can only see the top of the piston. can you take some side shots.

(oh yea, we forgot to mention that circlip could hit the ol eyeball too! lol)

 

 

Nah, I won't bother acknowledging you again or mentioning you to others.

 

Ok now that this beef is squashed... can we get back to this engine 🙃

judging by the condition of the piston, is there anything other components I should be inspecting? Cams, gears, etc.

 

My thoughts are that piston has a lot of carbon, either run too rich too long or the other possibility is run too much at low rpm. Some riders try to chug around thinking the higher rpm hurts the engine, running out of the efficient range of performance builds up carbon too. Lugging around trying to ride the bike like it's a tractor. Happens all the time with cars and such.

 

Gotcha. The cylinder is now en route to billy blue so that's piston plus cylinder are being replaced.

Is is there anything worth inspecting down low tho? Crankshaft, gears, etc?

Ill attach photos of the cams later me later on to get everyone's opinion.

Thanks!

 

Based on my research, nothing is damaged. Everything looks like normal wear.

Would y'all agree?

 

Your cams and journals look great! I wish mine would have looked that good when I took mine apart. Does look like some carbon build up on the side wall above the top ring, no big deal. The skirts look very nice though. (I am a big fan of nice looking skirts) Check to see if you have any radial play in your lower rod bearing and slide the piston pin in the upper rod hole and see if its tight-ish. The main crank bearings swim in oil and rarely are bad. Its the two rod bearings that go first. But from looking at your pictures, that's a happy engine!!

 

Its actually retarding the intake and advancing the exhaust. If it was me I would do the mcm mod. Or try it later. Can't hurt the piston. Its only 10degs. Its ez and reversible. I would press off that acr too, but that's just me.

 

That's right, MCM does not create 351 piston-to-valve clearance issues. And, aside from the two members that ran that "combo" with no problems, Bill Blue verified long before ANYONE tried it (MCM+351) that the valve-to-piston clearances with the 351 kit are same as stock.

However, we (the forum) will not benefit from him doing the 351 AND the MCM at the same time as no assessment of a performance delta is possible.. Also, it is very bad practice to perform more than one significant performance mod at the same time - if anything goes "wrong" the "blame game" will continue for YEARS in here..Which is exactly why this combo has not become the "norm" and why Bill Blue recommends not doing it - long ago, one member did every mod all at once, (351, MCM, full exhaust, pumper carb, etc..) rode it for many hours /several hundred miles - then the engine "blew".. And, to this day, no one knows why.. One problem was that that member did not torque down the heads properly or at all, IIRC - but the MCM got its' share of the blame..

Do-up your mods, fuel it correctly, break-in the rings&cylinder, get it all working well, get to know the new power band, THEN add the MCM for "dangerous raped ape" power from off idle to 8000 rpm..