Kawasaki Teryx goes 8 miles and valves are out of adjustment. HELP

[rupert14]

I have a race teryx I built for BITD. We had an 800 race motor built with DASA +4mm valves and CNC port. It has rods, FCR 39mm carbs, and custom DASA exhaust. On the DASA dyno the motor made 78 rwhp. Not bad for an 800. We went to the Parker 250 in January as our first race. We started 11th and in the first 8 miles, we passed three people. All was good till the motor dropped a valve on the rear cylnder. The titanium spring retainer broke. The motor only made it 8 miles.
We took the motor back to Weller who built it and since the 800cc limit was lifted to 1000, we decided to go 840. The motor is back in and we went out today to do some shock testing before the race in exactly one week. After about 8 miles, we noticed a "tick tick" coming from the front head. We were not running the complete engine cover so we could adjust the carb jets etc and luckily we heard it. We towed it back and pulled the valve adjustment covers to find the intake valves out of adjustment.
What could cause the valves to be so far off so quickly? WE have the fancy rockers, dual springs, titanium retainers, etc. I only have one week to figure it out or I will miss the silver state 300.
The build album
teryx pictures by rupertmonkeyboy - Photobucket

In car video from the Parker 250
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvIe8SJGmRk"]YouTube - BITD bluewater 1915 UTV race Kawasaki Teryx[/ame]

 

[JoeyD23]

Well did DASA or Weller build it? lol Its a DASA motor that Weller built?? Anyway there is a fix for this....I dont know it but I believe this happened to Mike Lasher and a few other people as well?? I am sure he, Team Green, Crowley, etc.... can probably chime in here?

Teryx looks awesome btw!!!

 

[BiggJim]

A friend of ours recently built a teryx motor and the Valves needed lash caps because the valve stems were a little soft so the adjuster screw started damaging the top of the valve stem. Id bet thats your problem as well.

 

[AZCourt]

Most likely its the exhaust valves? Again most likely ex valves are hitting the pistons causing the valves or tappets to peen over. In most engines it causes bent valves, apparently the way everything lines up in the teryx this peening of parts is the result. I had this happen on my rhino when I switched pistons and didn't check the valve to piston clearance. With the cam timing set way retarted like it was and the valve pockets too small for the big valves I bent the ex valves.

Could be something else but in 8 miles that's most likely the prob.

 

[tech3sandcars]

The problem the other guys have had is the valves mushroom due to valve springs going bad, it causes the opposite problem where the valve lash goes away and it holds the valve open slightly loosing compression. If the valve lash is increasing only 2 things can happen, cam lobes are disappearing or the rocker feet are wearing out.

 

[Team Green]

Need more answers to unknown questions. You have used two different builders with who knows what parts or a mismatch of parts used. Both builders have a pretty good reputation and I would hope that either one would walk you through trying to figure out the issue, especially this close to the race next week.

Keep us posted

 

[rupert14]

The only thing DASA did was port the heads and build the exhaust. The cams, pistons, valves, head assembly, engine assembly, etc was all done at Weller both times. DASA put it on the dyno because the exhaust was last and they finished it there but Weller also dynoed it before the first race.

It seems like the cam lobes or rockers are getting slack. The cam was a custom grind Weller had made. I did not want to go with a full race cam although my motor was almost identical to Austin's. He made me some cams half way between the 840 sport cams and Asutin's cams. Perhaps that is the problem.

 

[rupert14]

Well, I took the "valve cover" off and the ends of the intake valves are smashed a bit. The rockers are scored, and if you touch the top of the valve stems, they are very sharp on the sides, like someone has been hitting them with a hammer. The car will be at Weller at 7:00 tomorrow morning. We will see what happens. This is a 7K motor that has not even gone 20 miles. I am getting frustrated to say the least. Anyone interested in running the DSR1 class in BITD?

 

[the stripping shop]

not trying to be negative but big motors dont live in the desert. Good luck i hope weller takes care of you.

