same compression ratio with, uh, pump fuel is what you could with, with race fuel. Uh, if you try, you'll get detonation, things like that. So it really is a whole package, uh, that comes together to tailor suit the bike. So even things like, yeah, we have different, uh, crank weights, flywheels per set, like, uh. His Supercross engine looks very different to his motocross engine. If you were to take his Supercross engine, try and do motocross on it, it'll last a whole of five minutes and it'd probably melt and blow up. But we need that fast, snappy, instant acceleration because he's getting over Supercross triples and those big finish lines on an 85, and we need that acceleration, that hard hit off the corner. We need that instant hookup drive for him to get over these big jumps on a small buy. So, yeah, there's things like different Conrads, uh, different crank case capacities. You know, you give the crank case more volume, less volume, uh, more pressure, less pressure. These are, there's so many things you can change in a two stroke, um, that will affect the power and you've gotta figure it out. So it's not. It's not as easy as just do this and buy and go faster. There's a whole lot of stuff that has to come together. Do you polish this part of the port and leave this part rough? What will that do? Uh, you know, do you polish the whole port? Do you take this part of the port out? Do you go wider, narrower, and every engine's different? I could, you know. Tell you that a, a wise Z 85 port job looks entirely different to A-A-A-K-D-M 85, and it's not as simple as getting a Dremel tool and just, uh, making it look nicer. You could take K DM 85 Barrel, for instance, run through it, the Dremel, make it look nice and shiny and pretty. You've probably made no more power whatsoever. Uh, it is a lot more complicated than that. Um. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of trial and error. Uh, lot of different barrels, lot of different heads. Uh, you've gotta put the time in. It's not, there's no secret. You just need a very good understanding how a two string engine works. And then you gotta figure out what works and what doesn't. Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting like, you know, listening to hear you listen to you talk about all that kind of stuff and you know, I think motorcycle mechanics nowadays are more, more like motor engineers. It's not as simple as put a big ladder pipe on it and you'll go faster. Uh, like most people would think. The science behind it is truly impressive. I've been out with you and we've gone back and forth off the dyno with different. Bits and pieces in a bike, trying to change some settings. And that's such a surface level thing compared to what you're doing with, you know, 80 fives or all those two strokes. So that's really cool. Um, can you, have you got any idea as to horsepower, which is, you know, what a stock 85 produces horsepower and what, um, cess bike does? And I know p horsepower isn't everything. Some guys don't like just the fastest, wildest thing they can get. They would prefer power, uh, where they want it. As a brag kind of thing. Have you been able to get ludicrous horsepower outta one of these small ball? Uh, two strokes. I mean, we've taken these 80 fires, we've turned them into one ohs. We've turned them into one 12. So we've seen some pretty impressive power out them. Uh. It's not as simple as just quoting horsepower numbers'cause every dino is different. Uh, and from day to day you can get different results. If it's cold in here hot, whether the atmospheric pressure is, uh, up, down humidity. These things all create different, uh, different results. And different brands are Dinos, so different Dinos will read horsepower differently. Uh. I can tell you that like a Dino Jet, Dino, uh, if you want big, fancy numbers, put your bike on a Dino Jet Diner. They read higher than anything else. So the way you use a dyno, a dyno is a tuning tool. You put the bike on it, uh, you get a number, you get a graph. Then you change something and you compare it to what you previously did. You don't compare it to your mate's, Dino in Victoria or, or, or Queensland or, um, or a totally different brand diner that's not, you know, apples with apples. Uh, so what I can tell you is, you know, from what a stock 85 is on my Dino, my Dino says a stock 85 straight outta the box. It is around 20 horsepower. And I can tell you that we're getting, you know, uh, with our full engine package, uh, at least a 25% increase on that. Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. So you're talking almost five horsepower more. Um, just getting that engine package done or not just, I shouldn't say just, it's a lot of work to go into an engine package, but, and, and do you think for kids racing 80 fives, I would've thought too,'cause their body shape's gonna change, their weight's gonna change. There's so much at that age on a bike like an 85, that will have a, a factor in how fast they can go. 25% increase in horsepower is massive on an 85 Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, if you were to go to an engine bill that built V eight and ask him to improve your engine 25%, he'd probably laugh at you and tell you it's not possible. Uh, we're playing with smaller numbers, uh, uh yeah, then that scenario. But yes, it is, it is a very big drastic change. It is a, it's an advantage in the right hands. Um. I could take a rider, put'em on one of those engines, that's much faster than the stock one. And if they're not ready for that power or they don't know how to control it, or they don't have that ability, that clutch and, and throttle, um, control, they're likely gonna go slower. Uh, they just want twist the throttle