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Finally got my new spring in. With the 3 lined up you can see the difference in heights. I don't know how people can run the FZR spring (Orange) in place of the R6 spring (Red). There would be far too much preload, and compressing the spring enough to get it on the shock is next to impossible because of the 700+lb spring rate. The hyperco spring (Blue) is the proper rate for the FZR and proper size for the R6 Shock. Should have just done it right the first time.
So after 3 solid days of wrenching she's back together with a nice undercut gearbox and fresh cylinder head. I had to hand lap some of the valve shims to get them all within spec. The best part of cylinder head work is drinking beer. I just need a link for the cam chain and I can put it back in the chassis. Then it's just a matter of bolting all the bits back on the bike and ride it. Fuck Yeah.
Yeah it looked like the previous owner was a fan of the no-lift-shift. The old gear dogs were worn really bad. You couldn't go past 3/4 throttle without it popping out of gear. Hopefully this solves that issue. The head was also your typical oil seeping 17 year old piece of mechanics, so I figured while this thing was all apart I should freshen that up as well.
Nice work! I really liked the shot of the Foster's gasket compound. That stuff is great....wouldn't build an engine without it or something very similar! My personal preference is the Newcastle stuff....has worked well for many years.
FZR 600 was my first bike, still own it, and enjoy the hell out of it!
Amazing build thread, great attention to detail... been riding mine too much and learning too much to do what you've done, but next winter I will be doing almost the same.
I currently have blue dots with the stock MC, and thats it for mod.
I want to do basically everything you have done, plus a few more fun mods
Finally got the missing cam chain link so I was able to finish the motor and get it in. I need some o-rings and misc. stuff now, but overall the work is done. Now it's just a matter of bolting everything back on.
Thanks bud, mechanically it's definitely the race theme, and I have a few more things to add. Next season I think will be all bodywork. I'd like to do it up in Tech 21 livery:
Ah the day started with so much promise. I got the entire bike back together, cleaned up a bunch of plumbing and wiring, and extracted a broken exhaust stud that I didn't know was in there until I went to put the headers on. Everything fell together perfectly and I held my breath as I cranked it over for the first time. Everything sounded great so after building some oil pressure I hooked up the fuel pump and coils and lit her up. She sputtered to life and the music coming out of the pipe gave me chills......until I saw water seeping out of the head gasket and milky frothy oil. What. The. Fuck. After countless hours and thousands of dollars, I now have to dump another couple hundred bucks into new gaskets and misc bits like oil, and pull the whole bloody mill out of the bike again and redo it. Lesson to be learned? OEM parts are best. Never again will I get aftermarket head gaskets.
Thanks man. Gaskets were back ordered but should be here by Friday. I'm certain it was all done right, but now I'm thinking that maybe the head is warped? I never checked the flatness as it only had 5K miles on it. However the head did come from e-bay, so who knows the history. It looked perfect with no signs of cracks or anything odd.
I've been riding the RD400 but I'm dying to get back on this after all the work I've put into it. She looks so good glistening in the spring sun.
So the saga continues. Pulled the motor and pulled the head....again. I'm incredibly efficient at it now, with it taking about an hour to get the motor out and head off. I've taken the head down to a chunk of aluminum and sent it off to the machinist to get it decked a couple thousandths. The flatness spec on it is .001", which I imagine it's not within. This coupled with the crappy gaskets I used is my guess at the source of the leaking. I am praying this is the home stretch for this project.
I got the cylinder head back from the machinist. Took 6 thou off and it looks great. On one of the cylinders it looks like something tagged the side of the chamber? There's a slight dent which I'm sure won't affect anything. Maybe whatever happened to this head in its past life caused it to be out of spec and my leaking issue. I got the new valve seals in as well. Proper Yamaha ones with a steel jacket and viton rubber. Lets get this done.
I think I've won......Got it all back together and fired up last night. No water seeping out the side of the motor. I took it around the block and it seems ok so far. The gears are VERY crisp in there undercut state. Shifting feels very nice. Tonight I need to get the front brake working and do a complete nut & bolt to make sure I didn't miss anything. Then the bodywork can go on and the fun can begin
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