haven't updated this thread for a while, yet lots has happened..
first, Bwaller was kind enough to loan me an undercut transmission cluster while i send mine off to Fast by Gast. The idea was that with our little "exchange program," i could do the swap in a day and be back on the road without a glitch.
however... i also decided it would be a good idea to hunt down the oil leak that has been dogging me since I put this engine together. I narrowed it down to a leak somewhere in the cylinder bore, and after tearing it down and removing the liners i found the smoking gun: porous casting behind the liners from boring the block out for the over-sized sleeves. the oil was literally leaking through the block like a sponge. the good news is that i found a place that specializes in sealing porous castings (
http://porosity-sealing.com/), and they had it sealed and back to me within a week.
new head gasket ordered, HD studs from A.P.E.... and in the meantime i decided to re-measure my piston to wall clearances and check ring end gap while the pistons were out.
bad news. some part of the process of removing the liners and re-installing them left me with LOTS of taper in the bore and huge clearances. My options were to either make new sleeves or go bigger.
Luckily, Soos saved the day. He had a set of 64.75mm pistons that appear to be ready to drop in, and we traded. His are in the mail already, so i'll be able to mock up and check compression ratio and valve clearances this week. I was curious what that extra .75mm would do to the displacement, so i did the math.... 736cc.
so i'll have a 736cc cb550 that will run circles around a (736cc) stock cb750. what do i call it not to confuse it with the big brother? i wouldn't want to give him a complex...
