DragBikeMike
Serious Thumper
Offline
SuzukiSavage.com Rocks!
Posts: 4146
Honolulu
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Once the sealing surfaces were cleaned up, its was time to reassemble the engine. I used Permatex Optimum Grey sealant again. Since this final repair, I’ve logged about 650 miles on the 97mm engine. It’s solid. No leaks whatsoever. Lesson learned, if you want to use a copper head gasket, the sealing surfaces must be perfectly flat. The factory spec won’t work. It must be flat within .000”.
While I was giving it a good shakedown, I tested some mufflers to see if I could squeeze out a little more power. The LCGP muffler with 1.75” baffle tube worked well. It pulled 4K to 7K in 5.72 seconds. That was a nice improvement. The Cherry Bomb brought the time down to 5.44 seconds. It runs nice with that C-Bomb, but the noise is excruciating.
Both the LCGP and the C-Bomb wanted a lot more fuel. For both mufflers, best performance was with a 240 main jet. I didn’t have the benefit of the air fuel meter on the C-Bomb, but with the LCGP the 240 main jet yielded an A/F ratio of 12.1 to 12.5 at WOT. The best acceleration times for both mufflers were with the 240 main jet.
Every chain has a weak link. The weakest link on this project was the clutch. Once I switched to the C-Bomb and dialed in the jetting, the clutch couldn’t hold the power. It developed a slip in 5th gear. I was on the freeway running about 4500 rpm. There was no traffic. You simply can’t resist the urge. Once it hit about 5500 rpm at WOT, the tach took off. The clutch just couldn’t hold the power. It wasn’t gonna let me try and barge through a brick wall of air. A quick inspection showed that all clutch components were like brand new. All the discs met factory specs for a new clutch. The spring load was the same as it was two years ago. There was no discoloration or warpage. So, it’s not worn out and it’s not burned up, it just can’t hold the power.
A Barnett clutch kit fixed the slipping. I learned a few things on that project and am working on a report. I will post that later.
The 97mm project was a complete success. It’s a sweet powerplant. Excellent manners, gobs of torque, blazing acceleration. Now its time to move on to the next project. I’ll start removing the 97mm in a few days so I can replace it with an engine that utilizes the 94mm Wiseco flat-top piston. It will have significantly more compression and super-tight quench. I can’t wait to see how the new engine stacks up against the Big Bore 97mm.
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