Haha i can second that!!

I would totally blame Abhimanyu31's R16 for getting me into the scene of hot roding. Anyways, i will post the technical data along with the help of Abhimanyu31 once my 180CC build is complete.

Cheers,

Pistons....pistons...

So, after having see these very encouraging reports, I was all heated up and wanted-wanted-wanted! to get the 200cc. mod!

I had been given the most enthusiastic description of the wonderful "big bore" kit he would deliver to me by "guru" Haryono Adigunawan, of automotivepartsshop in Indonesia, together with dyno run reports (which after some scrutiny, appeared to be from other bikes!!!) and got my parcel with piston and cylinder.

Disappointment, anger, fury when I opened it!

The thing had obviously been mistreated by the express delivery, but not only the packaging had been done so poorly that there were marks of damages all over: piston and cylinder, but most of these marks came from before being packaged!!!

Look at these marks on the cylinder: looks like it had been left laying over the street!:






Stored inside the cylinder, the "packaging" of the piston pin was....a little plastic bag, and the pin had bounced all over and done numerous marks on the brand new cylinder sleeve:




The piston had marks too:




....but the worse was the careless way the valve recess had been altered in order to accommodate the offset Yamaha valves! Look at this miserable, sh*tty work!:



No need to say how happy I was, and how much I congratulated Mr. Haryono for his good care and work!!! This was, alas, just the beginning of long series of delusions, lies, wrong doing from this not recommendable person! Blah blah blah (he certainly has read a book about bikes), just hot air and words in mouth.....and I was still to receive the cylinder head, ported and with "fantastic" gamma bronze seats, blah blah valves, and other superb items and works I shall describe later!

Baaad start for my was-to-be the super FZ16 I has been dreaming of!

I also felt the piston had really a lot of play inside the cylinder. One thing, however, I considered as a happy surprise: the cylinder was very slightly conical, smaller at the top than at the bottom, just like the piston itself, this only measurable with the Palmer. The cylinder conicity was ascertainable only by "dropping" the piston in the cylinder, and seeing it stop near the top (a brand new piston can hardly move on its own weight inside a new cylinder - this without rings of course). One has to know that these are strictly race features, and done to compensate for the higher heat at the top of the cylinder as well as top of the piston. I thought:" well, that is top job, then", and accepted to have these items installed. The experienced mech himself agreed that the play was looking excessive, but we would repair carefully the damages and give it a try anyway.

So, we opened the engine.......

See next post!

Pistons....and valves!

As I have already said and again, and as bro Abinyahu just said too, there is a danger in all mods, and one can be (almost) certain that he will loose in reliability compared with the stock engine. Effectively, none will know the engine as well as the top engineers who have designed it in a Company like Yamaha, or other major one, and one can rightfully assume that they will have done their job well so that their engine is as reliable as possible.

However, there is one thing these top engineers do not master: the assembly line.

I have already said, seeing the lacks of paint and general "rough" finish in many places, that the general quality control of Yamaha India (sorry!) was appalling, but it was ever so clear as when I got my engine opened after only 1,000 km, for installing the "big bore" kit I had just bought (although with the problems it had, as you have just seen): carbon all around the intake valve!!! The intake valve seal was simply not in place but higher up the valve seal!!! Three cheers for Yamaha India quality control!

Look at the top of the piston....after only 1,000km.:




....the intake port:






and the valve itself:




Great, isn't it?

So, that leads to seriously questioning the "reliability" of the stock bike when you see such a s***t!!!

No need to tell you, then, how frustrated - and disappointed - I was for my "precious" little bike, for which I had already spent quite some money for the parts I had received plus those I was still waiting for, to have it fitted with a rear disc, re-painted and with stickers specially made for me to give it the aesthetics of the "Midnight Special" limited series! It was looking so great, and now I find that my engine has been assembled by a mason!

To be continued....and more fun to come!

