TOPIC:

Congrats! That's a good feeling when you get the old bike to fire for the first time. I love the sound of an inline 6.

That's cool! You must be stoked!!

Boo!

Its been a year but I am have not given up, this one will live again.

Time to kick the Mustang out of the garage and get to work...

Yet another year... enough is enough...

I stripped the luggage rack off of the back, pulled the rest of the air box out and washed her down. Pulled the coils and valve cover off and had a peak inside. Can guides and roller looked new and there was some writing on the cam gears, checked the valve clearances, looks like a few intake valves are tight.

A few years back when I got this bike to run, it sounded ok, but it smoked badly. I am going to pull the top end apart and have a look.

After I washed it down



Damn that's big friggin engine...



I also discovered that a previous owner had replaced the upper and lower engine mount bolts with mild steel all-thread to install those case guards. The all thread appears to be loosing the battle with gravity.... gonna need some engine mounts bolts too.

Super Low miles

Low miles, wow... is that one yours?

I mic'd the cams and they are stock (you never know). Called up Web Cams and had a quick chat. They can regrind these for me, can bump lift to .358 or .375 and increase duration. They have seen a few of these cams before.
Probably going to stay shim over bucket, but I will use some heavy duty valve springs. buckets, shims, and springs are the same as the 4 cylinder bikes.

Talk to Megacycle about hard welds. Their stuff is THE BEST you'll find anywhere.

Was going to call them as well Larry, they list a few grinds in the last catalogue. You suggested their mild cam grind id another discussion.

I spent the better part of the evening pulling the exhaust off this bike. The factory exhaust is in nice shape and probably worth hanging on to. It did not come off without a fight though.





Now I can get into the fun stuff and pull motor apart.

Got the head off tonight and started to investigate the engine.





looks like honing marks on the cylinders, bore measures standard 62mm

Stripped the head down







The valves are telling me the story now, looks like the exhaust side was run too tight at some point. A few of the valve seals are defiantly leaking. The guides may be ok, measure about .004-.005" play with the wiggle test.





Nothing a good valve job can't solve...

Pulled the cylinder bank off tonight, and took the pistons off.






There are signs that someone had the top end apart, pattern head gasket, honing marks in the cylinders and some tool marks on the timing shaft. Obviously they ignored the head, not sure what they did to the cylinders. The pistons look good, but the rings feel too soft, not the proper tension I would expect. The oil rings really don't feel right and they don't seem to expand like they should. I wonder if there isn't an aftermarket ring set or something going on. I will pull out the bore gauge and see what I have.

Pistons are a real bear to find for these bikes. JE can make them for a small fortune... but Weisco may have a solution for me. Jeff Saunders from Z1 steered me thier way and there could be a possible solution. I have no specifics yet but Weisco requires a minimum order of 12 pistons, that just 2 sets for the 1300. I can probably find another owner or 2 out there looking for parts and make this happen. Cool stuff!

The cylinder head got boxed up and shipped to Larry C.

Megacycle can do my cams, but I want to do just a bit more research before I send those out.

That bike is going to be sweet when you finish!

Quick measurement of the critical head areas show typical OEM specs. Intake throats are 83% of the valve diameter and exhaust are at 80%.

Ultra long, tiny port runners with small throats are probably not going to be impressive when I flow it. Carb synch tap bolts protrude into the roof of the runners, some more than others. Improvements are going to come from the area near the valve seat.

I will post you some numbers after the holiday weekend. Downloading a 296MB manual to get valve installed height specs and spring data.

Do you think they made the cam chain tunnel wide enough