Engine ProblemsValve Cover and Cam ProblemsI ordered a modified valve cover that is supposed to stabilize the cam towers. I can’t comment on whether or not they actually work, but I do know that I had a problem with it seating properly. Don mentioned the same issue to me with his build. After another problem that developed, I decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble and went with a regular cover.
Next, I made a very expensive mistake. After I reassembled my engine and fixed the cylinder head leak, I ended up causing a lot of damage. I bought a manual cam chain tensioner and I am now convinced that it was not worth it!
First let me back up. After I fixed my cylinder head leak, I decided to move on to tuning my bike. When I would take it out for a test ride, my bike had all the symptoms of a bike that was running very lean. It was backfiring, the bike ran like crap until it heated up, and it had a hanging idle. I took my carbs off and went up a size for my pilot jets. These Mikunis are a little tricky to get the throttle cable off. At first I had to adjust the idle screw all the way out in order to remove the pull cable. After I changed my jets, I reinstalled my carbs and cranked my bike. Unfortunately, I forgot to close the idle screw and when I hit the starter, the engine revved straight to about 8000 RPMs before I could kill the engine. After I adjusted idle screw, I attempted to start the bike again and I could hear the starter clicking, but the engine was not moving.
My immediate thoughts were that I had broking something in my engine – maybe my pistons and the engine had seized. I tried moving the crank with the timing nut and after attempted to rotate the crank back and forth, I heard something crack. Never a good sign! I pulled my valve cover and this is what I saw:
I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but there is a groove cut into the top of my valve cover from the cam chain. This leads back to my manual cam chain tensioner. With the regular cam chain tensioner, you are supposed to set it, run the engine to let the chain stretch into place, and readjust it. I tried doing this with the manual cam chain tensioner. Remember, this is not spring loaded so you have to adjust it by feel. I unscrewed the bolt and then screwed it back in until what I thought was the proper tension. See any problem with this? I suspect that I didn’t tighten the tensioner enough and when I tried to crank the bike and the RPMs shot up, I think that it snatched the cam chain. The cam chain cut into the top of the valve cover and got stuck (basically grinded) in place. That’s why the engine wouldn’t turn over when I tried to restart it.
If you look at the picture of my camshaft, you will notice that one of sprocket flanges is broken. This is the crack that I heard in my engine. To make things worse, the cam chain was also damaged and was almost pulled apart. So now I’m looking at a new cam chain, a new camshaft and a new valve cover. This is why I decided to ditch my valve cover and stick with an unmodified cover. Plus, the engine had to come out and I had to split to cases in order to install the new cam chain. I also wanted to make sure that I got all of the metal shavings out of the case. To add insult to injury, I was told that it is a good idea to replace the piston rings (for the second time) and all new gas top end gaskets.
I ended up ditching the manual cam chain tensioner and going back to the OEM version. I replaced the spring, cleaned it up and had it powder coated. At first I had decided to go back to the OEM cam sprocket, but after installing it, I found it very difficult to line up the cam shaft notches and the timing marks. In this case, the adjustable sprocket was the best option.
Broken Cylinder Sleeves After a few months, I had calmed down and decided to re-attack my build. With new parts, freshly painted cylinder block and head (I also bought a honing tool and went over the cylinder sleeves again), I went to install the cylinder block. I had used the same pair of cheap piston ring compressors that I had had success with in the past, this time it ended horribly. Somehow the compressors got caught between the wood blocks and the engine block got caught on the lower piston ring. After gently tapping the block into place, I couldn’t get it to slip down. So I decided to use a little more force. Not the smartest thing to do and I ended up splitting the lower cylinder sleeve, bending the rings, and breaking two rings. I was not happy. I had to stop and send my block back to Cycle X for them to install new sleeves. After a new set of rings, removing the engine again (to verify that I didn’t have anything in the case), and a newly painted block, I successfully installed my block and assembled the rest of my engine.
I forgot to mention, after I replaced the jets in my carbs, I decided to ditch my velocity stacks and use K&N filters instead. These two things turned my bike into a better performing machine right away.
Oil Pump RebuildI’ve always been concerned with my oil pump because it one the one thing that I didn’t touch during my rebuild. I was worried about the pressure it was producing. While the bike was running, the oil pressure would drop to around 5 PSI after the oil got hot and while at idle. As I revved the engine, the oil pressure would rise and fall with the RPMs. The oil pressure light never came on.
So I purchased a used pump off of ebay and a rebuild kit that was “supposed” to be designed to increase the pressure. The springs were a lot stiffer than the OEM springs. I reassembled the pump without any issues, primed it, and installed it. This time when I assembled the engine and went for a test ride, there was smoke coming from the valve cover breather. Something was wrong. I looked in the oil tank and it was empty. So like most people, I put more oil in it. After doing some more riding, I noticed that it was smoking more, oil was now coming out of the valve cover breather, and oil was not returning to the oil tank. I realized that I had a very bad case of wet-sumping and it had too much oil in the engine.
