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Project The Yamaha R4 (Glacially Slow Project)

Discussion in 'Other Projects - Other Bikes (non 250's)' started by maelstrom, Dec 20, 2014.

  1. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Mornin gents. OMG a real live 660 owner. Quick hold him down so we get some bloody dimensions out of him. The entire planet of 600 conversions into 400 engines never measure a god damn thing. It is always, "the 600 rods are 3mm longer than the other rods', 'the other rods are 2mm shorter than these rods' and you will never find a length actually mentioned. :)

    All joking aside Mr @660, we very pleased to make your acquaintance, and we appreciate your generous offer. We being Mr Ruckusman & myself. Though the cost of shipping anything from Canada would scare the bejeesus out of even a hardened Aus Post shipper.

    Now as for the New Project Binky, and no it will not be a Thai drag bike, but thanks for the great suggestion @kiffsta, I bought an FZR 250 cylinder yesterday for the princely sum of 158 JPY ($1.90 AUD) from Jauce.com. Now I know what you're thinking, "Who cares about that, why did you say 'an FZR' and not 'a FZR'". Well the letter "F" is pronounced "eff", and it is the vowel sound that determines whether or not you use 'an' or 'a' not the spelling. Anyway back to the topic, thanks to the encouragement of @ruckusman this Fizzer Cylinder will be used for a medical experiment. If all goes well it will then be stored in the hope chest until I can find an FZR250 to fit it to.

    Cylinder_01.jpg

    As for the poor R4, I am ........... waiting.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 21, 2021
  2. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    I am definitely headed in that direction - no time for a sanity check, I'm in the process of going nuts
     
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  3. kiffsta

    kiffsta Senior Member

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    Eff zed arrrrrrr.
    Tis a pirate bike to be sure
     
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  4. 660

    660 Active Member

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    Good morning Gents, Last night I read a post on Facebook / Yamaha FZR 400 Owners. A fellow wants to sell a complete 3tj head with some spares. Just in case Mr Green is interested.
     
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  5. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Thanks Mr 660, I am living in hope that I can get away with new valves and that, if worse comes to worse, those nice Polish people will not charge too much to replace some seats. Otherwise if it comes to new cylinder heads then most likely the R5 it will be.
     
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  6. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Well the AHL valves arrived and they are the wrong ones. Earlier model with 4.5mm stems vs 4.0 needed for my late model. Guess I'm back to waiting again.
     
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  7. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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  8. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    I tried to get some aluminium screws for my headlight mount since everything else is made of titanium and carbon, the 10 screws seem overly heavy. Anyway, couldn't get them in the length I needed without paying the planet, so I just drilled out the stainless versions, and fitted aluminium nuts.
    DrilledHoles.jpg
    Now that the headlight mount should be in place for the final time I mounted one of my fuse/relay boxes. This one will hold the headlight relays. Like in Project Binky, (outstanding wiring work). I have always followed the same procedure, mount all your components and then wire in situ. These waterproof boxes have a mounting clip that secures the clear cover to the chassis, and the plug unclips for access. This cover is the tall version to suit the relays. The fuse version is much shorter.
    Wiring_01_small.jpg Wiring_01_zoom.jpg
     
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    Last edited: Apr 4, 2021
  9. 660

    660 Active Member

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    I just wanted to share this similar build. It is equally inspirational. Check out this link, go to "project bikes" then to "restorations & projects for sale".

    http://www.speedwerks.com/
     
  10. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Vacuum Testing Valve Seats
    You may have seen this test. Seems to be standard procedure as used by Serdi, Mira and other valve seat reconditioning machine manufacturers. The Mira, Treco and PEG pull a maximum of 750, 800 and 850 mbar respectively. The Mira and PEG show the acceptable test result as 550 -> 750 mbar (16 -> 22 inHg).