^^^ WFT !!!! .... looks like someone took a butcher's knife on that piston.... Wonder what Mr. Haryono Adigunawan was smoking when he packed and shipped these to you!!!

And the stock piston looks like my 2 stroke RXZ's piston badly in need of decarb. Wow, what export quality! That valve looks like its been dipped in crude oil. One question, did you even bother to bring this to the notice of the ASC, or you just thought it was not worth it?

The exhaust valve was nicely grey (compare with the intake one!!), and the exhaust port only had only a light depot of carbon that the finger would wipe:






The jetting (stock) could not be criticized as shows the color of the spark-plug:




So: in the bike went the piston and cylinder, after careful repair of the various dents which, in the cylinder, were happily at the lower part only.

I had been concerned that this bigger capacity and volume of gases with the stock head and combustion chamber would lead to an excessive compression ratio. "Plug-and-play" has assured Mr. Haryono!
Since Joel Joseph too was selling his larger bore kit (although "only" 180cc. but comprising a dome piston), I believed this engine would be able to withstand high compression. I was already feeling my bike would be a real racer!

Gosh, it was!!! Although not being able to rev. up this brand new engine, nor go Wide Open Throttle, the thing was flying....BUT: the engine was knocking the moment I would open a bit above Splendor" mode!

In less that two minutes, I had lost all excitement, no matter how much punch this engine was potentially giving! It was impossible to ride this bike with this cylinder head ad this compression ratio near 14.5:1 (as I calculated....a bit too late!)
I had then to wait till Mr. Hary blah blah would send my new cylinder head, with big valves, ports re-worked (by himself he assured) as well as combustion chamber, and all these delicacies he promised.

That was the beginning of a loooong wait....so you guys will wait a little till I write the next chapter of this saga: got to respect the chronology, right! (and I have lots of things to do!)

See you next pit stop!

No such thing as a Service Center here, Abhimanyu (sorry I damaged your name in previous port: a bit unusual ones to me you guys have!): someone imports a few containers of bikes, and sells them off with a "warranty" meaning you will have to wait for months if anything happens since they did not buy any spare part! Only the most sold bikes are imported by "official" importers who have a well fitted service center.

Yes: very bad "export" image there...!

Probably high on petrol fumes!! Anyways, i am posting some old pictures i had clicked at Joel's workshop when i was there in Blore due to office work and decided to catch up with Joel. I believe it was sometime in February 2012.

Some Images of the Kits:

1) 180cc Big Bore kit:








2) 180cc Big Bore Block:




3) Semi Forged 180cc kit Piston:



4) Custom Grind Camshaft (Image courtesy - Rylan Lobo):


If one notices the quality of the kit is indeed better than what i seem to notice with Automotive Parts shop from the pics posted by Luke. Mind you though these were only sample kits.

I also have the pictures of the 165cc kit from Joel for R15 however i feel this thread deserves to have posts related to FZ/Fazer only to avoid any confusions.

Cheers,

On the subject of Hary's fantastic work, Here are pics of my "Plug n Play" head....Should be labeled as a BARE head.....
I had to complete the work of course.
See the fantastic attention to details, the highest quality workmanship......Note the 2 cracks in the middle pic on the intake. I'm guessing the hole was not large enough and when screwing in the new guides it cracked.

The surface of the head was not even flat.....
Valve guide on the wrong angle resulting in the rocker arm not centered on the valve tip.
Valve guide larger on 1 valve compared to the other.
Valve seats not sealing. Note the very rough machining on them.
Numerous marks on the "machined" mating surface of the head.

Funniest thing I got from Hary was for me to give him "Data" on his kit. I told him YOU designed it, YOU should already know the measurements, I will NOT give you any of my data period!

