I found out earlier this week that the problem was with my pistons and was the manufacturer's fault when the order was placed. So I was destined never to make it to Bonneville with this bike this year after all. Turns out when the pistons were ordered there was an error when the order was taken and the pistons were made with the wrong compression height. They were .187 off to be correct, basically I got stroker pistons. So now we have a new dilemma, no pistons! And it takes 5-6 weeks to get pistons made for this bore. After a lot of thinking I decided I was going to have the heads turned down. This didn't work out either because it is an interrupted cut and the cylinder couldn't be held in a manner that was safe enough to cut it without breaking the cylinder or the tooling. Back to square one, again!
After a call to Dan at NRHS it was decided that they were going to take the pistons out of one of the bikes they are working on and send them to me two day so I can have them by Friday in hopes of finishing the bike and making the next El Mirage race.
So a big thanks to Dan for making this right and getting me a set of pistons to use while my other set are be made.
This looks more like it......the piston actually comes to the top of the bore.
Testing for the squish band clearance, this lets me know how close the piston is coming to the head. I have domed pistons and the head has been cut to match the piston.
Squish is in between .0032 - .0035 depending on where the measurement was taken from. I checked six locations per piston. .0030 is the optimum clearance, however I feel good with the clearance I have and not running things so tight.
Here is the pile of measured pieces of solder that were not the desired clearance. The clearance is achieved by adding or taking away of base and head gaskets. When I started I was at about .005.
Also remember every time you take a measurement the head has to be put on and torqued down in sequence, kind of a pain in the ass!
Next job is to clearance the rocker boxes as the stock boxes will not accept the big valves.
Finished with one box
Tomorrow I will finish the rockers boxes and put in the push rods and bleed down the lifters so I can clay the motor to check piston to valve clearance. If all goes well maybe I can finally button the motor up for once.
