TOPIC:

That's useing your head.I've never seen a home made dial indicator pointer before. Very good idea.
Now lets get messy with that lube.
Are u going to use 2 base gaskets?

yep,two .020s i do believe.

Thanks for posting the head pictures - especially the intake and exhaust ports. Was this the Cavanaugh "Street Port with Valve Job" that you mentioned? It looks like a pretty good bit of work went into the ports. Also, are those brass guides?

Thanks for the information.

Kirk

Yup both Larry C and Plummen put a size 10 in my ass regarding the lifter lube.... Ouch, boot in ass!

I had used clean motor oil as written in my shop manual but as explained by these 2, it will take some time before the oil pump/pressure build up gets the oil flowing to the head so use lifter lube! They basically called me a retard that I am...

I explained to them I will accomplish their friggin demands and I'll be going through the procedure one more time knowing all is torqued down and ready for final assembly...

After some wear in time, will be replacing the shims and shooting for .004" on intake and .004" - .006" on exhaust on the Valve to Shim measurements...

Due to MRE once again... I had to use two .20" base gaskets (Permatex Copper gasket spay between & outer gasket) to get the piston to cylinder decking at 0 degrees, same height! If required (Oil leaks)I will use one .034" base gasket. In caliper measuring the two gaskets together, came out .035".

Head work was accomplished by the man himself... Larry Cavanaugh!

The guides where purchased over at APE...
HIGH PERFORMANCE BRONZE VALVE GUIDES
APE valve guides are designed to take the abuse of today's modern high horsepower engines. They are made from special bronze alloy to resist wear and heat.

APE guides are precision machined with the bores finished to size. They are designed to fit lower in the head to clear high lift cams, and use APE seals or factory OEM seals. Sold in sets of 16

VGK900 Kawasaki 650 thru 1100 2 valve $67.32

kzzone.com/valves.html

hes gonna be the new photographer for APE now!

So what is the final piston to head clearance, or squish clearance with the 2 gaskets installed?

my head was already pounding after explaining deck heights and gasket thicknesses to him,i tried using simple terms like make sure the piston is a little below the top of hole! i can honestly say ive now tried talking someone through the math of degreeing cams while doing 75 in rush hour bumper to bumper traffic!cant wait to see my phone bill this month,but Dave is a really cool guy.next time i will drive to arizona and build his motor while he polishes a bunch of aluminum parts for me!

next time i will drive to arizona and build his motor while he polishes a bunch of aluminum parts for me!

Well you old bastard, why didn't you say that in the first place..... Would of saved me a whole lot of headaches.


After re-checking torques and valve clearances, going to order 240 for the intakes and swap the 235 over to the exhaust. This should drop me ~ .05mm specifications...

OMR

Beautiful work! Thanks for the all the pics and postings. I've got a '76 KZ and when I stop droolin', plan to freshen up the top end. Mine is a work in progress (aren't they all?) and all your tech info really helps. Thanks again and good luck although it doesn't look like you'll need it!
JB

Old Man Rock wrote:

next time i will drive to arizona and build his motor while he polishes a bunch of aluminum parts for me!

Well you old bastard, why didn't you say that in the first place..... Would of saved me a whole lot of headaches.


After re-checking torques and valve clearances, going to order 240 for the intakes and swap the 235 over to the exhaust. This should drop me ~ .05mm specifications...

OMR

wow,why didnt i think of that?

Due to MRE once again... I had to use two .20" base gaskets (Permatex Copper gasket spay between & outer gasket) to get the piston to cylinder decking at 0 degrees, same height!

Hey OMR; Can you elaborate on this statement? As you know, I've got the same kit sitting on the bench waiting. Did they mill the deck surface too much? Thanks from Lake Elsinore, ride safe, Steve

Did they mill the deck surface too much?

Yup.... I installed a new cylinder base gasket of OEM sizing .020".

Due to warpage of the head, Larry C had the head decking milled .003". Very minimal...

With cylinder, head, camshafts, timing components, tensioner etc... installed and all torqued down, I couldn't get a 360 rotation of the crankshaft (slowly, manual by hand mind you)... Something was bumping/hitting...

Stripped her part and noticed some extremely minimal circular (Valve) imprint on the piston dome. WTF!!!!

Got out the caliper and compared heights between original cylinder and new refurbished MRE cylinder... More than .010" milling of the new one... Go figure, MRE got me again....

Due to old age/warpage, oil build up etc... of the old original, measurements varied between .015" to .025" shorter on measurements around the new cylinder. With this in mind and since I had already squished one down and had another .020", two together gave me ~ .035" thickness.

Plummen provided some advice (Permatex Copper spray gasket maker) the two together for the .035" and try her out... No more bump!

Valve to Piston Heights:
Int: .030"
Exh: .060"

Schintz racing has .034" gaskets... If problems such as oil leaks arise then I will go with the one piece.

I had PM'd Tony about this to confirm his overstock kit wasn't screwed up, I felt really bad for I turned some of you onto these kits... Tony stated nope, all good in his kit.

What I've learned from this... with your new pistons installed, compress the cylinder down to 25 ft lbs via some stud sleeve's or such and insure the outer piston top edge is not above the cylinder decking.

Mine was about .010-.013" higher between all piston measurements OVER the cylinder deck. Henceforth, original .020" gasket + squished .015" gasket = .035" new base gasket.

Torqued her down and remeasure the piston to cylinder decking... All is good!

OMR

NOTE: Don't get whacked up on the dial readings, this was only to show the setups for discussions with Plummen & Larry C on the correct setup for measuring the piston edge to decking height differences. Thanks my brothers...