Author Topic: Let's go roadracing...continuing saga (Read 194202 times)

MRieck · « **Reply #275 on:** November 05, 2011, 05:19:54 AM »

The ends butt together Brent. You usually cannot even tell where the ends are if it is done properly. I can have the grooves cut and install the wire for you....no problem at all.

andy750 · « **Reply #276 on:** November 05, 2011, 05:38:20 AM »

Just came across this recent update - well done Brent!! Very cool magazine article and photos! You are a great example of what one can do with old bikes as you get older

. Great photos and I am sure next season you will be even better.

All the best
Andy

Sam Green Racing · « **Reply #277 on:** November 05, 2011, 05:50:34 AM »

Quote from: MRieck on November 05, 2011, 05:19:54 AM

The ends butt together Brent. You usually cannot even tell where the ends are if it is done properly. I can have the grooves cut and install the wire for you....no problem at all.

Mike, could the ends be welded, we do have a member that dose do extreamly fine welding.

http://www.jmfmicroweld.com/ContactUs.php

Sam.

bwaller · « **Reply #278 on:** November 05, 2011, 07:31:01 AM »

Quote from: MRieck on November 05, 2011, 05:19:54 AM

The ends butt together Brent. You usually cannot even tell where the ends are if it is done properly. I can have the grooves cut and install the wire for you....no problem at all.
[/quote[/b]] [/b]

Thanks anyway Mike but I'll likely be pulling the sleeves anyway so this should be an easy step. What thickness gasket are you using to partner with 0.032" wire?

[quote author=andy750 link=topic=83871.msg1092727#msg1092727 date=1320496700]
Just came across this recent update - well done Brent!! Very cool magazine article and photos! You are a great example of what one can do with old bikes as you get older .

Great photos and I am sure next season you will be even better.

All the best
Andy

Thanks Andy, I hope to at least keep pace next season.... but who you calling older?

MRieck · « **Reply #279 on:** November 05, 2011, 08:36:31 AM »

Quote from: SamCB750A on November 05, 2011, 05:50:34 AM

Quote from: MRieck on November 05, 2011, 05:19:54 AM
The ends butt together Brent. You usually cannot even tell where the ends are if it is done properly. I can have the grooves cut and install the wire for you....no problem at all.

Mike, could the ends be welded, we do have a member that dose do extreamly fine welding.

http://www.jmfmicroweld.com/ContactUs.php

Sam.

No need for that sam. If done correctly the ends are really pushed together. Besides....how would Jim get in there with that old stick welder he uses???

bwaller · « **Reply #280 on:** November 11, 2011, 03:10:09 PM »

It seems the only company I could find that might do custom MLS gaskets is Cometic and they claim not to have the tooling to make MLS head gaskets for 500/550. They will however make a custom copper gasket to my specs. I asked why I should properly design, then pay them extra to produce a custom gasket they already offer for sale.

I've spent some time looking at o-ringing, and am not ruling this out. I hope it didn't sound like I trivialized your offer to help Mike. There is lots to doing this job correctly. Do you cut a receiver groove in the head too?

I talked to an engineer friend about who recommends a company with a waterjet cutter that could cut a couple gaskets for me on short order. I'll look into copper sheet next week. I'll get my friend to do what has to be done on a computer re design. Anyone with experience have any nays or yeas on this idea.

The engine is apart and everything looks great. No issues with the gearbox, but I still need to check the shift drum "timing" again. There is slight rubbing on one side of the lower case, easy fix.

I found three small soft black pieces in the oil and it turns out the HD camchain, having wider side plates, touches the insulating material of the cam sprocket and broke out the narrow piece along one side. I'll cut those sections off.

I'll need to use a thicker base gasket on re-assembly to compensate for two problems. Once the sinking sleeve issue is fixed the deck will require machining again plus there are clean spots on the piston dome edge where they come close to the chamber.