Anyway I digress,
My engine has been performing fantastic so far. 1000kms on it and lots of fun, Though I am now looking for even more power, Something like a 600cc (R6/CBR600) in the future.
Only problem I have with it and it was very noticable today when riding in peak hr traffic was my throttle was closed and my engine was revving @3-4k RPM. This was a issue with the previous carb I had borrowed while I was waiting for this one to arrive. I will have to inspect it ASAP and try to work out if it is something to do with the cable route (Though I was tugging on the cable to see if the RPM changed and it didn't)
Also I managed to get the bike to rev up while stationary, then without touching the throttle I switched it off, then restarted it and the bike was idling @1000RPM.

Strange little beasty I think.

I'm glad we have a real good discussion here and its healthy to have productive technical discussion - bike specfic.
The Yamaha FZ is built solid, engineered simple and decently peppy - in stock. Although its a 2-valve, it has quite a lot of potential - thanks to its "twirl" inducting cylinder head. Works really well with the offset layout and decent port geometry.
The bottom engine is quite reliable with a 15mm piston pin hole and a normally sized crankpin with needle bearing. With normally sized engine bearings and a clutch basket very similar to the R15. So this means, its a pretty good tuner friendly motor.
However, we all the quest to go bigger and bigger. While we can oversize any engine to any mechanical limits, its equally important to touch base the right "scientific limits". A dyno report and torque curve analysis will determine how well an oversized engine is engineered. How big is big and how much bigger is best is what you need to hit right. As said above, its possible to shov the largest valve, the bigger piston (if that even means boring out the crankcase covers...lol..I've done that in the past) and put the largest carb/TB and the biggest exhaust header....but do you make the right power and reliability?
An oversized engine...like in case of the FZ, anything above 190cc is going to give the engine a lot of torque..low down. But then you are going to encounter the "scientific limits". There is only "that much" that a cylinder head can flow. Oversizing the valves to mechanical limits will not give more power as the head looses its flow efficiency offering nothing more than just "incomplete combustion". A very similar effect as to running a terribly wild cam, in an engine that was not designed to handle that much. The art of getting the flow right and keeping everything harmonic is the very science of cylinder head tuning. Which is the biggest determining factor of any engine. Not a terribly large bore size. Which is what most think. Everybody wants more cc. A p220 guy wondering why he cant overbore 30cc more and beat a CBR250. An FZ guy wanting to beat a P220 by oversizing over 200cc...lol. The quest is for the biggest bore in business. I really wish, most had the technical understanding. While its even harder to advocate the thought into them, that an equally flowing cylinder head is more important.
I hit the sweet spot with the 180cc bigbore and my parameter was to just keep a few things very simple and clear.
1. Better cylinder cooling - with larger cooling area around the liner - with a cylinder block cast along with the sleeve and not an insert.
2. Keep piston mass as close to stock - yet being larger.
3. Maintain efficient quench area in the cylinder head to improve burn rate and design the piston top in accordance with the pattern of the combustion chamber.
4. Improve bottom engine reliability - piston pin, connecting rod, crank bearing, crank and engine bearing loads - by maintaining acceptable compression levels (also considering we get avg grade fuel in India)

An overly large piston puts a lot of direct load on the bottom half and you are not going to last the engine, anywhere even close to half of stock.
I have actually some crazy stuffs with 4-stroke engines. I once shoved a 72mm piston into a karizma by boring out the crankcase, moving off the cylinder studds, redoing the entire studd geometry on the head and block, ran an oversized head with 34mm and 29mm valves, stage 4 monster profile cam, custom made titanium retainers, special springs, 34mm Mikuni FS etc etc...but this was a short sprint drag motor. But that was the last time I ever went that big a bigbore. Will explain in my next post....why! It was pretty reliable, never blew anything, but still!

@Lucky luke - That cylinder block hone in the pic above, does not look clean. YOu ideally need to finish off with an even texture and with the right grit stone.

^^^ Well the master himself is here!! I believe now this thread will have a productive tech talk and probably help all other members understand better what is hot roding at the first place and why does a tuner keep certain things in perspective and not go crazy boring the engine to a 600CC!!

