I took dabeaz's course on the Raft algorithm a few years ago.
It was engaging, challenging, and all the other students were there specifically because they wanted to be there. I've never experienced anything like that in school, it was uniquely motivating.
I always thought I'd get to try his compilers course one day, but I waited too long!
> Motorway is an hour out from where I live. Each tweak meant hopping on the bike and carving out hours to test.
It's easier said than done, but you might want to approach this like a data science project. Record the data from your test runs, annotate the behaviour you want, and build up a dataset. You should be able to experiment with any number of tweaks (admittedly except for the data sampling itself) without having to get back on the bike.
It was engaging, challenging, and all the other students were there specifically because they wanted to be there. I've never experienced anything like that in school, it was uniquely motivating.
I always thought I'd get to try his compilers course one day, but I waited too long!
All the best to him on his next adventure.