Nothing showing in the chamber however and although valve/piston clearance is tight no problem there.

I originally measured my squish at 0.035". I removed 0.0045" when I surfaced the cylinders after the first race and there was no sign of a problem then. As I got faster on the track in the last race I was hitting the limiter further from the end of the straight. I "might have been better"

to go down two teeth on the rear sprocket, but instead turned up my limiter 500rpm. It worked out perfectly, but I wonder if the extra revs showed how close things really are! I better re-measure...

MRieck · « **Reply #281 on:** November 11, 2011, 05:07:07 PM »

Quote from: bwaller on November 11, 2011, 03:10:09 PM

It seems the only company I could find that might do custom MLS gaskets is Cometic and they claim not to have the tooling to make MLS head gaskets for 500/550. They will however make a custom copper gasket to my specs. I asked why I should properly design, then pay them extra to produce a custom gasket they already offer for sale.

I've spent some time looking at o-ringing, and am not ruling this out. I hope it didn't sound like I trivialized your offer to help Mike. There is lots to doing this job correctly. Do you cut a receiver groove in the head too?

I talked to an engineer friend about who recommends a company with a waterjet cutter that could cut a couple gaskets for me on short order. I'll look into copper sheet next week. I'll get my friend to do what has to be done on a computer re design. Anyone with experience have any nays or yeas on this idea.

The engine is apart and everything looks great. No issues with the gearbox, but I still need to check the shift drum "timing" again. There is slight rubbing on one side of the lower case, easy fix.

I found three small soft black pieces in the oil and it turns out the HD camchain, having wider side plates, touches the insulating material of the cam sprocket and broke out the narrow piece along one side. I'll cut those sections off.

I'll need to use a thicker base gasket on re-assembly to compensate for two problems. Once the sinking sleeve issue is fixed the deck will require machining again plus there are clean spots on the piston dome edge where they come close to the chamber. Nothing showing in the chamber however and although valve/piston clearance is tight no problem there.

I originally measured my squish at 0.035". I removed 0.0045" when I surfaced the cylinders after the first race and there was no sign of a problem then. As I got faster on the track in the last race I was hitting the limiter further from the end of the straight. I "might have been better" to go down two teeth on the rear sprocket, but instead turned up my limiter 500rpm. It worked out perfectly, but I wonder if the extra revs showed how close things really are! I better re-measure...

Brent...in your case only grooves cut into the sleeve lip. Better rods will more than likely eliminate the "almost kissing" issue. Get rid of the rubber on the cam sprocket. Tooling for the gasket?? You aren't even using the original oiling holes....they just don't want to be bothered.

scottly · « **Reply #282 on:** November 11, 2011, 06:22:22 PM »

Quote from: bwaller on November 11, 2011, 03:10:09 PM

I talked to an engineer friend about who recommends a company with a waterjet cutter that could cut a couple gaskets for me on short order. I'll look into copper sheet next week. I'll get my friend to do what has to be done on a computer re design. Anyone with experience have any nays or yeas on this idea.

Take it a step further and make up a simple male/female die set to raise a fire-ring in the gasket.

gsb · « **Reply #283 on:** November 12, 2011, 03:21:03 PM »

Hi !
I have question about your bike .Is posible to use f2 forks with K2 frame or are they diferent long.
I,m interesting how do you mount Brembos on F2 forks without to hit spokes.Ihave k2 Frame but
no forks yet and your build is very clean .You have also used Suzuki rotors ?
Thank for help
gsb

bwaller · « **Reply #284 on:** November 12, 2011, 07:58:33 PM »

gsb, the F2 forks are a little longer, but they can be extended through the clamps a tad. The Brembos needed to be seriously relieved to clear the spokes.

I used thin one piece SS Suzuki rotors on another 550, they need the center hole enlarged but the overall diametre and offset is the same as the 500 discs.

edit, found a better pic of the Suzuki rotors.