Cheers,

Hello Joel Nice to see you chiming in!

Well seen that the honing of the cylinder was terrible: had been done with a very fine stone, close to polishing, plus that the piston had been "tried" inside and moved....dry and with dust (...!) resulting in slight scratches in both surfaces, and also what is making it look even more terrible is that this picture was taken after sanding down the protruding steel after the cylinder had got all these dents by the edge of the piston pin banging freely, unpacked, inside the cylinder! This was done manually and very carefully in order to avoid making a hollow. What you cannot see, though, is its conicity, which I at first interpreted as a high end engineering and machining, and effectively excessive play of the piston, as the continuation of the story will tell.

Although having the basic engineering knowledge, I do not have by far your experience in small engines nor in the subtleties of flow dynamics, and was "charmed" by Haryono Adigunawan and this possibility to increase the capacity up to 200cc. I wish you had had the time to explain me a bit why you would not do a 200cc. and stay at 180: I would quite probably have a RC piston and cylinder fitted in now. May still happen, though ....

So: what happened after I found this leaking valve seal of the stock, untouched engine, and had received those damaged parts, fitted them in, and found that the engine was totally unable to cope with the enormous compression ratio?

Effectively: I (later!) measured the dome of the TDR piston minus the valve sockets and found it was 2cc, while the stock piston is nearly flat. This TDR was a nice piston by the way, weighing 130 grams "only" with it's 66mm. diameter while the stock piston weighs 104 grams with it's 58mm. diameter. TDR is a well known Indonesian Company making pistons and other parts for the mad tuning these guys do on their small LC 135 and other Mio's. They describe this piston as forged and I have no reason to doubt their claim. So, if the stock engine has a compression ratio of 9.5:1 with 153cc capacity and flat piston, that means the combustion chamber, or volume left when the piston it at TDC (Top Dead Center= at it's highest position) would be 16cc. With this volume reduced by 2cc. by the dome to 14cc, and having now 200cc capacity from TDC to BDC (Bottom Dead Center), compression ratio had jumped to a frightening 14.3:1!!!! Near formula one! No surprise it was knocking! Certainly stupid of me to have had this piston and cylinder put in without any work on the cylinder head (now cleaned and with brand new valve stem seals), just as plain BS form my "vendor" who was selling it as "plug and play". Had I done this primary school calculation of the new compression ratio, I would have at least hesitated

I then had no other choice than to revert to the stock piston and cylinder. Add to this that I had serious health problems and that, would I pass away (yes!), it would be easier for my wife to sell a stock, "untouched" bike than an unusable modded one. I cite that because it is another thing many do not realize when going on the "bumpy" road to hot rodding: the resale value of a modded bike is lower than that of the untouched, stock one....not to mention that any mod instantly voids the warranty, if any left! So: it costs, but this is all lost money! Well: the price of passion and of fun that is!!! Maybe that, with a proven and really improving modification like Joel's big bore + a few other goodies, the resale value in India would be marginally higher, or at least equal to a non modded one of the same age...??? Generally speaking: it is lower!

The modern medicine helping (a lot!), I was back from my home country (France) with - say - a good survival chance (Hey!: I'm still there!), and happy to ride by Fazer again. As I was riding it, and although remembering the fantastic thrust of the previous 200cc with super high compression ratio, I could not help thinking that this was all madness and that this bike was quite good after all.....but I had got the virus, and to have this nice piston and (wrongly) bored up cylinder sitting in a box was too tempting.......!

Let's continue the saga a bit later, if you don't mind.........

Hello Joel, Nice for you to participate in this thread, We all very much appreciate it!!
Its great to see there are more members getting involved and contributing.

Joel do you have any pics of your kits in the R&D stage?
I'm curious to know what different designs you were thinking of going with and the final design you chose. If you deem this request too close to your business then I understand. There are many tuners who keep their secrets and of course its understandable they don't want to share them.

