I was helping a kid ive known for 11? years with his R5/RD hybrid last weekend, had a weird misfire on the RH cyl. He brought it over last weekend, this was after he had swapped points, coils, etc, verified charging system, etc..
so upon looking at it, (stock RD350 motor in 72 R5) , everything checked out except the grey wire to the points had a slight break in it. (found with meter and wigling wire, off bike) he had the alternator off the bike as his dad kept trying to 'help'. :whistle: I found the break, stripped the wire back, soldered on a connection with the right 'flag' connector, put the alternator back on, tidied everything up. and it was solved. or so we thought.
It mis fired on the 2nd test ride. He had to run, so we loaded bike and i told him id swing by look at it later in the week.
he was looking at the points the next night, and when he turned the key on, noticed a faint glow from the points, or near them.
turns out, one of the single loose strands of the grey wire that had fallen after i stripped it it had fallen onto the points or alternator cover, and when the key was ON, it lit it up like a filament between the back of the points arm and alternator housing, but only showed up after 2 test rides. he pulled it out with tweezers and viola, good to go.
Lesson of the story, always look first before digging in TOO deep. Im impressed he found it. :patriot:
Quote from: m in sc on June 24, 2019, 02:18:43 PM
Lesson of the story, always look first before digging in TOO deep.
Or just clean up after yourself :dawg:
Just kidding, cool story 8)
Quote from: Frank B on June 24, 2019, 07:13:07 PM
Quote from: m in sc on June 24, 2019, 02:18:43 PM
Lesson of the story, always look first before digging in TOO deep.
Or just clean up after yourself :dawg:
Just kidding, cool story 8)
ha. true. i just found it funny it was acting like a bulb filament. :toot:
That is a very funny story, talk about some head scratching :umm:
Makes me feel validated in getting that Vape ignition for my bike. On one hand it was a lot of money at once but on the other it took a whole lot of guess work out of the running good factor and since I really had no one with any experience around to call upon it just seemed to make sense. Points timing is amazing to me when you consider all the little sub assemblies making the generator. Everything has to be in just right working order. Never mind how good any of the electronics works if it's nearly a half century old.
that was his next option, to him. However, this is a stock piped motor. nothing too crazy, charging system is tip top, and the coils & were new. No reason for how he uses the bike to spend the money(hes 25, he doesnt have a lot). It runs really, really strong, and im a HUGE proponent for electronic ignitions.
It has the vitos cylinder on it, im surprised how well they work. that is a very wheelie prone bike, stock sprockets too. Sometimes they just go together right. .. as long as you don't directly SHORT OUT the points. :bang: :dawg:
The cylinders sold by VITO's are in some ways a better design than stock OEM. The main transfers are much cleaner and miss that huge bulge which we have to grind or mill out. The only downside I have seen is that the ports in the liners are not a perfect match to the cast aluminum.
And the die casting is so much cleaner than OEM cast parts, it's not funny.
Cleaning up that mismatch takes a little time but not a lot.
What I don't know is whether the liner is cast in place like OEM or pressed in after the aluminum muff is machined and painted.
these looked pretty lined up, i was there when he got them, i was actually shocked how good they were. (they are a 'newer' set). def worth a consideration for sure in the future, from me. :twocents:
Mark, Vito's is actually about 45 minutes from me in Michigan. I've never stopped by to see if they have a showroom or anything but it is funny knowing they aren't that far away.
I actually ordered my vito's crank through HVC because Vito's showed they were Out of stock. Brad at HVC said they stock suppliers first and that hvc was near the top of their list. So, in a roundabout way I got my crank from Nebraska after it was shipped from Michigan. Only to be shipped back here. Or well at least that's what I envisioned happening in my head.
My how the world works.
What's the story on those Vito's RD350 cylinders? It seems they offered em about four years ago and gave up?
I don't know. I heard they were the Indian cylinders that they ported etc. Unsure on the validity of that though. The issue with Indian cylinders is how they pressed the sleeves in. From the bottom.
They are made in Asia and are available - or were - on the internet. The VITO's story I heard was that they bought them in bulk and sorted through to get the best ones to sell.
I have had two sets. The barrel/liner mismatch is slightly better on some than others. The liner always seems to hang into the exhaust and inlet ports and needs to be cleaned up.
The casting is superb though.
