machine shop says cycle x 850 kit is to big for factory sleeves???

[Curtis87]

I have a cycle x 850 kit, 65.5mm right? My bike already has been bored to 65mm (836 kit) the guy from the shop called and said there would only be 40though left on the wall, he said hes never went less then 60though and he said it would be hard to hone once it's that thin. Isn't the cycle x kit made for factory sleeves? I told him it is supposed to work without putting new sleeves in...

 

[dirtdigger]

Yes these kits will work with the stock sleeves, they are meant to work with previous 836 bores. Bores normally are .060" with the 836 and they will work fine with the 850 pistons, there are thousands out there with no issues. Yes the wall is getting thin but it has not been an issue. Tell em to bore it or find a different machine shop. Honing puts no stress on the cylinder and wall thickness wont affect the honing process. A person can hone the inside of a pop can if you lighten up the spring in the hone. Sounds like he doesnt want the work, time to go elsewhere or send them to Ken at Cycle X he will do them and do it right. Many automotive machine shops dont do good work on motorcycle engines.

 

[amc49]

Piston makers generally do NOT go below .060"...........The reason why he doesn't want to do it is once you get that thin you have no idea if you will have the full .040" all the way around. Your variables begin to swallow you.

The honing not the issue there, it's the piston getting oddball wear on skirt from the cylinder giving way. Or bottom liner breakage, I've seen it on .060". Saying it's OK is another reason why I don't care for Cycle X. And backing off on hone quality to get around being too thin?, not on my stuff. When you lighten spring up you also are getting less RMS in the bore higher up, incorrect for ring break in. You can make a honed finished bore even .020" wall if you want but that doesn't mean it lasts and under good power.

I'd be turning it down too and don't care about all the thousands done like that. Getting out on the cheap and the problems turn up later. It's liner time in my view.

 

[dirtdigger]

Yes but it will be fine on a street motor, Kenny has sold thousands of these kits, they work fine.

 

[dirtdigger]

It'll work fine, just because everyone says you cant go below .060 doesnt mean it doesnt work. Ken does R&D on his stuff, if he sells it, it will work. I agree the sleeve is getting thin with less stability but it still works fine, been done for years. If it was all out racing I would suggest against it but on the street it will last, most people dont put thousands of miles per year on these things anymore.

And the remark about lessening the spring tension was not meant towards anything in an engine as mentioned above if you read it again. I said nothing about loosening up the hone on an engine cylinder.

 

[amc49]

Hey it's my personal view only anyway.

As always, yours and do what you will..................

 

[Curtis87]

Yes these kits will work with the stock sleeves, they are meant to work with previous 836 bores. Bores normally are .060" with the 836 and they will work fine with the 850 pistons, there are thousands out there with no issues. Yes the wall is getting thin but it has not been an issue. Tell em to bore it or find a different machine shop. Honing puts no stress on the cylinder and wall thickness wont affect the honing process. A person can hone the inside of a pop can if you lighten up the spring in the hone. Sounds like he doesnt want the work, time to go elsewhere or send them to Ken at Cycle X he will do them and do it right. Many automotive machine shops dont do good work on motorcycle engines.

This is a specialty motorcycle shop, he does all makes and models and machining, so he has seen a thing or two. Unfortunately being in Ontario Canada it's not so convenient for me to ship things to cycle x. He is going ahead with it and I told him the clearance should be 1.5 thou . He did give me attitude when I assured him everything I read and message board folks I asked said it was completely fine.
Ah well I guess we shall see!

 

[Curtis87]

Also thank you all for your input, it is all still great knowledge to file away regardless of the different opinions.

 

[amc49]

Hope they do good work for you................the last time I used a specialty bike motor shop here in Dallas the work when done was utter junk and had to be rigged over by me to even work at all. Lots of fantastic looking work in the shop swayed me to do it but they must have been training monkeys that week as the twin cylinder I had bored still had heavy cutter marks after the honing and one piston wouldn't fit in either hole, the other barely did. I started b-tching and got thrown out of the shop, they refused to refund anything. Real smartasses they were and me being one too certainly did not help me at all. I got out-smart-assed.

Never again, I ship across the US if I have to to get quality work and even scared to do that. Here boring of any sort is quickly becoming a lost art. I've lucked out with APE to buy piston kits in the past and got free boring doing it, the work was so close and perfect it was scary.

Some places are so funny in the way they approach business. They can build best of the best stuff but only if you go overboard paying them too much to get it. Most of the skills they save for their own stuff. Several pro race car shops around here were like that, like Reher-Morrison of national pro stock fame in the late '80s and early '90s, they built super expensive fat blocks that were well known for running ultra fast and then blowing up after 3-4 runs and at 25K each. And world class Blue Max Performance who used to field the championship winning Blue Max funny car. They worked on Cigarette boats too and our little hole-in-the-wall shop took several away from them when they charged several major car dealership owners way too much for crap result race work on the boats. We didn't have a clue about the boats yet the result from our shop ran so good then a bunch more of them wanted one just like the first one we worked on. It seemed the owners were racing each other from Florida to the Bahamas in them and that first guy totally blew the others away. That first one from Blue Max was a laugh, the twin 454s were so messed up in it, it was a piece of cake adding another 150 hp. to each one.