Out come the coated ProX pistons, so disappointed

[1976RD400C]

Did you say that the VP 110 from that can was clear? If it's leaded with TEL it should be very pink.

Tetraethyl lead is red. I don't think there's a way to not make it red. I've heard that even pump leaded super premium back in the day had enough that it would stain your hands. I know the leaded that was sold in the early 80's at a marina in Richmond where I used to fill my cars at would stain white polypropylene plastic gas containers pink. It was only 94 octane.

The tracks I raced at in California had banned leaded so most of the race gas in their pumps was unleaded blue Trick 115 or purple Cam 2 which I think was 112? The primary octane boosters in the unleaded race fuel are xylene and toluene which you can smell. since spec fuel is common at race tracks they use the color coding to verify you're using track fuel. I honestly don't have much experience with canned race gas.

IR8D8R

I was mistaken. After pouring some in a clear glass, it has a light purple color, but not like the Sunoco 110 which is dark purple. It's $90 for that 5 gal can, twice as much as the Sunoco I used to buy.

[AAAltered]

FYI, Cut from the VP110 Data Page:

Color = Purple

[Hawaii-Mike]

I love Wossners and have them in both of my H2 engines.  They are quiet compared to Wiseco pistons.  In other words, their skirts don't collapse and increase the piston/cylinder clearance.

I recently installed a set of cylinders setup by Ed Erlenbach around eight years ago.  I finally got to work on one of the RD projects.  The bike runs superbly with Pro-X.  I did not install the expander rings.

In the past year both Scott Clough and Gary Shumake ported cylinders for me.  Scott recommended TKRJ pistons.  He said the Wossners are not necessary for RD's.  Gary recommended Pro-X.  I asked Gary about Wossner since we used them on an H2 build. Gary said for my (street) use, cast pistons are fine.  He uses Wossner pistons on Kawasaki's because of the limited sizes available for high quality cast pistons.

If your Pro-X are the real thing, I think the problem is something else, such as clearance.  I'm also wondering if you used the expander rings.

[1976RD400C]

I think the only thing wrong was the rings didn't seat. Maybe finishing honing it with 280 grit stones was too fine. With the hot combustion gases getting by the rings, they overheated and lost their tension which made matters much worse real quick running it at full throttle. I'm still leery about coated piston because they lose .001" as soon as the coating comes off. The directions, with the Prox ones says, .0025" clearance (BTW there is a misprint on those Prox directions, it has a zero missing and is listed as .025" clearance). So, if you set it up at .0025" and you loose .001" right off the bat, now you are at .0035" clearance, just like Chuck's write up explained. After it was assembled and I pushed on the kickstarter, it has excellent compression, then the rings fried and it all went away.