Tearing down a fresh top end that you paid for probably wasn't the smartest thing.. Rings could take a long time to seat properly depending on the type of material.. Did you have any head work done??? Like maybe valve seals at the least..
Now that the heads are off take a picture of both intake and exhaust ports on both heads showing the valve guides and post up..
Honestly you probably tore it down too soon..
Excellent info guys.
yes I most likely will determine that I opened it prematurely necessary. Maybe I should have stopped at the rocker boxes because my original intent was to swap out the old stock “A” tappets I reused. I was thinking the new cam and these was not a good marriage. But… I just had to keep going. plus I’d never seen the inside of a not-yet-broken-in motor before!
so to answer some questions:
I did have new valve guide seals installed.
the crosshatching looks ok. It is difficult to get a good pic but here one anyway:
I think that annular line you can kind of see is the topmost travel of the oil rings.
I did not know about that nub on the bottom of (some) H-D pistons the ones I took off don’t have that:
I did, however out the KB pistons on properly - it is hard not too with the arrows and intake markings there. And while on the subject here’s a pic of the piston at TDC (basking in the sun for a minute last autumn, with James ):
The crown is “domed” in a shape to fit the stock head and the dishes are cut to allow the valves room. My valves look fine. To be frank I wasn’t too sure about that before even though the Indy said it would be fine.
BTW these pistons are specified to give an 9.5:1 CR… or so - I don’t know if that takes into account the .010 overbore.
I will say that the engine is vastly more responsive but also more ticky and clacketty <- that’s me showing off my English skills! But as off now I haven’t found anything wrong mechanically.
I will have a look at the rings when I put the base gaskets on.
As far as the original question about the oil goes - I thinking that it’s the rings not yet seated. Indy said the valve guides looked good. I’m still running the original seats.
I'm planning to use the stock sized head gasket again. I have fueling lifters coming and will get adjustable pushrods, just so I can have something in the valve train to adjust! I haven’t decided on quickee or not.
Yeah, Dano is kind of spun you off onto the weeds with the piston stuff when you already have good but different indicators of piston orientation, arrow point forward and witch cylinder.
As others have mentioned (HRFB), there could still be some oil after only 30 miles. Don't know if it's from ring seating but my suspicion is valve seals. If they are viton on a 0.420 seal seat, I'd replace with the standard Rowe type. Look at the intake valve stems through the port and if there is any oil running down the valve stem, you found the issue.
On concern that I'd have is that the bottom side of the piston already picked up some color. That kind of means the motor is running a little hot. One thing about KB cast pistons is that you need to back off on the timing. With the added CR and a cam with early intake close, you are also likely running too much timing.
Another thing is that I'm not too hot on James silicon beaded headgaskets. They may work for a while but after some miles they ooze out.. I had a set fail at 20000 miles on an 88 ci SnS evo motor and after 6000 on a hot 113 SnS evo they were starting to go bad.
Lose the James gaskets, they aren't what they used to be quality wise, Cometic or factory. These guy are already steering you right,no need for me to add my input.
Depending on cam in play, if going to more radial cam than say the ev13 that will be fine with the OEM one peice push rods, tend to go with adjustable push rods, since can dial in so more pre-load, to keep the lifter quieter. How much pre load, will see what the total deep that the piston can be pushed down in the lifter bodies before they bottom out, and go about half that distance for pre load set.
02-01-2024, 04:56 PM
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