 

[tech3sandcars]

A single score on the exhaust rocker is pretty common due to the decompression valve button on the cam. Big motors can live in the desert if water cooling and oil cooling are top notch. 840 or bigger should move to a dry sump oil system where you can get 6-7 quarts of oil. We ran our built 840 last year in Vegas to Reno, 540 miles, started 11th ended up second behind Jagged X. Also ran a couple 300 miles races on same motor, so keep your head up you'll figure it out.

 

[rupert14]

Motor is a plain old 840 kit. I have issues radiator in a giant oil cooler. I even have a 10 inch radiator fan that blows cool air right over the motor the entire time. The motor is pump gas with 10 to 1 compression. There is no reason why this motor should not lastin the desert. Basically it is the sand dune motor with fancy connecting rods. I just dropped it off with jason weller and he is going to get right on it. I will keep you guys posted.

 

[tech3sandcars]

You should be fine in the desert, do you run a oil temp guage? If not I would run one for sure. Also what coolant do you use? Check out evans coolant, best coolant for sustained high temperature/rpm running. Read their tech info and you'll see why I don't run anything but. Have had to run at 250* temps before for over 100 miles with no issues.

http://www.evanscooling.com/assets/pdfs/HighPerformanceCoolantFlyer.pdf

 

[rupert14]

I have a huge cooling system. Water runs 175 and oil will heat up to 240 before the oil cooler fan turns on and pulls the temp down. The whole system holds around 3.25 quarts. Do u have any details on how to dry dump this motor? I have searched for info on how to do it.

 

[BiggJim]

As i said.....sounds like you need lash caps...problem solved

 

[Team Green]

I have a huge cooling system. Water runs 175 and oil will heat up to 240 before the oil cooler fan turns on and pulls the temp down. The whole system holds around 3.25 quarts. Do u have any details on how to dry dump this motor? I have searched for info on how to do it.

Mine is dry sumpped by Muzzy. External oil pump driven from ignition side pully. Big oil lines, cooler and a 5 qt sump tank.

Evans is good stuff but it does run slightly hotter at normal running conditions but will take more heat the water and won't boil. Just be careful in desert that your pits don't accidently put water in the system as they don't mix!

Good luck at BITD

 

[poflo]

The problem the other guys have had is the valves mushroom due to valve springs going bad, it causes the opposite problem where the valve lash goes away and it holds the valve open slightly loosing compression. If the valve lash is increasing only 2 things can happen, cam lobes are disappearing or the rocker feet are wearing out.

OR...the valve tip was not hardened properly ( HUH Biggjim )

 

[BiggJim]

OR...the valve tip was not hardened properly ( HUH Biggjim )

Seems as tho we just had this conversation on the way to Anza

 

[tech3sandcars]

I built my own dry sump system, very similiar to muzzys. Dry sumps are not cheap and can add $1500 to the cost of the engine. Reid is correct you have to run this coolant with no mix whatsoever. You need to flush the system with lots of water and then air everything out. Even if you do not have cooling problems look closely at the article listed above and you will see what regular coolant does inside the chamber where coolant slightly vaporizes and lifts off the chamber wall. May not sound like a big deal but honestly in years of running race stuff it has saved my butt many times.

 

[Crowdog]

Muzzys had a few sets of bad valves last year and the tips mushroomed. As I understood it, they had been using this type of valve in racing applications before and had not had any issues. Just a few that were supposed to be hardened that did not turn out to be so.

 

[rupert14]

Nailed it on the head Crowdog!!

Weller tore the motor down and Kibble white confirmed that I have a set of the valves that were not hardened on the tips correctly. They are sending out a complete set of valves today overnight and Jason is trying to get the valve seats replaced and a CNC valve job done all before wednesday night. He has really stepped up. I showed up over an hour before he opened and he had the doors open, whole shop empty, and jumped right on it. By 2:00 he had the problem diagnosed and had already contacted Kibble White and the valves went out today. Thanks for the help and we should be up and running wednesday night, out for some miles thursday morning, and in the race trailer thursday night. This is cutting it close, but looks like we will make it.