should go ahead and take it in and have valves checked and adjusted if needed?
I would but that's just me.
Over time do the valves get loose or tight?
More tight than loose.
1. The valve tip mushrooms out and can go loose.
2. The valve face goes mushroom along with the seat and that moves up and closes the gap.
3. The valve seat is machined into the softer head and the spring is pulling the seat up and that walk up the head tightens the gap. The factory knows about this movement, thus the shim selection.
What is the point of the adjustment I know there needed but not why?
We have 3 common ticks to an engine.
1. I want to eliminate the exhaust tick. I have 2 ticks to go, but you added it goes away so this does not count as a ticking problem. This is for another time.
2. I want to eliminate the valve tick. I may have a burned piston occurring where the skirts or the front and rear of the piston changing direction has lost clearance.
3. I want to eliminate this scenario like I die with a tick and I die knowing my 3 variables and the fuel/spark/compression sitting on the side of the road which is it as I sit in the garage and hear a tick, which is it?
You said having them set loose makes them quieter but I had thought they were supposed to be tight....Again please dumb it down for me.
Loose: This setting is for touring/traffic/wallet economy type riding. Loose has brought on a little bit more burn time. The power stroke is still making power as the gas keeps burning and the valve stays closed. With a loose setting, there is more time in degrees waiting for the exhaust valve to open. There is our torque for traffic, economy, and remember, the more valve sitting there cooling off, the longer it lasts parts wise.
Tight: This setting is more for raggedge racing. The #1 game for racing is faster in and faster out. Just like racing, the faster to the corner, the fastest thru the turn, is the one who opens the throttle sooner. You have a book number with a max-middle-minimum. These are your clearances or the parameter the parts can still function in before major engine work is needed. So, the faster the valve opens, the faster the event. Or, keep watching the exhaust make power and then kill it. It made and ever diminishing stroke happen, but the racer looks for things to happen faster and cuts it off at the peak of forever and you are riding the diminishing grunt longer with a loser valve.
You are going to trick your dealer/mechanic and ask these questions so you have some sort of simple concepts to ask and the answer should be just as simple. On the menu at the barbershop is shim shaving 1-2 and 3. His barber school can only cut your shims 3 ways.
1. Maximum Book Clearance = Best Torque.
2. Middle or Ideal Clearance = Overall Performance.
3. Minimum Book Clearance = Best Top End Speed.
When you go in for the valve and throttle sync, request my valves to be shimmed at setting 1. Of course they may not have the shims, but if you were to 'blueprint' the clearances, the book still says I work within this clearance so I run loose and chase that number. I know the parts are going to move as it wears so I run the max gap within book spec.
* Last updated by: Hub on 1/29/2015 @ 12:25 PM *
Tormenting the motorcycling community one post at a time