What's that puddle under my P11 engine?

Comic relief:

So for the first time in 4 or 5 decades I decided to time my P11 engine with a strobe. I have an Innova timing light with a bunch of useful features. Got it for tuning the ignition on a Edelbrock Pro Flo 4 multiport fuel injection system I installed on my 65 El Camino SBC. Yowsa the timing on the P11 was several degrees retarded at 3500 RPM. Timing light has the RPM feature. I don't have a tach.

When I got done, I was down low moving something around and noticed there was a puddle under the bike. Of course gloom and doom was my first reaction having been a Norton owner for 50 some years. Something is leaking oil somewhere. I started running my hand over my oil line plumbing that goes under the gearbox and into the upside down oil junction block. Nope not it. Then ran my hand under the timing cover. Nope not it. Then the light came on in my head and I put my figure in the puddle. It is water. My garage is cold and my engine creates water vapor in the exhaust. I never thought it created that much. The water finds its way out of some small space in the header collector connection at the rear of the collector before the exhaust goes into a 2x9 inch section of pipe between the collector and start of the megaphone. That was a relief.



Time for a test ride.

Turns out the static timing was closer than I thought. I had the timing light set for the wrong revolution count for determining engine ignition. It was multiplying the RPM 2X. So I ended up retarding the hell out of it. Fixed it after a disturbing test ride and flushing out the brain fart that was responsible. Still was kind of an interesting exercise on a bike that has the stator in the outer primary cover with no degree scale and from the factory no hole to shoot a light through. I drilled a 9/16" inch hole in the outer primary a long time ago to do the same thing with a very cheap timing light.

Point is the TriSpark ignition ends up on the money for the most part using the LED trigger feature and reading the instructions.

Oh yeah... Had another puddle only it was froth out of the timed breather hose through an automotive PCV to atmosphere this time. Guys following me on modern bikes use to give me hell about that off white spittle. They did not follow me for long though. The little 7" SLS front brake would fade out after a few downhill hairpins, and I'd wave them by. I fixed that waving people by thing at the time with a Ducati 996S. A man has got to have his enthusiasms. I was in California back then, working techy stuff in Silicon Valley, and a lot younger.

Oil's well that ends well, nyuk nyuk nyuk.... As long as it's not me leaking puddles on the floor I can deal with it.

I had concerns that my N15's timing might be off, as I only (painfully) set it statically on the Wassell MK2 in its little housing where the mag was. My timing light I used on cars didn't work, so I bought a cheap one that did fine. I have a vintage 'Acctron' (I think) engine tester too, it does the RPM. I spent a fair bit of time ensuring my degree wheel was aligned and fastened right. The timing was spot on. What a waste of time! In the end a few carb tweaks got it sorted. Now working on a Commando, it's luxury. Take the inspection cap off, and there's the degree wheel.