That's interesting. I think even HVC Cycles tried to sell these as well however I think they may have went the extra mile to sort out those above described short comings then at some point I notice they stopped offering em. Probably not worth the effort and kinda expensive.
Is it possible to re sleeve RD cylinders? Like breathe a new life to cylinders that are on their max bore?
Quote from: RDryan on June 26, 2019, 09:17:08 PM
That's interesting. I think even HVC Cycles tried to sell these as well however I think they may have went the extra mile to sort out those above described short comings then at some point I notice they stopped offering em. Probably not worth the effort and kinda expensive.
Is it possible to re sleeve RD cylinders? Like breathe a new life to cylinders that are on their max bore?
RDryan,
No. You cannot resleeve them as they are cast in and really weird the way Yamaha did it with the RD series.
(well you can... but the aftermarket sleeves choke off the power from smaller transfers)
R5's were conventional and removable.
Don't sweat the overbores, just have them nikasiled at 65.50mm or if you have thick ones @66mm.
I'll try to remember to take a pics of a split in half RD400 cylinder to show you why.
Chuck
Quote from: SUPERTUNE on June 26, 2019, 09:44:43 PM
Quote from: RDryan on June 26, 2019, 09:17:08 PM
That's interesting. I think even HVC Cycles tried to sell these as well however I think they may have went the extra mile to sort out those above described short comings then at some point I notice they stopped offering em. Probably not worth the effort and kinda expensive.
Is it possible to re sleeve RD cylinders? Like breathe a new life to cylinders that are on their max bore?
RDryan,
No. You cannot resleeve them as they are cast in and really weird the way Yamaha did it with the RD series.
(well you can... but the aftermarket sleeves choke off the power from smaller transfers)
R5's were conventional and removable.
Don't sweat the overbores, just have them nikasiled at 65.50mm or if you have thick ones @66mm.
I'll try to remember to take a pics of a split in half RD400 cylinder to show you why.
Chuck
Chuck, I was going to ask you about coating them as my friend reminded me... his '01 Arctic Cat ZR800 has Nikasil bores. Millenium Tech in Wisconsin charges like 400 a hole for that coating. It kinda makes me glad Ski Doo stuck with standard steel sleeves in the 670 I have :D. Which I may be sending some snowmobile cylinders down to you this Fall... If you'll have 'em considering snows a foreign commodity in FL lol.
Quote from: SUPERTUNE on June 26, 2019, 09:44:43 PM
Quote from: RDryan on June 26, 2019, 09:17:08 PM
That's interesting. I think even HVC Cycles tried to sell these as well however I think they may have went the extra mile to sort out those above described short comings then at some point I notice they stopped offering em. Probably not worth the effort and kinda expensive.
Is it possible to re sleeve RD cylinders? Like breathe a new life to cylinders that are on their max bore?
RDryan,
No. You cannot resleeve them as they are cast in and really weird the way Yamaha did it with the RD series.
(well you can... but the aftermarket sleeves choke off the power from smaller transfers)
R5's were conventional and removable.
Don't sweat the overbores, just have them nikasiled at 65.50mm or if you have thick ones @66mm.
I'll try to remember to take a pics of a split in half RD400 cylinder to show you why.
Chuck
That's good to know. At some point I think I may like to convert my 250 into a 350. As of now my 250 is on the 2nd overbore. I have no real reason to convert other than out of curiosity I guess, just wanting more power. :haw: But I always looked at those buy it now auctions on Ebay for the Indian RD350 cylinder kits and wondered what the deal was.
I cut a set of R5 cylinders apart and that set had cast in liners. Suzuki did the same thing by casting a rib around the liner to prevent it from moving. IIRC an RD or R5 liner can be bored out but you have to go much further than you would with say a Honda with press in sleeves.
http://erlenbachracing.co/rd-rz%20cylinders.htm It's not easy to see but there's a "rib" close to the top that locates the liner if you look closely.
But to put in a new liner requires that suck a liner is available with ports already cut or at least roughed out. You could always machine the liner out far enough, port the transfers and then press in a thick wall aluminum liner and then have that bored, plated and honed. Not sure that's within my budget though.
The Chinese cylinders are still available in MOQ of 100-200 pieces. It's possible that VITO's bough a stack and are not buying another batch. The market can't be too large. For some reason I have two sets. One lightly used (v. low miles) and the other set is new and will be bored and ported and then raced.