Some more pics.
The first one has the stock 153cc piston in the 200cc bore. Its quite a difference!
2nd pic you can see the TDR piston Hary supplied. If you look closely you will see 2 marks on top and bottom of the crown from where the valves were hitting with his "mystery cam" installed. It turns out the valve reliefs were machined to suit stock size valves, Not the big valve head I had ordered. Harys excuse....I thought you ordered the stock head....This was after numberous emails, phonecalls, yahoo messenger chats to him to get my head organized and sent to me.

Sorry if that is somehow OT, but it seems this thread is also going to show the extremely poor workmanship of items delivered by Haryono Adigunawan, of automotivepartsshop.

Certainly a very good salesman, but besides that.... ....

Just one picture, between others, more than clearly shows the extremely poor quality of what is delivered by this person, apart from the items he just buys without having any of his subcontractors touching them. Look at this camshaft, grinded to the extreme from the stock, and the "quality" of the machining....not to mention a non visible "bump" but that can be clearly felt by one's finger on the very steep exhaust cam! No need to say that this camshaft is "brand new" and that I did not dare putting that "thing" in my cylinder head!



...and then compare it to this picture of the camshaft from Race Concepts:
(Image courtesy - Rylan Lobo):

Luke,

i am getting a bit impatient to listen to the rest of the story... give us the scoops fast!!

Since, you figured out that the parts were substandard what steps were taken by you and your mechanic to rectify it.. i know i am asking too much but if you do have pics of how the parts were set in to meet the requirements of a 200cc kit would be quite informative for us folks and the general members here.

Thanks & Cheers,

There is a saying in Architecture, is that, quite often, "more is less"! Effectively, how many time do we see these houses with either too many rooms cramped in a too small house, or at the opposite uselessly extra large rooms making very poor use of the volume of the house?
It seems that, when it comes to increasing an engine capacity, the tendency is to go for the maximum "technically" possible which, as you rightly say, may not be making "the right power and reliability".
Seems to me difficult to draw the line, though.

This is one thing me as well as certainly many other would very much like you to develop, if you may have the time.
We all - I think! - have at least an idea of what is the swirl of the gases and of the flame front, as well as the "quench" which, as you describe it, should "maintain efficient quench area in the cylinder head to improve burn rate and design the piston top in accordance with the pattern of the combustion chamber".

A few things puzzle me here, though!
One is about the "quench" area, which, if I understand it right, only exists when the piston flat area reaches the "corresponding" area left flat in the head, and where the gases are violently pushed towards the center of the combustion chamber at TDC. This creates a flow disturbance that is extremely difficult to analyze, even using the most advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics" (CFD) programs, with the compressed gases already ignited and the flame front progressing: what a mess!!! I do not see where, apart using some "ratio" or other "dictated by experience" can one know that this quench area is "sufficient" and I would add: beneficiary???

Another one is why your affirmation that even when increasing the size of the ports (to a precise dimension and profile that is), combustion chamber, valves size and lift, carburetor, header pipe, etc... could not be done in a "homogenous" way so that the head would not loose its flow efficiency leading to incomplete combustion (something we surely do not want!)???
All in all: we just would have a larger engine, that is all. So why would a larger engine be less efficient than a smaller one??? Maybe some misconception there, but could you please develop a bit further?

I did not know your cylinder was cast around the sleeve, which surely gives the most perfect possible contact between them and best cooling...but isn't the stock one made this way too???
Unless the cylinder has reached it's limit, or no larger replacement piston is available, I see most mechanics just re-boring the sleeve, not replacing it...???

Sure does.... ...and I am afraid has already damaged my lower engine! So (just a gentle reminder if you don't mind): can I reasonably expect the delivery of my RC camshaft of which you have a large stock around the same time as the conrod set I have ordered, as a "precautionary measure", from TKRJ (in Japan), which I expect soon ?