It’s been a busy week, so this ride report is really about riding Buzz around *last* weekend.

The ride back to work was fine. I had a BTW meeting to attend, so I took Buzz there, too. I took a very short jump on the freeway, but it was a very windy evening and I don’t like getting shoved around so much. A few people there have been loosely following the progress. They were pleased to see Buzz on the road, although they would be more pleased to see the VW trike on the road.

After the meeting, I met my wife at work and we took a slightly long way home, by way of the local watering hole. Buzz ran reasonably well the whole way.

Overnight, I forgot to turn off the fuel valves, which would not normally be a problem, but apparently something was leaking. I turned it off, but it was a while before we would be going anywhere, so it was all dry by the time I got to troubleshoot a bit. I’m about 90% sure it was the inlet to the fuel filter, and since tightening that clamp, there does not appear to be any other leakage.

Especially after the leak, the tank was pretty low. It took 2.8 gallons to top him off, and with only about 50 miles run, that works out to 17.5 mpg. An undetermined amount of fuel went on the ground and I still have not done any tuning. We rode some on Saturday and some on Sunday, including a few miles on the freeway and a few minutes of twisty maneuvering in an exceptionally smooth parking lot. Buzz is a lot of fun to ride, overall, although at very small throttle openings, he runs pretty rough. I haven’t had the chance to top off the second tank yet and it doesn’t appear to be leaking anymore and even with a really rich mixture, I expect his mileage will go up.

Getting to ride Buzz and having him behave pretty well really helped because, wise or not, I began adding up the money I’ve spent thus far.

I had an envelope that had a few receipts in it. I consulted my eBay and PayPal records for more. Last night I dug through a stack of receipts at the house. I have another stack to audit from a desk drawer at work.

I have not found every receipt, but I have most of them. Some of the figures I have, especially ones I gleaned from my bank statements, are for the full purchase amount for transactions where it’s quite likely that not everything was for Buzz. I have dithered back and forth one whether to count tools and/or supplies bought during the course of the project. Arguably, I would not have needed them all without working on Buzz, but they are still usable for non-Buzz tasks. Likewise, do I count things that I bought for Buzz, but either lost/damaged and had to replace or just didn’t end up using? There are also a couple of things left to buy, most importantly some form of O2 sensor, preferably wideband.

I will post an itemized list or two later, but for now I can say that converting Buzz to EFI, before O2, ran somewhere between $915 and $1925, depending on how you add it up. More than half of that total was split between DIYAutotune, Del City and K&N Filters. The auto parts stores and the hardware stores got the majority of the rest of it. Ironically, the critical components like the throttle bodies, fuel pumps, etc were fairly cheap parts. It’s the little stuff that adds up. In reviewing other people’s MegaSquirt projects, I expected about $1000, but not $2000. By that last figure, the EFI system is worth twice what the bike is…

In the full analysis to come, I think I will be able to show that it *could* be done cheaper by cutting corners in certain ways, such as using solder and tape splices wherever possible rather than connectorizing everything, or even by using cheaper connectors. I could have used cheaper air filters, worked around the neoprene reducers, etc. Organizing my shop would help keep me from having to purchase the same materials twice due to loss. Haste makes waste, too. If I’d not rushed to ride, I may not have forgotten the filter and with that, would not have destroyed the first fuel pump. Similarly, “gotta have it now” costs more than shopping around.

The experience I’ve gained will greatly benefit the next project, most likely the VW trike. Some of the issues that apply to a bike may not apply to the trike at all, saving me all kinds of money and time. Plus, I already have a lot of tools…