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Thread: A Revival Mission...

  1. #1
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    A Revival Mission...

    If it's good enough for Sidecar Bob to have to revive the odd RC30 or OW01 I thought I'd better start another project....

    This is my EX500 Kawasaki based F3 bike. Usually ridden by Mark Taylor, it led Nationals, should have won at least one...Should have won Wanganui (arm pump...) But did win the support F3 class at the 1989 WSB round at Manfield. So it's got history...
    It was last used in anger at the second New Brighton street race against the visiting Irish team incl Joey. Mark had blown the gearbox in his TZ so with a quick conversion to petrol he used it at Brighton. 4ths and 5ths in the feature races with the Irish so going off Meth didn't slow it down noticeably.
    It's been lurking in the back of the barn since 1999. Looking at it, if it had been left much longer the rats would have had it.
    The modest aim is to get it to at least one CAMS meeting this coming season.

    I knew it needed some things before pulling it out (Big Rob came round and we extracted it - thanks again Rob) It needed an ignitor - both the race ones died of old age and AFAIK Electronic R&D doesn't do digitals now. So a stocker is coming from Pete Sales.
    Valve springs were always a problem - Tony's and mine broke aftermarket ones regularly. I'm going to see what kelford have. 20 years should have seen some progress.
    I was given a good head and barrel a while back so I've at leat got a set of rings.
    The shock in it is a heavily revalved XR500 Honda. I thought maybe a better one now...SV650 is a popular replacement so I asked Dennis Charlett what they did with their SV shocks. To my surprise he remembered the bike....I came away with 3 SV shocks. Thanks Dennis.

    I'll document what i find as I go. If you read the US websites, they shouldn't be tuned, LOL. I'll show how we made the cranks last - even on the blown one with over 100 RWHP.
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  2. #2
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    29th August 2007 - 14:38
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    Hi Greg,
    I often think about this sitting in your shed shivering in the cold and dark, many a time I thought about making you a cheeky offer
    Glad to see its made it into the warm, looking forward to progress reports.

    If I remember correctly the rear disc was special.... and needed a bit of loving

    Cheers
    Dave

  3. #3
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    Rear disc is alloy - and if you look at the pic the pads were seized onto it. I had to pull the caliper to move it.

    There's a lot to do - and I don't know what I'll find - but what's the closing date for the SCF ?
    And other than pre 89 F3 could it run in a parade type class ? No idea at this point who'd ride it.

  4. #4
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    That's a nice looking bike... Way to nice to be languishing so good on you...

  5. #5
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    Excellent project, good onya. Keep us posted with pics.
    I will have the Suzuki Hybrid in NZ in the next couple of months. Look forward to swapping yarns.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by sidecar bob View Post
    Excellent project, good onya. Keep us posted with pics.
    I will have the Suzuki Hybrid in NZ in the next couple of months. Look forward to swapping yarns.
    Like the Suzuki, this is from the era when you made stuff rather than buying racekit. You'll like the pistons...we had to stay at 500cc so no forged aftermarket high com stuff available. So .060in off the barrel and remachine - and hand finish - the pistons to suit. Incl deepening the valve pockets till the inlets just cut into the top ring groove...12.6 : 1 resulting compression. Then wire O ring the top of the bores to seal properly....
    That's part of getting around 72HP at the wheel.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumph View Post
    Incl deepening the valve pockets till the inlets just cut into the top ring groove..
    So gas ported Pistons by default? Bob Denson accidentally did that to the Hayabusa pistons when we installed stage 3 cams at Kelfords between national rounds in '06.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumph View Post
    Like the Suzuki, this is from the era when you made stuff rather than buying racekit. You'll like the pistons...we had to stay at 500cc so no forged aftermarket high com stuff available. So .060in off the barrel and remachine - and hand finish - the pistons to suit. Incl deepening the valve pockets till the inlets just cut into the top ring groove...12.6 : 1 resulting compression. Then wire O ring the top of the bores to seal properly....
    That's part of getting around 72HP at the wheel.
    Yep, those were the days when you had to be innovative to gain advantage as opposed to merely having deep pockets. I machined a short stroke crank for my Triumph drag bike to stop the piston crowns becoming detached at the oil control ring on the original long stroke motor. (Plus a whole load of other stuff at the same time). It wasn't all that expensive to do, just took a bit of deep thinking first then quite a bit of time to execute. I didn't have the money for expensive off the shelf solutions. Those innovative days seem to have largely gone, with a few notable exceptions.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by sidecar bob View Post
    So gas ported Pistons by default? Bob Denson accidentally did that to the Hayabusa pistons when we installed stage 3 cams at Kelfords between national rounds in '06.
    Yep - Tony Mcmurdo saw that his pistons were done the same and rang me to query it. I told him to look up gas-porting, LOL. If anything, I'd have liked to go deeper as the valve to piston ain't great. Luckily both Mark and Tony had educated left feet and could be counted on not to miss gears.
    FWIW, we went straight to the biggest Megacycle cams - 10mm lift. If there'd been bigger available, I'd have used them.

