Things to do with the motor while its out

[Malc]

Want to get the heads sorted first and still got heaps to buy and pay for: welding the plastics, decals from Brooky, RC30 style single seat unit, paintwork, powder coating, carb bits, fork internals, rear shock, ignitech unit and exhaust system are all to pay for in the next month or so. Once the weather improves and the market picks up I'll have to sell the Hornet to fund this.

LOL! If you're quick, there's a space shuttle due up in November, it can take your budget with it!

Keep us abreast of the build - lots of high quality photos are always appreciated too!

[Mananon]

I missed GSX-R geny off on that list. That'll wait though. Waiting for a price back of G-force for mounting kit but he'll want a minimum order of 5 so if you know anyone who might want one...?
I'll post in wanted/for sale when I get the price.
I'm going to run a batch of those shims you kindly sent the drawing for (plus shims for the gear case and head cover) this week if I can get a free hour or two on the laser. I'll run a few sets in case anyone else ever wants any.
Not done much this week yet as I'm waiting for bits. Last night I painted the callipers and discs which is at least productive. Some stuff from David Silvers made it from the UK to NZ in 3 days and has now been crawling across North Island for over a week. Frustrating.
I'll post photos as I go Malc.
Cheers,
Duncan

[Mananon]

I've had permission to pass on some information I've had from Mike Norman at G-force.
Mike has been building race and development engines since the 80's and his results speak for themselves.
The following is essentially a cut and paste but I'll put a bit in here and there in [square brackets] for clarity as this relates to questions I've asked. As with all engine work, apply any of this at you're own risk!:

Lapping the valves. I don't trust the Haynes Manuals [for high performance]. But, as long as you didn't lap the piss out of them with course (280 or rougher) then you should be OK. I use Clover brand 320 grit for medium, and 500 for fine lapping. 0.8mm wide Intake seats and 1.0mm Exhaust seats work the best. However, in the engines that have made over 85hp, I still had the STOCK valve job with some minor rework of the port-to-seat blend. This is the hardest area of the ports to work with. But. it's where you get the power (or lose it if you mess up).

The quieting gears are definitely a controversy. Engineers generally put things on for reasons. In this case it's a two-fold reason. The first is noise to the customer. Honda is a street-bike company and they try and make the bikes pleasant to the customers. So, ridding the bike of a clattery noise is a positive. The second is also considered "noise" but from a vibration or frequency level. The back and forth clatter you hear causes a shock-wave through the valve train that can theoretically cause harmonics that can cause valve spring surge and float the valves - causing valves to collide with the pistons. That said, we don't run them and have no problems. They have shown to be worth between 2hp and 3hp on the dyno.

Generator kits [in relation to running road gear/lights for endurance etc]. The GSX-R kit supplied the same outupt that a GSX-R has to supply for a street bike with lights and a heavy-duty starter. So, there won't be any problem there. I don't know alot about Rick's kit. I saw pictures and it looks nice. I no longer have adaptor plates, but could make more with enough orders (I need a minimum of 5 [=US$185 + postage. Let me know if you want one]). Otherwise Rick's would do the job. There is also a kit from BDK that works really nice for a race bike, but I am not sure how it will work for street gear. We use that on one of our bikes with decent success.

Head milling: We have been very successful milling the head up to 0.030" (0.762mm). This is the maximum I would mill the heads, but would not do that much with higher compression pistons. Since that engine I applied the 0.030" on, I have been milling them 0.020" (0.508mm) with even better success. Whatever you decide, get your shim material first, measure it with a micrometer, then mill the heads to match this thickness. You need to shim 3 things up; 1) the gear towers; 2) the cam towers; 3) the valve cover bolts between the bolt and the grommet. Check your piston-to-valve clearance carefully if you are running high-compression pistons.

The chambers can use tons of improvement around the valve pocket shrouding. Remind me and I will send you some pics from my other computer. It's not too difficult if you have any porting experience. Just be sure not to hit the valve seats.

10mm Spark Plug [retrofitted to an NC30-35 head]: Engineers spend countless hours paining over how to squeeze the largest valves into the combustion chamber possible. The 2 main criteria are to fit within the cylinder size as well as to leave enough material between each valve seat and between the seats and the spark plug hole to prevent cracking. Honda went so far as to have a smaller spark plug than common to achieve this. If they could have fit a 10mm plug, they would have. Therefore, they chose the 8mm plugs [over the 10's in NC24's] to make this work.

Ports: We're currently making over 90hp with the stock heads with match porting (cleaned up casting flash and blending) on the Intakes ONLY. Leave the exhaust alone. Don't even do a valve job (lapping should be OK) on the exhaust side. I do radius the valve seats by hand, but that's very delicate/tedious work.

