Engine Cosmetics Just About Done!

I'm meeting up with my engine builder on Sunday to drop off all the parts. It's my last push to paint, polish and shine all the exterior engine parts, before handing everything over.

For the past 3 months, I've been trying to buy everything needed to get this motor done right. I've bought almost all Yamaha OEM engine parts, with the exception of the connecting rods, some gaskets and miscellaneous parts that were sourced by Yamaha at the time i.e. Sudco seals, etc.

Here's some before and after pictures of the head.

The first thing I did was strip down and polish the Daytona head. I actually started the stripping process 10 years ago, but then just stopped. I've had to buy a used right side engine cover, since one of the allen bolt tabs was broken off. I probably bought the bike like that. All the covers were cleaned, degreased, paint stripped, then painted with PJ1 satin black. I media blasted both cylinders and the inside fins of the head with walnut shell, then painted those with PJ1 high temp flat black paint. Afterwards I took a Dremel flap wheel to the edges. Everything came out fantastic!

Originally I thought I was going to media blast the engine case too, but in the end, I just took some aluminum polish to it and polished it up by hand. I bought some stainless steel allen bolts for the covers on eBay. The finished product should look fabulous!

The build process should take about 3-4 weeks, depending on what Paul has got going on in his private life and how many parts might need to be ordered. I'm pretty confident that he will have all he needs to get complete the job. After the initial build, I'll install the motor, finish the build, and hopefully the bike will start up. I may just bring the bike back to Paul on a trailer, before the inaugural start up, just in case I missed something critical in the build process.

Here's a quick mock-up of the motor- just a glimpse of the what the motor might look like when it's done.

Making Some Positive Moves :)

A year and a half ago, I shot off an email to some guy that I bought some eBay parts from 20 years back to see if he would build my motor. I remember him, because we both lived in the same town, so I did a local pickup and met the seller, Paul. I remember that he always had RD400 parts that he was selling and he told me that he likes to work on those bikes. Somewhere along the lines, I found out that he does full restoration work on them. So I found his old email address and sent him a note, hoping that he might answer. Lo and behold, he actually replied. It took a few weeks, but he did get back to me! We went back and forth about what I had and what I wanted, then I got busy, so that kind of died out.

Well, just a few weeks ago, I drummed up this old email and hit him up again. Surprisingly, he answered again! He gave me a very reasonable quote and was confident he could build my engine to my configurations. So I started buying up all the engine parts. But one area about the engine that concerned me was the cylinders. The right cylinder seemed to be pretty much the stock bore measurement, but the left one measured out to 66.00mm! We talked about it, that the wall may not be able to take another bore. Me, eager to buy the pistons, asked if maybe we could meet, where he could do a physical assessment and give me his opinion. He agreed. So FINALLY after all these years, I finally got to meet Paul again today!

Paul has extensive experience building 2-stroke motors. He was once trained as a mechanic working for the local Yamaha dealership, so he really knows his shit. Over the years, he's built countless RZ's, RD's and earlier models. When I showed up this morning, he was in his garage where there was a pristine RZ350 and an FZ1- this guy bleeds Yamaha!

He pulled out his micrometers and took several measurements of both bores. He believes that the right cylinder still had its standard bore, while the left one was bored out to 66mm, just as I had measured. The left cylinder wall was getting thin (and there was a gouge that needed to get removed), but he thinks it should be okay to use. Earlier we had talked about just getting another set of jugs, but they're getting so hard to find and the prices are getting pretty lofty. We both had eyed a set that was currently on eBay- advertised as being pulled from a motor that only had less than 400 miles on it, standard bore, matching pair. But I figured that by the time the auction was over, it would be in the range of $400. But still, that was a sweet set of cylinders. Nonetheless, I had that set of cylinders on my watch list.

I set an alarm on my cell phone to remind me to watch the end of the auction. With still an hour left to go, the cylinder set was only up to $122 (an additional $30 for shipping from the East Coast). As we neared the 10-minute mark, I decided to put in a bit to flush out the highest bidder, or to just feel how high he might go. I bid $200 and the price only jumped to $135! What??! Just for safe measure, with 10 seconds left to go, I put in another bid at $250, then the auction ended. And I won! The final price was only $204 and change. Unbelievable!! I totally lucked out on this one!

Okay, now I don't have to worry about thin walls, plus with so much meat on the sleeves, I can buy Yamaha OEM pistons and rings! Now, I need to meet up with Paul again, so he can verify what size pistons I need to buy. But that's not big deal. I'm so happy!!