At this point, this is when my battery burned up and I was stranded on the side of the road.
Pulling the engine againAt this point I was really getting tired of my exhaust pipes. Every time I would stop at a stoplight, my bike would smoke. I mean, it was embarrassing! At this point, I had fixed all the oil leaks, but because I had so many leaks and had lost so much oil, that my exhaust wrap had absorbed a lot of oil. No matter how much I let the engine run, that oil would not burn off. So I had to make a decision – remove the wrap and replace it, or buy a new exhaust system. I’ll get back to this later.
Clutch ProblemsNext, I decided to pull my oil pump and figure out what the problem was. My previous oil pump worked just fine, with the exception of the pressure. When I dropped the oil pan, to my horror, there was a long piece of metal that was bent and sitting in the bottom of the pan. Where did it come from?
Another nagging issue had been with my clutch. I’ve taken this thing apart at least 15 times, and I’m not exaggerating. I had race-cut gears, I adjusted it, bought new plates, removed plates, swapped clutch assemblies, and I could not get my clutch to function properly. It was extremely difficult to fix. Eventually, I got to the bottom of this mystery. That piece of metal ended up being the retaining clip that goes on the big drive bearing that you have to line up when assembling the crankcase. When I was putting my case back together, I had a hard time getting it to line up. As I was pulling and pushing on the clutch assembly to get the case to set properly, the clip was knocked out of place and the clutch was out of position. Actually the clutch basket was sticking out a little further than it was supposed to. This is why it would never really fully disengage my clutch and why it was so difficult to get it to shift into gears. So for the third time, I had to pull the engine again. Not to mention, new piston rings, and gaskets. At this point, I decided to replace my crankcase with a new one (as I mentioned earlier).
To fix my clutch, I decided to set it up like the OEM clutch, use high performance clutch springs. I also performed Hondaman’s clutch mod. I bought new OEM plates. I bought a brand new double steel plate and a new center clutch carrier from CMSNL. After installing my clutch this time, everything works like it’s brand new. It shifts silky smooth and it even shifts into neutral with no problem when I am at a stoplight. No rocking or going into neutral before I come to a complete stop. I’m very happy about this.
Solved The Oil Pump ProblemAs I mentioned before, I rebuilt an oil pump that I had purchased on Ebay, and since that caused my oil problems, I decided to use my original oil pump. I knew that it was already working. I took my oil pump apart, cleaned it, and replaced all the gaskets. After I reinstalled it, everything worked like it was supposed to, and my oil pressure increased. The springs in that kit that I bought off of Ebay were the problem.
ExhaustI mentioned the issued that I was having with my exhaust pipes and all the oil that my pipe wrap absorbed, but there was another issue. My MAC 4 into 2 exhaust system, which I loved, had a crappy fitment issue. No matter what I did, I could not get them to seal properly. Every time that I had to disassemble my engine, I would notice that the front of my cylinder head was covered in black exhaust soot. This is why I decided to replace my exhaust system.
Freshly painted exhaust flanges
I decided to go with a MAC 4 into 1 exhaust system. I got this system because of the way it is installed. With the flanges, it is a lot easier to get a great seal. Plus the system is black, so I don’t have to wrap it again. Also, the cone is massive. It looks amazing and it sounds mean as hell. On top of that, the bike feels even stronger and I don’t have any more exhaust leaks!
Electrical IssuesAfter my battery burned up, I replaced my antigravity battery with a regular battery, hooked up a digital voltmeter and took my bike out for a test ride. One issue that I’ve been having with my bike is that my horns kept breaking. I replaced my horns 3 different times. This last time I bought a more expensive horn. While the bike was running, my horn would randomly beep. It had gotten to the point where I ended up unplugging it because it was so annoying.
After I was stranded on the side of the road, I started to investigate my electrical system. I read back through my M-unit manual and made an amazing discovery. I can’t believe that I had missed it! The manual says that if the M-unit starts receiving excessive voltage, it will beep the horn to warn you. If it is not corrected, it will blow or damage a piece of equipment. This happened to be my headlight. It blew my headlight out twice.
Before I had figured this out, I took my bike out for another test in order to monitor what the reg/rec and the charging system was doing. The volts would stay around 13 volts and the horn would beep. After a few miles, the horn stopped, the front headlight blew out, and the volts shot up to 18 volts. This meant that I had a reg/rec problem. The Rick’s model that I have is designed to limit the max voltage to 14.1. After a few calls to Rick’s Motorsports, they said that my rec/reg was faulty. Since I decided to replace my rec/reg, I also decided to replace my handlebar switches with m-switches. I was not happy with the aftermarket controls that I had originally installed. Plus, I was a little worried about the way I had to wire the headlight up just to get it to work.
I rewired my bike. The Motogadget switches are so simple and so amazing! I wish that I had listened to Cal and went this route in the first place. It would have saved me a big headache. I will never use another type of controls. So far, everything works flawlessly and I am very happy with the setup.
