Piston discoloration question.........Mr Viper??

well it looks like you already got your answer...lol

I would indeed run a 280-320 grit 3 stone up and down the cylinders about 8-10 times with very light oil to put a good crosshatch on the cylinders, this will allow your rings the best chance to properly seal up good. I hone them all the time, you wont have any problems.
 

Oh BTW........what is the A on one side and the B on the other side of the stock head gasket for? Does is matter?
 
Just an update on this post I started: I did re-ring the Viper, had the cylinders honed at my dealer and broke it in with Yamalube. I also installed a new Cobra fully clipped track and geared down one tooth from stock. Even with all the snow we have had here I have been really busy with work and haven't rode much. Today I went down home and rode with my dad on his 74th B-day and this thing is back to running GREAT!! I have posted in the past how fast my ole man's stock Viper is and I am running heads up with him. Even up top which I figured would be impossible with the Cobra track. Maybe gearing down helped with this track. In short burst I was shooting up to 110 on the speedo and max speed on GPS in these short burst on GPS were 103 today. I never got a real long WOT run but I was really pleased at how it's running with 7800 miles on it. The combination of the Cobra track and the SLP Powder pros makes this a really fun sled corner to corner and also in the deep stuff.

For curiousity next time I will do a compression test to see where it is at now. I only have 120 miles on the new rings. Another note: I get a TON of Pm's about clutching. I have over 7000 miles on the Heavy Hitters I am running. I have had ZERO problems or wear on them. The bushings still look perfect. No roller wear to speak of. My clutches run super cool. I ran the original belt to 5000 miles and only changed it JUST BECAUSE. I put that on my spare clip and I now have 2800 on the second belt.......no issues.....no blown belts.
 
Mac said:
I use the ball hones to de-glaze nikasil cylinders too. Just be sure to order the stones with Silicon Carbide for Nikasil. The hones are also available in Aluminum Oxide for iron and steel that will not cut Nikasil.
Look on ebay. If you dont see the diameter hone you need contact the vendor anyway and usually they will have it.

Heres a quote from a BMW website talking abot honing nikasil with silicon carbide stones, this is on a cyl without ports to catch like a 2 stroke.
This guy has 30 yrs experience engine building

HONING, in general: Honing is always done on the old iron cylinders, but NOT necessarily on the Nikasil/Galnikal cylinders. The crosshatch pattern is very important for ring wear, ring rotation, and even piston groove wear. The accepted proper angle is about 28°. If the angle is too shallow, the rings will rotate too slowly, the engine will use oil, the rings might skate. If the angle is too steep, then starts can be rather dry, with fast ring wear and piston wear.

If you must, or want to, hone a Nikasil/Galnikal cylinder, use ONLY the "Brush Flex-Hone" which is also called a Ball Hone. WWW.brushresearch.com
Use ONLY the aluminum oxide 240 hone. Do NOT use the silicon carbide hone 320, as there can be a potential problem with that fast cutting hone. The purpose of the honing on Nikasil/Galnikal is simply to deglaze and clean up. I simply use 3M green pads, soap and water....I don't hone Nikasil.
 
Also another couple thing I want to add, first off a scotchbrite pad will do the same as a ball hone. You will not, nor do you want to remove any material from a nikasil lined cylinder. You want to deglaze the cyl. If the cylinder measures within spec then your crosshatching will still be there. Even if you do hone it you wont remove any material, your not really honing it your using the hone to deglaze the cylinder. Your NOT making new crosshatches in the cylinder the only material you will remove is around the ports and ruin your cyl. lol WHY WASTE MONEY ON A HONING TOOL

EXAMPLE 1 2001 sxr600 (bluemonster1) Just rebuilt his motor using OEM parts. Never honed the cylinders used a scotchbrite pad to deglaze because thats what we are trying to do DEGLAZE not hone. Compression before rebuild w 1 layer headgasket 120-125. Now after the rebuild over the coarse of a couple running hours his numbers are at 150 152 150. Probably higher than average for a redhead running 1 layer gasket.

EXAMPLE 2 2002 SRX700 (bluemonster1 again) Same situation as sxr600, rebuild with oem parts cyls measured perfect. He had 120 120 120 before which wasnt bad for an srx. Now after breakin hes pushing 130 128 130 which again are above average numbers for a stock machine. Not gonna keep giving examples but you get the picture. Its a myth that your rings wont breakin properly if you dont hone your cyl.
 
MORE INFO ON NIKASIL IN GENERAL

So...just what is/are Nikasil or Galnikal?
Instead of an iron sleeve, cast or pressed into the aluminum finned cylinder barrel, the barrel is one piece of an aluminum alloy, VERY precisely manufactured as to roundness, etc. Then, a very uniform and very hard coating of silicon carbide is put on the inside surface, and that substance is part of an electro-deposited nickel coating. That 'plating' is NOT very thick, about 0.003" and the silicon carbide particles are about 4 microns in size. The result is a light-weight cylinder with extremely long wearing surface that the piston and rings work against. Baring a mechanical problem that injures the coating, the cylinders will last nearly forever, and only rings, and sometimes pistons, which both wear FAR faster than the cylinder coating, are replaced at fairly high mileages. The cross-hatch pattern of the cylinder is precisely controlled, and may well look almost original after many tens of thousands of miles, and a precisely done cross-hatch is one key to good ring break-in (controls rotation too!) and good oil control. The cross hatch valleys are what retains the necessary microscopic amounts of oil for lubrication. The Nikasil process was originally developed for race cars, and now is quite standard on many cars and bikes. The Nikasil cylinders are VERY dimensionally stable on the bore and have very low distortion. The microscopic pores retain the oil in the crosshatch valleys, so the bores can be finished to quite smooth tolerances. Nickel silicone carbide coatings are VERY hard, VERY wear resistant, have LOW friction, and the surface hardness is about 90 HRc. They generally do not wear in normal use enough to talk about, and should not generally be honed.

