Good News/Bad News

Although I'll leave the ride report to Douglas, I will fill you guys in on something that happened at the outset of the ride. As you know from a previous blog, I had purchased a set of trackday take-offs from Ocelot on the ZRXOA and had them mounted up on the ZRX with the intent of surprising Douglas by showing up riding "mean-green". Bike has been running superb since I got the coil issue addressed and was excited to be back on the Rex with a chance to get it back in the twisties! Leaving Tulsa Saturday morning it was a little cool so the bike was running even better. I got about 100 miles north of Tulsa when I pulled over to the side of the road to check my map and to my great dismay, I was soon enveloped in a choking cloud of blue (oil) smoke emanating from my tailpipe! What to do now? First instinct was to turn around and head home so as not to get caught out on the road with a disabled bike. I called the wife to let her know I was returning and also called Dick who reinforced my decision not to push the bike any further than I needed to. Called/texted Douglas to let him know my plan and headed back to Tulsa. Once back on the road, I noticed the bike wasn't really burning oil at speed and was still running great. Since I was so close to Douglas, less than 30 miles, I stopped, texted him I was on my way, turned around and continued on to Big Brutus. Met up with Douglas at Big Brutus and was pretty bummed about what was happening. Douglas was very positive about the whole situation and suggested we ride back to Tulsa, get my Fizzy and continue on our trip which is what we ended up doing. Trip turned out wonderful but I knew rear tire on my Fizzy wasn't up to the task but had little choice other than to take it given the pickle we were in.

As for the ZRX, she starts/runs fine with no obvious noises. Bike puffs blue smoke at idle and partial throttle and throttle blips. If I idle it up to 5K, the smoke eventually clears up almost completely and there is very little noticeable smoke at speed. I initially thought it might be a valve guide/seal but when decelerating using engine braking, the smoke doesn't seem to get worse as one would expect given the vacuum this maneuver is creating. I had a valve guide/seal go on my manual transmission Z-28 and whenever I would engine brake, it would pull all the oil down the valve stem and smoke like a sum-bitch. In any case, I don't plan on messing with the ZRX before the rally and will look at it over the winter. At Dick's direction I'll start by pulling plugs to see if it's isolated to one cylinder or affecting them all. Hopefully, it's just a valve job and not a ring issue although I suppose a scored cylinder might mean it's 1224 time! Maybe this is a great thing in disguise! Any thoughts appreciated and ask any questions you might have.