Well its been a rocky month with the bike, had various ECU issues which all turned out to be corrupt or the wrong firmware had been loaded before it was sent out to me.
So with that finally fixed the bike ran much nicer, I had a good lambda reading and the auto tune function was working nicely.
Then it suddenly started to make a very horrible rattle!
Killed it straight away and set about investigating the cause. Took the tank off and the plugs out, all good and straight, took the cam cover off and the valve caps had all returned and looked ok. Spun it over and could hear a faint knock but hard to locate it but it sounded more bottom end now so the engine came out!
Took the clutch out and some of the fibres have fallen off which isn't great but I didn't think too much of it, turned the engine over and removed the bottom case, all crank bearings look good, a little worn but nothing major. Big end caps came off next and all of those were good too.
Starting to wonder if I'd dreamt it now!
Turned the motor back over and pulled the cams out, first valve cap to came off had a loose shim and a collet wedged sideways where the shim should be!
Head came off to reveal valve and piston love making had taken place!
Now I knew this engine had dropped a valve before and it was purely to see if my set up worked so its no massive loss but it is a bit disappointing as it was so nearly road worthy.
After much discussion I think the original reason for it dropping the first valve was the clutch fibres in the oil, that crap is everywhere in the engine. Then the valve has been sorted but not the clutch, the valve cap is a little loose in the bore so I'm guessing its the same valve gone again.
Scrap head, scrap pistons and scrap barrels.
What can you do, sometimes you don't get lucky
