Bonneville Dreamer

[KLZE Porsche]

i am kinda surprised you would even mention sanding a cam journal... You should only have bearing journals ground + polished.

If you have an expensive cam such as a regrind or aftermarket that is damaged they can do some processes to rebuild the worn journal, but it is not cheap.

I should have said "the only inexpensive way" because welding to cast iron to build it up and then cutting it back down to size might be more money than I even make in an entire month.

And -yes you can sand and polish a cam journal. I have done it many times before. But you cannot remove too much or your clearances grow too large.

[marcdh]

Not to detract from an interesting thread but hopefully to add to it:
I had a cam "metal sprayed" where it was damaged by previous owner/shipping. It's still fine today, cost £58:

[Mr.Jason]

I am hoping you dont mean sand by hand, but rather sand on some sort of device that spins the cam while sanding.


marcdh

that doesn't look polished enough yet

[KLZE Porsche]

I am hoping you dont mean sand by hand, but rather sand on some sort of device that spins the cam while sanding.


marcdh

that doesn't look polished enough yet

Nope! I hand sand them with specially prepared strips of W-O-D. Actually -I believe the technique is called "lapping".

[KLZE Porsche]

I figured I would post up a little of something because I was getting bored of the same ole, same ole and nothing good to read. Perhaps this will get someone started posting up something with what they have done.

The latest on the BD project (with not much to work with until the Talon project is done) is that I messed around a little with attempting to replace the 6mm KL guides with 5mm guides. I tried several approaches such as turning my own guide to my own specifications and found it to be extremely time consuming. The first guide took me more than 3 hours to complete. You have to set up the tooling in the lathe too many times to get the multi-faceted cuts. And then the final O.D. press fit is very hard to hit on mark at +.001/minus .000. Anybody who operates a manual lathe knows how hard it is to hit that mark.

Well anyway -since the first took 3 hours and when I multiplied that times 24 -I came to the realization that I don't have the time for that crap. So I came up with the idea of turning a sleeve to press on the guide and then press into the head. It seemed like a good alternative. -At least until the first attempt failed miserably. With the O.D. of the 5mm guide and the I.D. of the KL bore -this made for a bit thin of a wall on the sleeve. All went well until I started to press the sleeved guide into the head and the sleeve decided to crumple!

So I went back to the drawing board again. I decided to make a thicker walled sleeve and ream the head bore to a larger size. This again sounded like a good idea until I tried it. I got it all done and the reamer was not much larger than the original KL bore. So I figured I would just punch it through and press on. It reamed OK and then I pressed the sleeved guide and it pressed well. I slipped a valve in and noticed that there was about 1/16th inch gap on one side of the valve. I had thought the reamer would follow the original bore with no runnout -shame on me for thinking so stupidly and for using one of my pristine KL heads for the experiment when I had cut sections of head sitting below my work bench that I could have used instead.

Well -back to the drawing board again and this time I decided there was no way of avoiding making my own guides. I had priced having a CNC machine shop make them from my design and the price was as if they were making them from gold for me. So I made a few changes to the guide design to eliminate a few tooling changes (less facets) and came up with a good working design that took much less time to make. I whipped out a bunch of them and by the time I had done 10 or so -I had cut my time down to about 1 hour on each. (not too bad -but still very time consuming). But it took me about 20 attempts to turn out 12 guides (because of that last turn to +.001/-.000. That last little .001 makes all of the difference in the world for a correct press-fit.

The result is that I now have one head complete and ready for monster porting work. I have the stainless valves, double valve springs, Ti retainers, locks, spacers, spring seats and seals. I just need to do the porting work. Then when I get a little more free time -I will be turning out the other 12 guides for the other head. I will post up photos later. I have been taking lots of photos but not publishing them because I do not have the time to crop and adjust as neccessary. I promise that I will later on.

P.S. One positive point for making my own guides vs trying to do some sleeves -is that I spin the shape of them on a 5mm mandrel on the lathe. This assures that they have a concentric bore (closer to OEM) than I can obtain by running a reamer through the head. I test fit a valve in the head in all the guides -and all are within close enough tollerance that a light touching of the valve seats should make for a good valve job. I can't get as close to concentric with the sleeving method because -first of all -I cannot guarantee the stem bore is concentric to what I am turning on the outside. And secondly -without a very precise head jig for boring the guide bores -there definitely is no accuracy in runnout! (As tested to be true at the expense of a good head)

[MSDKLZE]

Hmm... Mirror polished combustion chambers

[KLZE Porsche]

Hmm... Mirror polished combustion chambers

Not quite yet! But I do intend to do so. I will dedicate 4 valves to die just for that purpose alone. They will be dedicated to protecting the valve seats. Here are a couple of guide and head pics:

[Whitefinish]

Every time I see a post of yours I can really feel your ambition and engagement to this project !!

Really good, keep it up.
I enjoy reading and learning about it

[93silverGT]

I don't understand a word of what he says but I read every one just because I'm intrigued by his determination and skill.

[KLZE Porsche]

I don't understand a word of what he says but I read every one just because I'm intrigued by his determination and skill.