The next bits are from another email and I've just cut and pasted relevant info:
RVF pistons [are better than VFR]: They are a tad lighter and have more compression if you're sticking with stock pistons vs a performance aftermarket piston. They are worth about 3hp. But, leave them alone, with the exception of balancing them to one-another.

[For tuned engines]: Cryo is good. REM is better. Rem and Cryo are the best package you can do. Get EVERYTHING in the engine done. EVERYTHING! Contact your cryo/REM place and ask what they recommend.

[RVF v's VFR cams]: The RVF exhaust cam is slightly better. The RVF Intake is also slightly better on the very beginning and ending ramps. They help reduce valve bounce on/off the seat.

Good exhaust systems (I mentioned Tyga)]: Tyga exhaust is well worth the money. Any good pipe for these bikes will be well over $1500. The rest are cobbled together crap. If you wait about 6 months, we'll have our own pipe design ready to fabricate. We're shooting for an under-tail style that will require lots of mods to work. I will give you all the ins/outs of the carbs and airbox....when you're ready. [I'm not. Stay tuned]

My thanks to Mike for taking the time to answer my essay length emails in similar fashion.
My thanks also to Cam, Neo, Malc, Mexican, DM and the rest of you for all the help you have given so far. I'd be lost without it (but please don't quit yet, I'm not finished!).
I hope this information is of use to you.
Duncan,

[CMSMJ1]

great post Duncan..

Have you read Mike's blog?

http://mngforce.typepad.com/

It rules...

I have a GSXR genny...it is the shit

[Neosophist]

Awesome :-)

There was something else I wanted to share.

1989 ZXR400R F3 Manual

The above manual is for the 89 Kawasaki ZXR400 F3 bike, it made 76bhp with the F3 kit.

Obviously you dont' want to do this to a Honda V4.. but the manual goes into detail about how to turn a stock Kawa motor into F3 spec, including parts of the pistons, inlet etc to remove, profiling the bores etc.

Have a read over that, might give you an idea of things you can do to your V4 motor :-)

Especially around the conrod side of things :-)

[Drunkn Munky]

Nice post, great info from mike and yourself.

And a underseat full system on the way get ya orders in

[Cammo]

Some very good pointers there from the pros, especially regarding porting etc.

I'd be interested in seeing Mike's combustion chamber recommendations.

[Mananon]

@ CMS, yes I’ve read it. A very good read.
I’ll put a post in the For Sale/Wanted section shortly to see if we can get 5 ordered from Mike, 5 being the minimum to make it worthwhile.
As above, the price will be around US$180 to 185 plus postage. Possibly less for a bigger run.

@ Neo, thanks for that. Lots of info that’s transferable to 4 stroke tuning in there.
It made for an interesting read in bed last night. Sad but true. Lol

@ DM, if I’m not bankrupt or divorced by then I’ll be interested myself. At least we’ll know we’re getting something that’s been properly developed with heaps of dyno time and base knowledge behind it.

@ Cammo, as I’m sure you’ve seen, there are some good photos of ports on the G-force site. Below are the ones Mike attached and when put together with those on the site they are pretty informative.
More info to follow as and when Mike has time.
The carb stuff will be interesting too!

I’m currently searching for an RC30 owners manual and HRC kit manual so if anyone knows where I can download a copy I’d really appreciate a pointer. As with the ZXR manual there will be plenty of useful and transferable info, in this case relating to V4 tuning. Cam has already posted a few pages of his. Thanks Cam.

















Looks delicate and potential to real do damage here but I'm willing to give this a go.
I've currently sourced RVF cams, pistons and NC24 carbs.
DXF file for the shims is done but our SS316 0.5mm stock has been contaminated (someone grinding steel onto it) so a delay there until new stock comes in. I'll make 2 sets for me and 5 for Mike so far. I'm doing these at cost if anyone wants any. Happy to post anywhere which should be pretty cheap given that they won't weigh much.

Cheers,

[Drunkn Munky]

Count me in for a set

[Cammo]

Great pics. Trust Mike to have a sliced open nc30 head..


Be aware that you won't be able to use the nc30 airbox with nc24 carbs. The nc30 carb top bracket might fit onto the nc24 carbs (so that you can then use the nc30 airbox) but I can't quite remember if it's a direct fit.

You can download the rc30 kit manuals from here (much of the info in them is surprisingly relevant to nc30's): http://rc30.100webcustomers.com/rc30main.html


Count me in for 2 sets of shims please Duncan.