In case anyone other than me cares, I called Wiseco today about a piston for my savage engine. I had hoped to get one with a higher compression ratio, but they only have stock. They do carry overbores, though.

They said that they could make a custom piston, but the minimum order would be for 25 pieces.

I didn't get a price on the 25 pieces, but maybe I should. I have to wonder if higher compression would blow the bottom end to smithereens.

This does have me wondering what else could be pinched from the DR650 for use on the savage.

That was what I was looking into. Wiseco doesn't carry anything but standard compression for the DR or LS. Perhaps there are other manufacturers, but I don't know where to look.

When I mentioned other interchangability, I was thinking more of the head. A slim chance, but worth looking into, since the port design on the LS is pretty crappy.

Commando_Al wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:10:



I would be very interested in going in on a batch of pistons...especially for at least 9.5 to 1, if not 10 to 1 compression ratio.  That boost from the stock compression  would make a noticeable difference on the Savage.  

I think the Savage is overbuilt for the power it puts out, and has plenty of room to grow power-wise.  

If we can get 5-10 people together we should be able to  handle a 25 piston purchase.

I'll look into what the actual cost would be. One thing, though, since we'd be replacing the stock part, I think that specifying a 10 thou overbore would be a good idea.

In other news, I'm looking into having long intake tubes made. I'm still researching the actual specs needed, but I think it would be a cool old-school approach to more power.

I thought a velocity stack was on the outside of the carburetor. I'm talking about a tube between the carb and the head. On a car they call it a tunnel ram. Is something like that available? Here's what I'm thinking of:

http://nort_comm.tripod.com/art/tube.gif

Got a price from Wiseco. They said the minimum order is 24 (not 25) at 122.00 per. The total is around $3500. The specs I asked for were 9.5 to 1, and a 10 thou overbore. The price includes rings, wrist (gudgeon) pins and circlips. 6-8 week lead time.

Anybody here know how high you can go with compression and still use gas from a gas station?

Cool. Did you look at my drawing? Here's another iteration:

http://nort_comm.tripod.com/art/tube2.gif

This one would allow the use of the stock carb attachment.

LANCER wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:11:

I think staying under 10:1 is real fine - any time I've went over it at least with a cast iron head on 93 pump gas we'd get some detonation now granted aluminum runs cooler but since it's air cooled not water cooled and subject to some oil only cooling at idle in the summer 9.5:1 might be all we could reasonably do and still have it streetable all the time.. mark me down for a pair - by the way wiseco have the combustion chamber specs so we don't need to worry with valve clearence and clay measurements , cutting eye brows and such?