because the power will scare. Uh, but interestingly, on another note too, I have different timing graphs that I've put in different bikes for different size riders. I have a diff, I have different timing for a larger rider versus a smaller rider, uh, because that changes the way the engine revs up and you've got to, you've got to build the engine around that. So we use timing or gear, uh, timing and or gearing to, to, uh, to tailor that power to, to how they ride. Okay. So also too, you have been to the world junior, uh, motocross, um, uh, as a mechanic. So you've seen the speed they're doing over the, you've seen the things they're doing with their motors. Do you think the motor package that you've been producing for Seth and for other riders in and around that's anywhere between a 65 and a 1 2 5, do you think that motor package that you are making is competitive with some of the motors that you are seeing being raced at a world. I, yeah, I, I, I have contacts over there. I have, I know what they're doing. Uh, it's a trick question. You ask any engine builder, they're gonna tell you theirs is the best. Uh, you know, I think mine is competitive all around the world. They're gonna tell you over there. I, I have friends over there that we have banter with. They reckon theirs is better. Uh, it's, you know, who is better? The guy that wins. Um, it's two stroke technology is the same wherever you go around the world. Uh, it's not as, the hard part about it here is we're a long way from the rest of the world. We're a long way from that scene. Uh, and everybody here assumes that because it's from America or Europe, it must be better because that's where the sport's bigger, right? It's not necessarily correct. Uh, I can tell you. I won't quote names and brands, but I've got a lot of us parts that are, these guys are winning, Loretta and, and all this stuff. And, and you know, we've tried to test that stuff and it has not, it's not, it hasn't matched the hype that it's getting. Uh, but it's just America's. Arguably the pinnacle of our sport. So everybody assumes that's where the best is. Uh, you know, it's, uh, it's a hard one to argue with because how are you gonna ever prove that they're not? Are we, are we gonna get, are they gonna come over here? Are we gonna go over there? Are we gonna put our engines together on a diner and test back back to back? It's never gonna happen. So, you know, who's the best, the guy that wins? That's pretty much. That's the only way. It's if it gotta be settled. Um, okay, so the other question I had for you, probably around this whole 85, um, you know, 65, 85, 1 2 5 chat is we're seeing more and more money being fed into that age bracket for the sport the last 10 to 20 years, especially say since you were on an 85, 30 something years ago. Um. Is more money means you win nowadays. Like if you, if someone came to you and they said, I've got a million dollars and I want my son to win the next, um, Aussie title, and he's the top 10 guy anyway, will more money enable him to go a top three outta win? Look for my business? I wanna say yes, everybody should have one of my race engines, but it's not the case, right? I'd be lying. Uh. If you've got the most expensive engine and fastest engine, that doesn't guarantee you're gonna win. Uh, it never will. It's not, like I said, this isn't drag racing. There's, there's, you've gotta have the skill to get the bike around the track. You've gotta have the skill to control it. And the suspension too, that's gotta be right. Uh, you know, I'll use CES for an example. Yes. He's ended the great, uh, is it my engines making Seth fast? No. Seth's making my engines fast, if that makes sense. It's, uh, could I stick him on a stock bike? He'll probably get the same results. The kid just has a lot of talent and he's good. Uh, the family also puts in a lot of effort. Uh, you know, I would say the effort the family puts in is more so the reason Seth is doing so good and the drive in him himself. Uh. He knows what he wants to win. He knows what he wants to do. He knows where he wants to be. He knows how he wants to do it already. And he is only on 85. So, and the family backs him. They're a hundred percent behind him. Mom and dad, they're there with him. Uh, I think that means more than the bike he's on. It's interesting, isn't it? How, yeah. Because you kind of think like so many people just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. But it's more so there's more to it than just the motor. There's obviously suspension work, you know, and you can spend limitless amount of money on suspension work and get it good too. So that is like an interesting take on it. Hey, the other one I wanted to ask you was. Do you do four strokes and 2 50, 4 50? I mean, I don't think anyone needs more power on a four 50. Uh, but I don't, certainly don't need it. But I'm assuming guys out there probably think they do. So can you apply the same practices you're using for the 85 and the 1 2 5 to a two 50 F, three 50 F or a four 50 F to make that rider, whether they're a pro or a sea grader? Go faster or have more power.'cause I know that there are some teams, uh, in the Prom X that have approached you and asked for some of your, um, your tech and your diagnostics. Um, so does it apply to the four strokes as well? Absolutely. Uh, you know, it's different technology, uh, and the same rules apply. You gotta know what you're doing and why you're doing it. You can't just take your head off and, and, and smack adrenaline around inside the ports and go, I'm an engine builder. I made it faster. If you wouldn't have, it's not, uh, yeah, it's not how that works. You can, even if you did somehow manage to fluke a port job that flowed better and was