    So I used my single stage vac pump to run through this. I have lapped my valves using diamond paste. Mostly 1500 & 2000 grit. Some of my inlets I started with 800 as some numpty has been there before and used that horrible gravel ****.
    VacPumpSmall.jpg

    First thing is to establish what amount of vacuum I have, so just stick my finger over the hole.
    MaxVacSmall.jpg

    That is 28.5 inHg or 965 mbar.
    Now for some tests.
    VacTestSmall.jpg

    They are all basically like this, and you might thing that is excellent, but we are missing something here. The vacuum valve is open, so the pump is continuing to draw. So long as it can pull faster than those sneaky air molecules are getting past the valve seats, it will show the same reading. This is what I see as a major flaw in using this technique. I saw some Youtube videos of this test being performed - not impressed. The "close enough is good enough" thinking might be fine for your 350ci V8, but on our small capacity engines, particularly 250cc fours, the combustion chamber volume is ridiculously tiny (5.6cc for FZR250) and compression is everything.

    Now I have not made a video of this, but I will do the entire box and dice of cylinder head recon when I do my Honda and post it up to my new YouTube channel. Anyway what happens when I close the vacuum valve? Unbelievably, some cylinders just sit there and the rest slowly leak down, which is what I expected they would all do. The next step will be to do a test to make sure that it is the valve seats leaking and not the valve guide seals. Then I will try a bit more lapping and see if I can get them all perfect. By the way, the valve springs are installed. I did test one without springs and got the same result. More on that in the next installment.

    A long time between posts coz life gets in the way.
    Cheers
    Blair
     
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    Last edited: Sep 21, 2021
  11. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Hi all,
    I made the video, Part 1, for the vacuum testing and uploaded it to my new YouTube channel.

    Cheers
    Blair
     
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    Last edited: Nov 7, 2021
  12. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    First like - not likely a mistake you will mak, but I was using a dual stage version of much the same pump for surfboards - now to prevent crushing the foam it needed a bleeder which meant the pump spun full speed the whole time - that trashed the hub that the internal vanes went through, and snapped one of the vanes also, in short order.

    Looking forward to the next instalment as I've got a wee pump that likely suits
     
  13. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Final video for the vacuum tester.
     
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  14. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    Audio sorted - makes a HUGE difference, excellent work!
     
  15. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    I just clicked on this, thought I won't watch someone working on an old watch for 52 minutes, how wrong I was



    Look how many hits he has, it's well over a million...
     
  16. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Mine are the opposite of a slick production :)
    The professional YouTubers would have made an entire video about just making the box yada yada. I just don't have time to do squat, so not really an option. Anyway, I just wanted to show that there are a lot of numpties doing stupid crap online and there is a reason why the commercial products are made with low capacity pumps.
    I was surprised by the gasoline leak test. I have actually cut quite a bit of time out of that section, so it actually took about 4 times as long for the leak to show.
    I am thinking if I should set the tripod up and make a video of lapping the valves. A lot of the ones I have seen online use gravel and are disgusting.
     
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  17. thebeefsalad

    thebeefsalad Well-Known Member

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    Please do! I know a few things, but there's plenty to be learned.
     
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  18. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    Dodgy Brothers R Us.
    You might remember this problem.
    Dodgy_One.jpg

    Unfortunately it didn't vanish into the ether, so I just sanded down the top of the collar to make sure there is no chance of the unthinkable happening.
    Dodgy_Two.jpg
    In a perfect world I would put a new seat in. I don't live in that world and no, there is no one in Thailand that I would trust to do it, and no, I cannot do it with an electric drill and paddle pop sticks.
     
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  19. maelstrom

    maelstrom LiteTek Staff Member Premium Member 250cc Vendor Contributing Member

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    It got this good. If you do a bit of cylinder head work you owe it to yourself to make/buy one of these.
     
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  20. ruckusman

    ruckusman White Mans Magic Master Premium Member Dirty Wheel Club

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    "That's as good as it gets"
    It's not often that can be said of anything - great work!
     

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