My LeMans IV restoration/engine build

[pressureangle]

My '85 LM IV was my work/play ride for 30k+ miles, and was kinda tired. Add to that my noob mistake of letting my 21 y.o. Son ride it with a promise to be kind to it and coming home with grass in the fairing and a leaky rear main seal I decided to do a complete restoration/rebuild/improvement.

So, she's down to the crankshaft and beyond. Cosmetically, not doing anything special. I've already upgraded the brakes with 4-pot brembo calipers. New Works Performance shocks in back and new springs/dampers in the front.

Now, because I love the bike and I can't leave well enough alone I'm giving it a Web 86b camshaft. To take advantage of that, Ron Hamp at RHC racing is doing the porting on the heads, and I found a new-in-the-box BUB exhaust on ebay a while back.

There has been little discussion of Web cams anywhere to be found, and I've been counciled to leave them well alone and use Megacycle. I've used both in other engines in the past, with good success-but engines want what engines want, and the science says Web 86b (as well as the only few guys I've heard used it) is the best cam for a lot of reasons. Trouble is, it needs larger diameter tappets. Also, I've read complaints that Web cams wear quickly in this application. To solve both problems, I had Web grind the cam with 1* of taper on the lobes and I'm using Ford Y-block lifters; Euro stuff doesn't use lobe taper or lifter crown. The US style coupled with the bore offset should provide nice lube, rotation, and pressure center.

I've put the pics on my FB album, if you like. I'll update here as I add stuff.

 https://www.facebook.com/eric.lacruze/media_set?set=a.785211141491618.1073741826.100000082172534&type=1&notif_t=like

Most all the pics I took are now on Google+.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOaL8YD6zmXSrvHLxZ_TyTU0ZeX1y6301rOJS6mfjex7KAF4nlefP8rus4OfFmn6A?key=YmoxSV9NTFYtYl9wMmFHZ3pnOFZoZEVyeF9kLUFn

[dilligaf]

WOW!!!!!  30K miles.  Mine has close to 70K.  Nothing tired about it.   :BEER:
Matt

[pressureangle]

Tired was the appearance, not the engine-of course, the kid abused it so hard the lifter faces were hammered and it leaked from everywhere...

[JoeW]

I've just heard of Web cams. An engine builder recommended them to me for a V7 Café build that I may be doing. I'm interested to see how they work. As far as lifter rotation, I'm under the impression that Guzzi accomplishes that by cam lobe to lifter offset. Are the Web cams new, or do they regains your stock cam?

[pressureangle]

There's sparse information around, here's one discussion;

http://www.guzzitech.com/forums/threads/camshaft-questions-webcam-86d-vs-norris-megac-x7-x8.4642/#post-34424

The tappet bores are offset, but Euro cams are flat, so any deviation from perpendicular will cause edge loading. Adding a degree of lobe taper and crown to the lifter faces should resolve that, and helps rotation also.

For this cam, Web welded and reground my stock one. I chose this cam specifically because of the power characteristics, my cylinder head guy, and because I'm always going across the grain. If I was building anything less than "The best street Guzzi ever built" I'd not have bothered with the extra effort involved in changing lifters, bushing the bores, machining the cases, and custom pushrods I'll have to fab. I'd probably take the off-the-shelf megacycle for something closer to stock.

Did I mention Baisley roller rockers?

[Vasco DG]

Even with the stock B10 cam the big valve heads are murder on valve guides due to the  side loadings on the valves. Roller rockers will presumably help but any agressive increase in lift will surely exacerbate the problem.

Pete

[pressureangle]

Materials science will surely help too. It is what it is.

[pressureangle]

Tappet bushings installed, lifter/lobe track checked.

[Tobit]

Looked at your FB pics.  I did exactly the same thing with the relay addition, in the same place, about 10 years ago on my LM IV.  One relay is energized by the ignition switch for the main 12v circuit, the other is for the headlight hi-beam, also a 100W halogen.

Tobit

[Triple Jim]

I've just heard of Web cams. An engine builder recommended them to me for a V7 Café build that I may be doing.

These two sentences had me stumped as I re-read them several times.  Then I read the rest and it all made sense.   :D  (webcams?)

[pressureangle]

Even with the stock B10 cam the big valve heads are murder on valve guides due to the  side loadings on the valves. Roller rockers will presumably help but any agressive increase in lift will surely exacerbate the problem.

Pete

My cylinder head/engine development guru http://ronhamp.com/ has had unexpectedly great results with this stuff, on everything from valves to cams to transmission gears; significant power and durability improvements on the dyno and track.

http://microblueracing.com/index.html

I'll send them a package with the cam, lifters, crank and valves. The price is pretty small for the gains. That, premium valve guide material and the roller rockers should resolve the head wear.