Tintop · « **Reply #285 on:** November 14, 2011, 04:04:05 PM »

While it pains me to hang additional laurels around a fellow BOTY contender

, besides his 2nd place Championships in P2 (Prod MidWt) & P3 (LtWt), bw's building skills were also recognized. Seems the Technical Committee voted for bwaller to receive the 'Technical Excellence' award.

Well done Brent.

MRieck · « **Reply #286 on:** November 14, 2011, 06:52:10 PM »

Quote from: Tintop on November 14, 2011, 04:04:05 PM

While it pains me to hang additional laurels around a fellow BOTY contender , besides his 2nd place Championships in P2 (Prod MidWt) & P3 (LtWt), bw's building skills were also recognized. Seems the Technical Committee voted for bwaller to receive the 'Technical Excellence' award.

Well done Brent.

No way....I saw several dust particles on that front end.

bwaller · « **Reply #287 on:** November 14, 2011, 08:10:56 PM »

Yea well I wasn't going to mention anything here, I know folks get sick of the same old BS.

scottly · « **Reply #288 on:** November 14, 2011, 09:25:44 PM »

Quote from: MRieck on November 14, 2011, 06:52:10 PM

Quote from: Tintop on November 14, 2011, 04:04:05 PM
While it pains me to hang additional laurels around a fellow BOTY contender , besides his 2nd place Championships in P2 (Prod MidWt) & P3 (LtWt), bw's building skills were also recognized. Seems the Technical Committee voted for bwaller to receive the 'Technical Excellence' award.

Well done Brent.
No way....I saw several dust particles on that front end.

Dust particles,eh? That will heavily influence my BOTY vote.

Randy · « **Reply #289 on:** November 14, 2011, 09:32:26 PM »

AAAAAhhhh.... to much bike porn...

turboguzzi · « **Reply #290 on:** November 15, 2011, 04:52:00 AM »

hei b

i just chiseled off the whole rubber casting from the sprocket .....

TG

tweakin · « **Reply #291 on:** November 15, 2011, 06:43:06 AM »

I love that shot of your front end bwaller, pure art.

TimV840 · « **Reply #292 on:** November 15, 2011, 07:41:31 PM »

Are you kidding me? Flaunt it if you got it buddy.

I don't know how you'll be able to up the ante for next year? I wouldn't be surprised if you do though.

Congrats on the much deserved awards Brent!

TimV

Quote from: bwaller on November 14, 2011, 08:10:56 PM

Yea well I wasn't going to mention anything here, I know folks get sick of the same old BS.

bwaller · « **Reply #293 on:** February 12, 2012, 10:13:39 AM »

How's the saying go....if you want something done right, do it yourself. Part of this winters project included final seating the dropping sleeves (a result of a different shops fiasco) then re-machining the cylinder deck. I don't have an adequate press so left the cylinder with a small but very well equiped one man shop, and I know the guy. He was to heat the cylinders first, press the sleeves tight then machine. This was November.

I had other "development work" to finish in the meantime and finally worked on final assembly last night. When I was torqueing the top end I noticed I could see light at one corner of both cylinder gasket surfaces. Long story short the guy must have pressed the cylinders without properly supporting them. They are now junk.

I assembled this thing a couple different times checking clearances and it never showed, and I never thought I should check. I cut a groove in the sleeve flange for an o-ring and I saw there was about .0005" difference back to front but figured that was bearable. I did a lot of work on this cylinder and wasted mucho time for NOTHING. So away I go again.

It's been a lousy week and now this......good thing there wasn't a large cliff outside my shop door at midnight, I might have jumped.

754 · « **Reply #294 on:** February 12, 2012, 12:00:10 PM »

Brent, you should be able to get sleeves in all the way at home, plus do some light resurfacing.. if need be I can outline the procedure..

bwaller · « **Reply #295 on:** February 12, 2012, 01:20:31 PM »

Thanks Frank. I've replaced sleeves before but this was a mess. The first shop bored my cylinders too large. I returned them & they sourced new sleeves, bored those but obviously messed up on the sleeve install plus didn't bevel the sleeve bottoms, really amateur work for a large shop with an otherwise good reputation...