    The days of innovation in NZ titles have largely gone, yes, with very few exceptions. Levelling the playing field has resulted in an effective dumbing down...
    The bucket guys still do some exceptional work - but on a small scale.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by sidecar bob View Post
    I will have the Suzuki Hybrid in NZ in the next couple of months. Look forward to swapping yarns.
    i just sent your wife a link to a snippet on that bike for you to view.

  11. #11
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    Working slowly through it. Head is off and I'm pleased with what I found. Cams and followers are good - there was still oil on them. The head came off cleanly and the gasket has held up. Yes, I left it with coolant in it....It turns over freely and even the camchain looks and feels OK. I might get away with a largely cosmetic rebuild - plus of course, rings and valve springs.
    Piston is heavily remachined - only the center rectangle is original crown. The lack of carbon on the head and piston shows how close head to piston clearance it's running. It's nicely concentrated around the plug. Note the wire O rings around the bore. Great seal but it means you can't reuse the alloy shim head gaskets as they're stretched over the wire. Got a bit costly at the time but we found a source of Vesrah gasket sets at a very good price. Lucky I've got a good head gasket here....
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  12. #12
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    So looking at the engine now, is there anything you would have done differently if you went to build the same engine again today, given advances in teghnology & shifts on thinking in certain areas over the years?

    Also, some hardcore bikie chopper builder guy I met through mates in Brisbane recently, paints everything with this product as a top coat.
    Although it's not down as a heatproof paint, he paints engines, header pipes, mufflers etc with it & it stays put.
    He even put a bit on an old Conrod & hit it with the oxy acetylene in front of me to demonstrate.
    http://www.ppglic.com.au/uploads/tds/426%20Paraloc.pdf

  13. #13
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    Sorry, that doesn't open for me - my internet again.
    Would I do anything different ? The engine architecture is the limiting factor on them. The yanks racing them in lightweight production broke cranks regularly so they got a bad name there. I sidestepped that inadvertently by removing the alternator rotor. Raised the crank's frequency to a safe point.
    I might port it differently. I did them very much as a methanol motor with port sizes and pipe lengths to suit.
    Talking to Pete Sales last week he commented on how big the inlet ports were and reckoned he'd do some filling. We never did.
    Comparing them to late GSXR1000, there's not a lot of size difference.

    Edit - I posted a pic of the last attempt with the unblown 500 on another thread and can't remember where it is...We did a downdraft version. 20 degrees downdraft with bigger valves and a reshaped chamber. Much better exhaust ports too. They go up and over a water passage which is a severe restriction. I just ported that head where I wanted the ex ports to go and filled in with weld to get it watertight. 40mm Dellortos and straight Methanol. It went well till a valve seat fell out. If I had to go back to serious racing with the 500 that's probably where I'd restart. Unless an ER head fits.....

    I did an ER650 on the same lines a few years back. With the wrong pipe it showed up well on it's first dyno run but dropped an exhaust valve seat cooling down.
    I won't quote HP as there are multiple versions about as to what it made. They're an EX with all the changes we wanted made.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Grumph View Post
    Rear disc is alloy - and if you look at the pic the pads were seized onto it. I had to pull the caliper to move it.

    There's a lot to do - and I don't know what I'll find - but what's the closing date for the SCF ?
    And other than pre 89 F3 could it run in a parade type class ? No idea at this point who'd ride it.
    It would be welcome in the parade class and the bike display tent at the Mike Pero Southern Classic.
    16 weeks to cut off for the SCF ( to be fair entry isnt even open yet) but you know a few people that can help out with a late entry
    cheers

  15. #15
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    Might have solved the valve spring problem. We'd always used R&D springs from the US. Megacycle said "use these springs with this cam..." so we did.
    They'd last about half a season - club days and Nationals - before they'd start breaking. I never had the chance at the time to measure pressures - and no one local carried much in the way of race springs then. And no internet...
    Anyway, sorted out an unbroken pair of R&D springs - inner and outer - put them on a Titanium retainer, measured the fitted height on the head...and went to town today. Measured seat and nose pressures at Kelford's, went into their samples box for something that fitted the retainer - and came up with a spring...
    Turns out that Toyota V8 race single springs are about 15lb up on the seat and 7 - 8 lb up over the nose. Fit the Ti retainers excellently well - and if I really wanted to, I can run inners too. They'll do to get it running again.

    Good price too. They sell shitloads of them. The standard speedway Stock car engine combo now is the Toyota V8, cams and springs from Kelford and the heads done & valves supplied by Cylinder Head specialists also in ChCh.

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