Maybe I'll just keep this thing after all.

For anyone who's interested, I'm having Ron digitize the cylinder heads after they're finished so anybody who wants to repeat this build can get CNC head porting without all the R&D time we'll have in it.

[pressureangle]

Smith Brothers pushrods. At about $10 apiece, cheap. Custom length to accommodate the Ford tappets.

[Petrus Rocks]

Some great information- Thank you!  I don't want to eat popcorn while i watch.
How did you come across the coating?  What experience have you had with it?

[pressureangle]

Some great information- Thank you!  I don't want to eat popcorn while i watch.
How did you come across the coating?  What experience have you had with it?

I've had no personal experience with MicroBlue, but I've been friends with Ron Hamp at RHC Racing since the mid-1980's. He's had multiple flattrack and Motocross national championship-winning engines for years. He was told about it, tried it out and found that it's not only as good as claimed but stays on the parts apparently forever-not like some coatings that work but wear off pretty quickly. He's tested and verified significant power gains on the dynomometer using it on nearly everything that moves in an engine from the piston to transmission.

I'm using it not only to see the power gains, but because I really dislike the reputation Web Cams have for soft cams and MicroBlue is insurance. For the record, WebCam's welded lobes have been used for decades, I used them myself in the '80's with never a problem. I suspect that a large part of the problem comes from people putting used lifters on new cams; also, Guzzi like all European manufacturers uses a flat lobe and lifter base whereas American manufacturers use tapered lobes and crowned lifters. I had Web grind my cam with 1* lobe taper, and the Ford tappets are crowned stock to work with that. Even rotating by hand to test the lobe pattern, it's obvious that this combination spins the tappets like a top! Guzzi offset the lifter bores to accommodate rotation, but at best since the tappet covers the entire lobe face they have to skid somewhere, being across different radii. A tapered lobe/crown has a smaller contact surface but tends to roll across the face rather than skid. So, in a stock non-tapered setup the lobe has to be absolutely square to the lifter bores to ensure no edge loading. How many people verify that perpendicularity?
I see no complaints about Megacycle cams wearing, but metallurgy being what it is perhaps the stock tappet accommodates the wear instead of the cam. But Megacycle doesn't make an 86b, and the Web cam is much less expensive as well as, by all accounts, a much better cam although takes some engineering to install.

I'm having duplicates made of everything; the adapter bushings, tappets, pushrods and camshaft; RHC is digitizing the cylinder head work so this can all be repeated. I'm making a new, easy-to-use boring tool which centers in the adapter bushings instead of the lifter bore-the concern is in wear of the bore since the bushings are a .002" press fit and it's critical they don't come loose from a worn bore. In the end, I'll offer the kit through RHC racing and offer the bushing installation if a customer sends their cases over which should be more powerful and more driveable than just sticking what fits under the stock lifters and with stock heads.

[Antietam Classic Cycle]

Guzzi like all European manufacturers uses a flat lobe and lifter base whereas American manufacturers use tapered lobes and crowned lifters.

Guzzi lifters are crowned - it's very slight, but they are crowned.

[pressureangle]

Guzzi lifters are crowned - it's very slight, but they are crowned.

I found that V11 lifters are crowned, but are the older straight style? It's possible that Guzzi crowned them precisely to keep from edge loading the cam in the case something is not perfectly square, but I can't find any verification of that.

[Howard R]

Too lazy to go find the reference right now, but I've read somewhere (maybe Guzziology/Dave Richardson?) that all Guzzi lifters are ground to something like a 3' radius.  (That's three feet, across something ~1 inch wide.) Maybe not enough to see, but supposedly good enough to insure rotation under actual running conditions.

Howard

[pressureangle]

Guzziology states that they (Richardson) have reground lifters cheaper than new, and that they have a 'small' amount of radius. Interesting in any case, I'd like to verify whether new Guzzi parts have taper and crown. The way the tappet bores line up on the lobes, the taper needs to be towards the front of the engine on two lobes, to the rear of the engine on the other two. I'll have to ask Web whether they tapered their lobes before I asked them to, or not-and in what direction. I assume that whoever originally asked them to build the 86b worked that all out one way or the other-but if the 86b was originally designed as a flat lobe that would explain the wear factor. Without any lobe taper, a crowned tappet rides on or very close to the edge on the nose of the lobe.

[Petrus Rocks]

This is good stuff- I'm getting the popcorn after all. 
Any comparative data on the mods and the coating?  Always something to consider as I have a few bikes.

[Tobit]

Maybe I missed it, but where did the roller rockers come from?  To my layman's (LeMans?) eye, the geometry of the OEM rocker puts the foot at the top of the valve at a terribly acute angle, putting a lot of side pressure on the stem.  

This pic from your collection looks much more reasonable.