When it leaked & I took it apart after the first race I noticed the sleeves had sunk about 0.004". I touched them on my little press, but didn't heat the cylinders first and probably should have as they continued to sink. In the end they went down 0.014" before completely seating but in the process this second shop really made a mistake.

Now I feel like a fool for missing this. There is nothing I hate worse than doing things twice.

On the positive side this time I used solder to crush & measure piston/head clearance. I realised my piston squish band angle didn't quite match the combustion chamber so machined the pistons to fix that. Also with co-operation from Cometic we did come up with a much better copper head gasket. This combined with MRiecks great suggestion to o-ring the sleeve flanges will surely make for a super seal I didn't have before. Before I tore it down I had 18% leakdown on two cylinders, quite a compression loss I won't have anymore.

turboguzzi · « **Reply #296 on:** February 12, 2012, 02:55:06 PM »

brent, are you sure the guy managed to bend the cyl block somehow? not that easy, check it on a flat table maybe?

simon#42 · « **Reply #297 on:** February 12, 2012, 03:13:00 PM »

brent have you ever considered wills rings ? if you have not come across them they are a ring made of stainless steel filled with nitrogen . i use them on tr750 suzuki's which are a bastard to seal , never had one fail .

bwaller · « **Reply #298 on:** February 12, 2012, 04:10:55 PM »

TG, I checked it with a straight edge, measured different thicknesses top to bottom, and sat it on parallels. It's all over the place and I'm not sure what happened to be honest. I'm going to pull the sleeves and see if we can manage to save the cylinder, or I'll use another one. I've got different thickness base gaskets for whatever happens. Time is ticking, I promised to take to the VRRA booth for the Montreal bike show.

Simon, thanks for the info. After Mike suggested o-ringing I searched around looking for something like this but obviously not long enough. In the end we accomplish the same thing I suppose. I will spend some time to see what dimensions are available. I've seen some Rotax engines with only an o-ring to seal the combustion chamber action.

RAFster122s · « **Reply #299 on:** February 12, 2012, 04:27:49 PM »

The 550s are known to have issues with the cylinders drifting out of center and loosing power from that in stock form much less stressing it in racing form. The cylinder block isn't made of the best metallurgy from what I've read. Paulages has had trouble with sleeves dropping and the like on some of his hybrid builds for a hot cafe (BOTM) bike) and a race bike...there are other threads on the forum of similar stories, so it is unfortunately a common problem. While not in the same stratosphere, I have a Henry Abe kit I picked up cheap 2nd hand after the sleeves dropped on the PO with work on that kit done at an expensive machine shop that was well regarded. So, while it isn't comforting at all, it appears finding a shop or someone who really knows what they are doing on re-sleeving a cylinder is a challenge. Maybe it is a case where some of these shops used to know how to do these things well and developed a reputation for that kind of work but retiring employees or employees that are no longer there had that knowledge and it left with them and the current staff are forgetting critical steps out of ignorance or having never done it before. I would imagine it isn't uncommon for the guy with the knowledge to direct others in some tasks and sometimes not everything is getting communicated or heard by the person doing the actual work. Not quite possible with one-man operations but it does make you realize sometimes why small shops are small staffed by old guys who've been doing it for decades and the shop is overrun with work all the time.

Brent, sorry to read of the misfortune and costly problem. Sounds like MRieck might actually have a sticker on your bike this year if he didn't already... Glad you were able to find a solution to the gaskets and the fire ring is restoring your compression figures.
Did you have to source another cylinder block? Or, were you able to somehow salvage that one? (Looks like you answered that one while I was typing...)

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Author Topic: Let's go roadracing...continuing saga (Read 194202 times)