(BMW SITE)
 
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journeyman said:
Just an update on this post I started: I did re-ring the Viper, had the cylinders honed at my dealer and broke it in with Yamalube. I also installed a new Cobra fully clipped track and geared down one tooth from stock. Even with all the snow we have had here I have been really busy with work and haven't rode much. Today I went down home and rode with my dad on his 74th B-day and this thing is back to running GREAT!! I have posted in the past how fast my ole man's stock Viper is and I am running heads up with him. Even up top which I figured would be impossible with the Cobra track. Maybe gearing down helped with this track. In short burst I was shooting up to 110 on the speedo and max speed on GPS in these short burst on GPS were 103 today. I never got a real long WOT run but I was really pleased at how it's running with 7800 miles on it. The combination of the Cobra track and the SLP Powder pros makes this a really fun sled corner to corner and also in the deep stuff.

For curiousity next time I will do a compression test to see where it is at now. I only have 120 miles on the new rings. Another note: I get a TON of Pm's about clutching. I have over 7000 miles on the Heavy Hitters I am running. I have had ZERO problems or wear on them. The bushings still look perfect. No roller wear to speak of. My clutches run super cool. I ran the original belt to 5000 miles and only changed it JUST BECAUSE. I put that on my spare clip and I now have 2800 on the second belt.......no issues.....no blown belts.

i don't have issues w/heavy hitters either. they are a good weight, easy to tune, very consistent from day to day, and give good top end numbers, versus some of the other adjustable weights out there.
 
mopar1rules said:
i don't have issues w/heavy hitters either. they are a good weight, easy to tune, very consistent from day to day, and give good top end numbers, versus some of the other adjustable weights out there.

I had a member just the other day PM me about his heelclickers making his clutches run HOT and going through belts. I told him I had never tried them but I remember having some long conversations with Jeff Simons when my sled was new about clutching when I could not get my stock weights loaded down enough to quit over-revving. He was the one that steered me to the HH's. He told me the HC's ran hot because of the huge primary spring they use. His personal feeling was they worked great for drag racing but for a wide variety of applications he liked the HH's better. I am sure there are other setups that work as good, maybe better but I cannot complain about these.
 
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journeyman said:
I had a member just the other day PM me about his heelclickers making his clutches run HOT and going through belts. I told him I had never tried them but I remember having some long conversations with Jeff Simons when my sled was new about clutching when I could not get my stock weights loaded down enough to quit over-revving. He was the one that steered me to the HH's. He told me the HC's ran hot because of the huge primary spring they use. His personal feeling was they worked great for drag racing but for a wide variety of applications he liked the HH's better. I am sure there me other setups that work as good, maybe better but I cannot complain about these.

Yeah, I always noticed hotter primary temps w/the heel clickers myself, versus some OEM weights, or even the heavy hitters. My buddy actually cracked his movable sheave on his vmax4 while running heel clickers. His primary was smoking hot when I touched it. I actually burnt my fingers. I did notice primary temps cool down w/heel clickers tho, if you geared down. Yeah, heavy hitters work in a variety of applications versus heel clickers IMO. I talked w/a guy that ran heavy hitters in his viper and in 1000ft it would run 117mph. He was piped, head work airbox mods, geared, etc, but bottom line was he had heavy hitters in his primary. He was also using a hi-tech roller secondary, that I use and found to be the best combo of cool clutches and top mph......heavy hitters and heavy hitters. I actually just switched back to that setup in my viper last night.
 
mopar1rules said:
Yeah, I always noticed hotter primary temps w/the heel clickers myself, versus some OEM weights, or even the heavy hitters. My buddy actually cracked his movable sheave on his vmax4 while running heel clickers. His primary was smoking hot when I touched it. I actually burnt my fingers. I did notice primary temps cool down w/heel clickers tho, if you geared down. Yeah, heavy hitters work in a variety of applications versus heel clickers IMO. I talked w/a guy that ran heavy hitters in his viper and in 1000ft it would run 117mph. He was piped, head work airbox mods, geared, etc, but bottom line was he had heavy hitters in his primary. He was also using a hi-tech roller secondary, that I use and found to be the best combo of cool clutches and top mph......heavy hitters and heavy hitters. I actually just switched back to that setup in my viper last night.


Still running the AAEN pipes? I have been trying hard to find some Jaws but they are darn near impossible to find used. They want $1250 new......YIKES...I did see some 01 SRX pipes on ebay but don't feel like doing the fabricating. Mine runs great stock but wish it would have been like the redhead motor to pipe. These Vipers are SO DARN QUIET I wish it had just the nice 3 cylinder sound like a stock redhead 700 did. After trying three silencers (SLP, Bender and MBRP) that turned my sled into a toilet I am afraid to try anymore. One fella on here claimed he had a Snostuff Viper can (Ed Webb's company) and his brother was stock and they were dead even. Not sure if I believed that one or not.
 
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