I'm sure many of you are curious about Big bore kits, if they truly work and worth the investment, or if they are BS. I've finally decided to "big bore" my stock 88. All my buddies have 96's 103's and 110's now and I get my ***** busted at the end of every stoplight. Unacceptable ! I'm also not going to drop $3+ large to shut my buddies up. After much research I opted for Revolution Cycles 97" kit.

http://www.rev-ia.com/index.html

This kit seems to be exactly what i'm looking for as far as in your face grinning hard hitting midrange street usable torque. I had a great 1/2 hr long conversation with Todd at Revolution and he described is deep detail as to the prefromance depth of mods their "street" big bore pkg kit. My kit includes 97" top end kit, street velocity (NOT max flow) ported heads, an Andrews 54G gear drive cam conversion kit, complete gasket kit and a custom PC III efi map. Got all of this for a very reasonable $1600 shipped to my door! (Revolution has their 97" gear cam and head kits on sale for Nov.) I've wrenched bikes are cars for the past 26 years so i am comfortable with doing the conversion myself. My kit will be here is about a week, so I plan on taking lots of pics and posting info as I work through this "garage build". Hopefully when im done those of you that are on the fence can make your "big bore" decision with the best education. So watch for pics !

 

Looking forward to it!

(Don't forget to check your crankshaft runout if you're installing those gear drive cams on an '06 motor.)

 

Yup, been reading about the importance of the crank TIR when swapping to gear driven cams, I do CNC machining so I got all my indicators ready... thanks for the heads up !

 

Well, parts showed up at my door sat. Here's some pics of the kit :

The heads. Revolution does a really nice job at porting. The purposly leave the bowl chambers and port surfaces "rough" rather than mirror smooth for better midrange rpm fuel atomization.







Here's the 97" BB piston and cylinder. Note the 9.8:1 compression ratio is scribed into the piston. I'm told this kit will run perfectly safe on pump premium.






Here's the top end and cam gasket kit :



Lastly here's the gear drive cam conversion kit :



So right now I'm stripping down the bike. I currently have the front end off too as i'm converting to a chrome front end. So the engine is next !

 

Hey Clam, how's the build going and were you able to check crank runout?

 

The build is going well. The first thing I did was check my crank TIR, and I am ok (barely) I am exactly at .003" runout (whew !). I also checked the gear backlash and it ranges from .0005 to .0015 so i will live with it. I plan on poping off the cam cover after a thousand miles or so an keep an eye on the gears for any abnormal wear. I should be done in a few more days. I took more pics to I will post up. I'm jacked to see the difference in torque !

 

Cool and good luck with the weather. Which break-in method are you going to use when you finally fire it up? I checked my CCP before I fired mine up the first time to make sure everything was looking good. I has 183 psi in both cylinders. I fired it up, let it run for 30 seconds, then shut it off and let it cool down. Fired it back up, let it run for a minute, then shut it off. I repeated that process till I got to 3 minutes of run time at idle making adjustments on my a/f mix and idle screw on the carb.Then I took it out for a mild 5 mile run and came back to make adjustments on the carb. Let it cool then took it out for another 15 miles and then used the rapid acceleration/deceleration method described here. My build was a 95" with SE pistons, Andrews 26 cam and some head work by Hillside.Good luck.

 

Revolution instructed me to do the following steps for the critical break-in (the 97" hypexecutic pistons are set up at an extremly tight .0015" clearence for max oil seal.

1) use a non synthetic 20W-50 oil for the first 500 miles no heavy sustained engine loads, and operate normally with an ocassional light load higher rpm throttle blast.

2) for the first fire up they want you to "heat cycle" the engine severall times. This "tempers" the pistons and rings for max long term relibility. Start the engine, bring it up to operating temp, then shut it down and let it completely cool. I used a fan to quicken the cool downs. I did this for about 2 hrs last night. All seems well, engine sounds VICIOUS ! You can definately hear a more racey engine lope with the Andrews 54G cam ! I am also amazed at the crisp quick revving engine. Gone is the lazy "free revs" of the stock 88" !! No BS, my engine revs almost as quick as a sportbike. (and the top end is still brand new tight). Revolution comments I need about 2K for miles for a complete break-in. Hopefully a test ride next week as i'm hearing milder temps. Here's a few more pics of the build:

All torn down and ready !



As for the question about gear drive "noise" basically I hear nothing..... probably due to the fact I have V&H big shots with Thunder City Monster baffles ?

Almost all back together :

 

I used a similar oil for the 1st 1000 miles, Shell Rotella T. Did you replace the inner cam bearings? Good luck with the weather and the build.

 

Revolution commented they like Valvoline 20W-50 bought right from Autozone/Pep Boys . I actually used Castrol 20W-50 for my break-in. More importantly than brand IMO is using a NON-syn oil for proper break in. I actually prefer Mobil 1 15W-50 full synthetic for my normal usage.

Didnt see the need to replace the inner cam bearing. My engine ouly has 15K for miles. You need a specialized bearing puller which I don't have nor did I want to buy one for a one time usage.