Engine re-assembley

So, yesterday evening I got the crankcase upper back on and also the cylinders. A couple of tips for the future. I used one of Libby's (old) paint brushes to apply the very fluid gasket cement on the crankcase lower - this worked really well - much cleaner than the last time I did it on the upper. Although must be sure to wipe away any traces of oil otherwise it doesn't stick well.

Before putting the crankcase on, I set about trying to remember which bolts went where on the crankcase :-

It took me some time, as I hadn't taken a photo coz I thought I knew it !

I thought I would make a readable picture to print out for the next time

 

Torqued up everything as per manual, and then set about the pistons and cylinders. The pistons had a bit of carbon build up which I tried scraping off, but seemed to be doing more damage with the scraping than leaving the carbon - so it got left! Pistons 3 and 4 show small signs of detonation, but I consider OK for the moment, I didn't fit new rings as they all seemed good!

The cylinders all went on without too much hassle, but again lack of photos slowed me down.

You need to fit the exhaust valve on cylinder 2 before fitting the cylinder - it is impossible afterwards, so I thought I would quickly identify which exhaust valve went where.... doh... The valve cables are number 1-4, which for a moment I confused with cylinder numbering..... After some thought and a lot of looking around in the manul etc. I found the following to be true :-

The cables 1 & 2 are the short ones and connect to cylinder 4
The cables 3 & 4 are the long ones that connect to cylinder 2
The pulley with the stop on it goes on cylinder 4
You need to install the valve in cylinder 2 before installing the cylinder (or you have to move the engine to get it in).

The little ridges in the valves go on the piston side.

Plus the rear pulley should have the "stop" protrusion on it - part 16 on the below diagram :

And the cover of the rear pulley should have the small angle covering the "stop" protrusion.
To make things easy all the alignment marks on the pulleys and on the servo motor should be aligned, then you know all the valves are open and they should be setup like this.

Unfortunately I can not get further because my tuner didn't keep the little O'rings on the cylinder bolts, so I had to order more from Suzuki, I will get them at the end of the week along with the Carbon rotary valves, which have now been sent - thanks Jerome!

Jobs still to be done :-
1/. Fabricate another wedge
2/. Check carbon valve clearance and adjust with smaller gaskets as necessary (a big 0.2 mms clearance is necessary)

Off to a wedding tomorrow, more news next week.

Engine Work done

Went back to Nantes on Friday to pickup my crankcase and other bits. The guy seems to have done a pretty good job at opening the inlet ports they are all very smooth, and fit the inner disk covers nicely, he also cleaned up and mated the cylinders to the crankcase which was good - all round I am pretty pleased although it was more expensive than I had planned!

You can see in the photos the new rotary disk inners and outers (Maranello Engineering), which look great quality, but Franco couldn't get the carbon disks to my guy in time, so I came away without the carbon rotary disks which Jerome will send me after having cut them to keep the same valve timing as Mark Dent had originally tuned in on the steel ones.

I have to alter the wedge (I bought from Performance Fabrications) because firstly it no longer fits the bolt to bolt width of the new covers, but also the inlet port doesn't line up very well - I will try to make one on my milling machine !

So I now have to URGENTLY get everything together as I only have a few days working at it before our holiday in the UK, and then in the South of France for a few days, in order to be ready for track day time at Ledenon on the 10/11th August.