I've been reading the forum with particular attention to the DIY sections and haven't seen mention of a couple things -

1) if I should just do some head clean up without removing the cylinders, should I replace the bottom cylinder gaskets when I put heads back on? In other words, once torqued down then loosened, will the bottom gaskets hold when the heads are torqued again.

2) if I have some head or head AND cylinder work done, then put it all together to check the squish using either the method by Springer_ (thanks, Springer_) or the method outlined at Weisco, do I need 2 sets of gaskets - for the same reason as in question #1?

3) I ran across at least one site that said you should never re-use the cylinder studs. That once torqued, they are stretched. From my deisel engine days, this would be valid and make sense, but I've only seen 1 or 2 sites that mention this

4) finally, I found some take-off heads with 0 miles on them for a good price. I had thought I'd just try a little clean-up and polish work myself - nothing fancy, just smooth out the big ridges. My local independent strongly advised me against it. He said he's seen many many self-ported heads that just absolutely fell flat and that HE (with 30 years HD experiance) would never try it himself. I realize there's some magic involved to getting perfect racing heads, but... could mild cleaning for a little street port really screw it up that bad?

thanks,
Kevin

 

Are you talking about an Evo or T.C.? If there is low miles on a TC, you're safe to remove the heads and leave the cylinders in place. If you have some miles on it you're better to replace the o-rings. On an Evo, once you remove the clamp load (head bolts), you will need to replace the gaskets as they have been crushed. If you want to measure the piston deck height, do it after you have removed the head (holding the cylinder down with some washers and nuts), the Evo will have the original gasket at this time and it will give you the measurement including the crush. Replace the gasket after you remove the cylinder.

The cylinder studs do not need replacing unless you scratch them or you have an early Evo with the shoulder on the studs at the top.

Head porting is not magic, although it isn't hard to screw up a head if you cut too much in some areas. If you just remove obvious imperfections in the ports without trying to re-shape them, you should be all right.

Hope this helps,
Bean

 

Thanks, Bean.

It's a TC. Obvioulsy I'm showing my ignorance expecting a gasket under the cylinder.

The bike was originally purchased in Jan '03. It had 8K on it when I bout it last Sept. It's now got 15K.

 

You'll need to do the o-rings Meat.

 

10-4....


thanks, man