While you're going to all this trouble for the valve train, are you also going with needle bearings for the rockers instead of bushings?

Just another popcorn eater with a LeMans IV in the garage.

Tobit

[pressureangle]

Rocker arms are a subject with much voodoo attached, even in the automotive industry. There are very few people who truly understand everything that happens up there. I'm not one of them. That said;

These are converted stock rockers, done by Dan Baisley http://www.baisley.com/rocker_service.htm Baisley is one of the places that does understand everything that happens up there, and has been converting stock rockers to rollers for something like 35 years, and are well-proven over that time. Of course, nobody makes a new roller rocker for Guzzis so this is the only option-not that any new units have any measurable benefit over Baisley conversions, at least in Harley-Davidsons. I might, just for an education, set up the heads with light springs during assembly and check the lift curve with stock rockers and the rollers, just to see if and where there are any geometry differences. In any case I went roller to eliminate the valve guide wear these heads are known for. There is some additional valve-end weight increase, which is not desirable but since I have to use fairly heavy springs anyway it's just something to calculate in to the rate-another reason I'm having MicroBlue coat both the cam lobes and lifters.

It's been proven over time that needle bearing shafts are failure-prone over time; needle bearings do not like to reciprocate, they like to rotate. In reciprocating stations like this they tend to twist and bend around the shaft leading to wear and breakage. Additionally with the MicroBlue coating on the shafts there should be no significant friction loss with the bushings compared to bearings.

[pressureangle]

MicroBlue parts are back.

I can't begin to tell you how smooth and slippery this stuff is. They micropolish and coat whatever this stuff is with no dimensional changes. It looks and feels like slick plastic. The mains spin on the crank about 4 times with a finger flick.

The quick will note that I had Total Seal make me a set of 88mm rings with three-piece oil rings.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Certainly interesting. I've never heard of Micro blue..I'm having a hard time understanding a "coating" that doesn't change the part dimensionally. Do you have any more info?

[pressureangle]

Certainly interesting. I've never heard of Micro blue..I'm having a hard time understanding a "coating" that doesn't change the part dimensionally. Do you have any more info?

http://microblueracing.com/low-friction-bearings-technology.html

[pressureangle]

I built a new counterbore cutter that runs in the tappet bushings rather than the stock tappet bores to eliminate any possible wear that would affect the interference fit. Pretty simple but I have to give myself a pat on the back for making something that cost all of $8 instead of the $450 a pro toolmaker wanted. Mine follows the shape of the tappet head, too.
The counterbores still show some traces of the original cutter I used. Exploration, I guess-I'm OCD about things that don't even matter.

Today begins assembly.  ;D

[Chuck in Indiana]

Quite a bit of chatter there in some of the c'bores and chamfers, but pretty clever.  ;D  I don't suppose it really matters. I *assume* it's just for clearance of the Ford lifters?

[pressureangle]

Quite a bit of chatter there in some of the c'bores and chamfers, but pretty clever.  ;D  I don't suppose it really matters. I *assume* it's just for clearance of the Ford lifters?

Well, mechanically it's a tough machining process. It starts an interrupted cut, then smooth. Doing it with a cordless drill doesn't help the appearance but I want to prove this is all simple desktop work that can be done by anyone with enough skill to rebuild their engine at home. Add in that I had no real control of relief angle of the cutting edge. Good thing it's pretty soft aluminum it's working in.
The chatter most obvious in the one hole is left over from my previous iteration of this tool; the JB weld I used to fasten the cutter was maybe 30 years old and the bit came loose. New epoxy in this one!

The clearance has two dimensions; the stock tappets are .866" bore, the Fords are 1.00", plus radial clearance around the edges. The cam has much more lift than stock so the tappets have to move up higher into the case area as well. I very much like the Ford tappet; the diameter is perfect and they have a very long stem, and with no restriction in bushing length have a very long bearing area so they should never wear out. These tappets are also well-proven in high performance Ford engines of the past also, so no worries about structure in this thing. One consideration I've seen discussed is tappet-to-neighbor-lobe clearance; I checked mine carefully and the lobes are not so wide that there is any chance of interference but it needs to be checked carefully with every cam. You may have to turn down the tapped diameter a little, but there's no margin for error there.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Add in that I had no real control of relief angle of the cutting edge.

Hey, a diamond wheel would have taken care of that.  ;D Of course, after buying it,  :o you'd maybe rethink that machine shop price.   ;)

[pressureangle]

EPM's butt-kicking lightweight flywheel. Cam and crank are in, just waiting for new oil pump to show up.

[pressureangle]

Finally. Only lacking the new oil pressure valve for the sump, making a windage tray and assembling everything south of the heads. I'll be glad to get it off the bench and into the frame.

I admit that I've fallen completely down the well on this thing.