| Author | Message | ||
     Buellmeister57 |
After + 35,000 miles of fun my beloved 99 Cyclone has developed a rear cylinder base gasket leak. I figure I might as well freshen it up and get a few more horses while it's apart. Money is VERY limited at this time. I already have a used set of cams from a 98 S1W. Thinking about boring the cylinders to the next size and using forged pistons. New lifters and oil pump drive gear. Heads rebuilt. (Pammy?) Any advice, such as which pistons work well, will be greatly appreciated. | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
BTW it already has a Borla slip-on, S/E air cleaner and a Yost Power Tube kit in the stock CV. | ||
| Chasespeed |
well, honestly, look into the the gaskets, and boring, etc... see what you come up with.... a 1250 KIT can be had for around 750-800.. that inclused the gaskets COMETIC, the good stuff... And I would personally go with the X1 cams... I believe I saw a set in the classifieds under "D" cams.. Or, worse comes to worse, I can send you mine when I swap in some 536's  Anyway, YOUR budget is going to determine what you can do... Give us an idea of what you have to play with, and we can better help you... Oh yeah, expected power gains, and WHERE in the power band YOU want the power... Chase | ||
| Natexlh1000 |
Unless it's eating oil, I wouldn't bother to do anything other than replacing the gaskets. But I am cheapest of the cheap. | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
I thought X1 / S1W / Andrews N4 cams were the same. How can I tell what mine are? I bought them used. | ||
| Chasespeed |
IIRC, I could be mistaken, BUT, I thought the S1 cams were in the middle of the M2 and X1... But, yeah, the X1 is essentailly a N4 cam... Chase | ||
| Rick_a |
The best bang for the buck is headwork. | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
My budget is about $800. Can I get a good set of pistons (stock or forged) and some decent headwork done? | ||
| Rick_a |
Forged pistons are unnecessary for stock compression ratios IMO. Headwork for around $800 is fairly typical for good, professional work. | ||
| Chasespeed |
800? I would probably go with the headwork... Buy some Cometic gaskets, and run that for a while, or until you have the money to do more... Then, go to 1250... and a rowdy set of cams...etc... Chase | ||
| Bad_karma |
I have been looking recently and a good set of forged piston will run about $250. I can'tremember if it's NHRS or Revolution performance will do stage one head work for $550. Close to your budget. But machine the sleeve and assembly material will be more. Look to bump compression up a little. Joe (Message edited by bad_karma on March 23, 2007) | ||
| Rick_a |
I would leave the compression ratio be unless you use a burlier cam. Otherwise you'll just end up with detonation issues on pump gas. 10:1 works perfect with bolt-in cams. | ||
| Oldog |
X1 cams can be identified by the # 15 - 1,2,3,4 (position) stamped on each cam, depending on vintage you may wind up replacing the crank gear too, after '00 a different gear pitch was used on the cams to ease instalation issues relating to spacing on the bushings too tight is bad to loose is just noisy Andrews has a article on it on their site. Me, I would pull the jugs to where I could get the pins out leaving Jugs and pistons undisturbed change the gaskets and re assemble and keep saving for the "speed work " If you get cams blow 50$ and do the bronze oil pump drive gear. also check the cam case cover / gasket there was a change some where along the line and there is a possibility for grief | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
I might take oldog's advice and just replace the gaskets for now. I've used Amsoil since the bike had 2,900 miles on it, it doesn't smoke and seems to run as good as ever. I really want to do headwork and a 1250 kit. But $$ is pretty tight right now. Do I need to lower the motor to get the rear cylinder off? | ||
| Chasespeed |
The rear cylinder? NOPE... Take the tank off, remove the rocker box, and you will have access to the 4 cap bolts that hold the head/rear cylinder down... Pretty simple... One cylinder, you should be able to do that in an afternoon un-interupted... Pretty much, do what Jim said, and you will be golden... Chase | ||
| Oldog |
relavent link http://www.badweatherbikers.com/cgibin/discus/show .cgi?tpc=47623&post=854022#POST854022 | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
Thanks for the advice!!! I replaced the rocker box gaskets a few years, so I have a pretty good idea what the job entails. I had forgotten the trick about leaving the piston in the cylinder. This should get me thru the summer and give me a chance to save up some money to do it right next winter. Jerry in West Virginia | ||
| Benm2 |
I rebuilt my M2 for about the same budget, and got 92hp. Before I tell you what I did, understand that A LOT of people will tell you that doing your own headwork is risky, and it's easy to go backwards. The list: 1. Stock pistons, new Hastings rings. Re-hatched the cylinders before assembly. Took some emery cloth and rounded the edges on the valve pockets ever-so-slightly. 2. Ported heads by hand. Focused on two areas: (a) blended the valve seat ID into the port walls and (b) cut down material around the valve guides. Item b was done more on the intake than the exhaust. The remaining portion of both ports was sanded smooth with a drum roll on a dremel. I was careful NOT to remove material from the FLOOR of the ports. 3. Heads had 0.020" milled from them. After the heads were milled, I took the stock pistons & stuck them against the head with some magic marker & some polishing compound. I gave the pistons a turn or two, then looked to see where the high spots were on the head's squish band. I basically did my best to match the squish band on the head to the band on the pistons. 4. Used N4 cams, I think the same as your S1W cams. 5. Rebuilt the top end with a Cometic gasket set, but did NOT use the 0.040" head gasket. Rebuilt the head with 0.020" gasket instead. I did the old clay-on-the-piston head trick upon re-assembly to make sure clearances were adequate. I was about 0.020" of cold clearance between squish bands. 6. I had new pushrods cut at a shorter length. I didn't use adjustables becuase (a) they were more money and (b) I don't trust them. 7. I polished the backs of all the valves, intake & exhaust. I put minor back-cuts on the valves myself, but I wouldn't recommend that. If you want them back cut, ask the shop that does item 8. 8. I had the valve seats & valves professionally ground after all my port work & piston matching was done. The heads were NOT assembled by the shop, I still did all that myself, including manually lapping in the valves & seats. The bike also has a carbon race air cleaner & a supertrapp slipon. The 92hp dyno run was with about 50 miles on the motor. I ran it again later on and was up around 94. I am NOT running the race ECU. Every part that came off the bike was THOROUGLY cleaned before it went back on. I washed the parts in the kitchen sink with lots of soap and hot water. Parts were then dried by hand & individually bagged & marked for re-assembly. The heads were rebuilt in the same fashion: kitchen table with a newspaper and a supply of new clean engine oil. If you hunt through the archives you might still be able to find the dyno sheet, it was posted here. The bike had a nice flat torque curve. | ||
| Buellmeister57 |
benm2: That's some great advice, if I can end up with the same results, I'll be very happy. | ||
| Bigblock |
rings and gasket set are cheap, do you know someone with a cylinder hone? I just redid my topend because of a leaky base and head gasket, it only cost me the rings and gasket kit, it was around 100 or 150$? My friend has a valve grinder and a cylinder hone, the valves barely needed to be touched, and the cylinders crosshatched perfectly with about 30 seconds or less each of handhoning with a drill and stonehone. We only did the valves because we pulled them out and had access to the machine, they were nearly perfect. 30,000 miles. WHat a difference, well worth the efort, and uses NO oil now. I wouldn't leave the old rings in, they are so cheap, and with the miles on your bike, I SERIOUSLY doubt there is anything wrong with your cylinder bores or pistons. It just seems silly to leave the old rings in, just lazy, why take the chance? |