gonna produce, yeah. Better flow numbers and more power. If you haven't mapped an ECU to suit or built the bike around that boarding work as well, then you still have it, you're still not gonna make any difference. Um. A lot of, with the four strokes that, uh, I see there's a lot of guys doing porting and mapping. Um, a lot of guys are building, uh, time bombs too. If you start, if you start producing more power out of a two 50 F, you also need to start bulletproof bulletproofing that motor, uh, you know, if you. The problem is if you run any aftermarket pistons in an engine that run revs at 14,000 rpm, if you are running any aftermarket pistons that are heavier, a piston that might only be a gram or couple of grams, um, you know, heavier static when it's moving at 14,000 rpm. Kilos heavier. And then things like wrist pins and conrads can fail. Pistons can crack. Uh, you know, all our, our, our cast still like, uh, yeah know in our stock stock engines, our, our valve guides and, and valve seats. When you start pushing extra power outta these bikes, they're fine. Stop. You wanna start making a, an engine rev more, you add another 5,000 to 800 rrp m to the top of a a rev range. Those things are gonna start to fail. So you need to start using other products that will handle those kinds of revs without failing. Um, that's not gen. Yeah, that's not making more power. It's just making the engine be able to handle more power. So there's a bit of a, a, a crossover there with those as well. I mean, that applies to the two strokes as as well, but not so much when you have an engine that's got. So much more mass in it. Uh, you could have a gap of 0.8 of a mil between your piston and your intake valves. It's not a lot of room for things to go wrong. And if that goes wrong, when that, you know, when that ends and spinning at 14,000, you know, revolutions per minute, everything turns the confetti, uh, it, everything just gets smashed. So, uh, the way I think about it is that's. Incredibly unsafe for a, you can have a 15, 16, 17-year-old rider on it. I pride myself in building engines that aren't gonna fail'cause I don't wanna wear that kid getting hurt. That's, um, so that's something that I keep in the back of my mind. Building those four strokes especially is I don't want anything to fail. So if we do a head, we will do a head that'll be, that will work, but also be reliable. Uh. Which means depending on model to model, it could mean shimming up valve springs could be changing to like, uh, a, a material called mo star, um, like intake guides and valve seats. Uh, it could be completely different valve springs. Uh, you know, some models we change the Conrad because when we increase the rrp MI don't trust that Conrad won't bend or break, uh, or even stretch. So. There's a lot of that in modern four strokes. Uh, and then ECU tuning, that's, that's a whole nother, we could spend hours going down that road with modern ECUs, with, you know, launch control, like, uh, traction control. Yeah, that's, that's, you know, just looking at a timing table or a fuel table, uh, that blows most people's minds. They don't even know what they're looking at. That's interesting. And I think, um, you know, most people would probably wouldn't realize that even though a four stroke, you kind of look at it and think maybe there's not so much you can do. You know, at our level, uh, engine work, it sounds like there is still a fair bit you can get out of an engine. Even a big capacity engine, like a four 50 or 500 could be made to be more rideable. Um. You got AIE juniors coming up pretty soon, so I imagine you head down, bum up getting motors built and other bits and pieces. Yeah, and uh, especially most moto kids nowadays, they've all got pretty impressive bikes and when they turn up to the nationals, it wasn't like it was when you were at the people turned up with what they. Um, so I'll let you go, mate, but that is cool. I wish all your riders all the best at the, um, upcoming nationals on the little bikes. And I guess if anyone is out there, uh, and body's got a spare seconds to maybe potentially build another bike before the next nationals or maybe work on it for next year's of the Junior Nationals hitting up. Tricky part we have at the moment is we have like mx uh, a GP in Darwin. The following week we have like a week later is junior Aussies. Then a week after that, we're straight into Supercross. So we have, yeah, they've really, uh, thrown us in the deep end here. We got bikes everywhere at the moment. So in other words, you want me to say, no one, don't call Boardy. If you want a faster engine right now, just give you a minute to get past all the stuff he's got coming off and then hit him up after that. Look, I'm sure there's plenty of people watching this going, Hey, he loves the chat. You've got no chance of shutting him up. Yeah, it's, uh, I'm busy. Uh, but yeah, I'm always up for a chat. Yeah, that's good. Anyone out there who wants to talk about making this a small ball, two stroke faster, especially at that race level? Get up boy. Otherwise, mate, it's been an awesome chat with you and to learn more about how it is what you do. I've always kind of wondered, you know, how you build a bike for someone like Seth that can go so fast and, and so reliable. Um, and so, and it's so much more technical than most people realize that, and I feel like you need it. Engineering degree and certificate and for diploma and you know, you need to have a master's in it in order just to understand it all. So I'm always yeah, amazed at how well you guys understand what makes a motorcycle fast and what makes it reliable. So that's really cool. Thanks. Thanks for the chat. Thanks mate. Speak to you next time. Thanks.