I am sorry. I sometimes get to rambling and I don't take into account -those who do not understand at the same level as myself. I work around engineers all day long and so I get in the habit of doing that.

The scope of this particular bit about the project (valve guides) is to change people's way of thinking.

The typical person wanting to increase performance says "I want bigger valves in my heads" not knowing all the details of what this means. Many just tend to think that bigger is better. I.E. Bigger valves = more power, more fuel = more power, bigger throttle body = more power etc. But there are many many variables that the average person is not aware of.

Just adding more fuel does not = more power because you stray away from the optimal fuel/air ratio (where most power is made). Putting a bigger throttle body does not = more power if you have not done other mods to preserve the volumetric efficiency of your intake flow. And putting larger valves into your engine can actually decrease your performance if you do not know what you are doing.

Typically when hot rodders talk about putting larger valves in their heads (in big v8s where there is plenty of room to install larger valves) -they are also talking about having machine work done to the head to install larger valve seats and possibly doing some de-shrouding in the chamber (if needed). To make efficient use of larger valves -you must either install larger valve seats and have associated port work done to increase flow through the valve pocket -or they would do the porting work and open up the existing valve seats at the inner most diameter.

For a KL engine -neither option is very good. If you open up the already thin valve seats -you chance dropping the valve seats -which can result in nearly the same damage as dropping valves. Also -narrowing the thickness of the valve seats can reduce your area to work with for obtaining multi-angle valve jobs. This method should only be used for short-run racing engines -where the life expectancy is not much at all.

The second method -would be to install larger valve seats -which is highly not recommended for KL heads. First of all -there is very little room between the existing valves and this could lead to head cracks and secondly because -a race team tried installing larger valve seats in KL heads and had problems with them moving (and dropping) when the head got hot. It was mostly fail. This was a F1 racing team that was experimenting with our KL motor. I listen when F1 talks.

So larger valves for KL heads is not recommended overall. It has been done in many builds as I have seen. But those people should ask their machinists -how they were able to increase the air flow through the valve seats to effectively use the larger valves. Larger valves = larger obstruction to incoming air/fuel mix. This equals lesser performance. Also -larger valves = increased valve shrouding. They should ask the machinists how they deshrouded the chambers to effectively use the larger valves. There is not a lot of de-shrouding that can be done in a KL chamber. Also -quench area of a chamber is extremely important for flame/combustion propigation. deshrouding begins to alter the quench area in a KL head since there is not much to work with in the first place.

The solution to all of these problems is smaller valve stems. You get the same effect (or better) of the larger valves in flow (if all neccessary machine work was done for the larger valves) but without all of the restrictions that you have to deal with for larger valves. So I have been working on installing 5mm stem valves in this engine to replace the 6mm KL stem valves. This will increase my flow significantly without all of the larger valve headaches. And then if I really wanted to go overboard -I could always install the smaller stem valves with oversized tulips (and all associated machining headaches) to get even more. But for now -I am just going to stick with smaller stems and some healthy port work.

When I have these heads done -I will test them and show some things that have never been done before. Keep this in mind : The Hayabusa top end is extremely similar to our KL top end. What have KL motors made for max N/A hp? Somewhere near 300 hp? From what - 2.5L?

Hayabusa bikes are 1.3L and crank out 200 N/A hp. That is just bearly over half of our 2.5L. so if you double that for a 2.6L then why are we not making 400 N/A hp from a 2.6L KL? It is all in the heads! That is why I engage myself with such determination on these heads. We have a few lessons to be learned from Motorcycle and F1 engines.

[Gt-Addict]

x2 on what was said on top! I myself also don't understand almost anything of what this guy usually says ahaha....But I still take some time out of my day and read his threads.
I be telling some of my friends that own these cars...dude, did you know that there is someone that owns a PGT, its an engineer and it's custom building a bad ass PGT!..they be like no way dude, I then be like yes way dude!!! custom transmission,motor everything!
Keep up the good work man, Im sure soon, we will see the finish product and its going to be AMAZING!!!!!! possibly could be the face of probetalk perhaps? hehe....

[KLZE Porsche]

x2 on what was said on top! I myself also don't understand almost anything of what this guy usually says ahaha.....

I promise that I will work on speaking in simpler terms. I have never been the greatest public speaker -nor the most organized presenter.

[JKpgt96]

Mike, if I make a trip down there in the next while I will have to bring my heads with and see what you think of the work I had done on them..but you are the main reason I left the stock size valves in there, as I remember talking about this with you some time ago..

[KLZE Porsche]

Mike, if I make a trip down there in the next while I will have to bring my heads with and see what you think of the work I had done on them..but you are the main reason I left the stock size valves in there, as I remember talking about this with you some time ago..

Did you get some monster porting work done?

[JKpgt96]

I had some porting done...yes. It started with a DE gasket match and then the work/porting began, with close attention to the velocity through the head as well as flow. The heads got put on a 28in bench several times as they began porting and shaping to make sure they were still picking up flow without hurting the velocity..I am excited to see how they perform..I have flow numbers for them, but I am curious to see how the stock DE head flowed before I really care to share my flow numbers..granted I didn't do the work, just gave them pointers initially..