Ironhead The Strociek Project

[Ferrous Head]

I once (well, actually many times) thought about building my own engine.
From scratch. Casting the cases and other parts, doing the machine work and making something I could ride and call "mine".
I bought books on casting metal and got together the things I needed to make small metal castings. I had clean paper on a drawing board.
The plan was to build a simple. single cylinder engine.

But you quickly realise it;s not much more to build a twin.

And it's also smart to use other people parts, readily available, when you can. Things like pistons, cam shafts crank pins, a lot of the difficult parts already exists.

And I think Srociek was taking this route. far from totally, totally different he used as many HD parts as possible.

And I am grateful as it means finishing this thing off is not as big a challenge as I originally thought it would be.

But just a little disappointed he didn't correct the biggest hurdle to making power with an IH engine, the combustion chamber. The one concession is the central plug location.

[Ferrous Head]

Originally Posted by Chuckthebeatertruck

No you won't get .500 out of them. They will bind.

Coil bind averages around .791 on the Kibbles. Just not enough travel unless you are ok with running below .060 safety (I wouldn't) or really sink the hell out of the valves and re-radius the rocker tip to match.

In other words -- worry less and stick with a lift below .475. There's pretty much no reason to try and go higher on a street ridden bike these days.

I was never going to go too high with lift. I would like late closing intakes as this will be electric start.

I did in fact get approval from MA to run this engine in P4. But it's right on the limit at 1356 cc's. And I have no idea what the heads flow like but was always considering using the torque this engine should make.

I think I need to try one more time to contact Mr. Strociek. I still wonder about the history of this thing.

[Ferrous Head]

OK. Hd some time off. Went to Tarbuck Bay and watched nature for a while.

Now thinking once again I'm too old to keep doing this. I am forgetting just too many things.

Case in point. Came back and decided to install lifter blocks and lifters to confirm everything will fit and be OK.

I have been curious from day 1 that there were 4 corks in the lifter block holes. Installing lifter blocks is certainly not a major challenge.
I had a set of lifter blocks left over from a now defunct engine.

These had already been clearanced for a big bore engine. Bonus I guess.

Installed the front exhaust, no problem. Went to install the front intake and ....

Not enough clearance. Whoops wrong block. Nope, right block, clearanced within an inch of it's life.

Now the cases have been modified and I presumed there would be enough clearance for the lifter blocks. But no.

Seriously ?



So, I look closer at the situation and realize it's not the cases fouling the lifter block, it's the cylinders.

Again, seriously ?

So, my thinking is this is why they stopped working on the engine and why the valve train wasn't finished off.

I'm now going to have to pull the cylinders and start grinding them.

But I start thinking carefully about this as it's a lot more work to go through.

Suddenly dawned on me they clearanced the cases for the lifter blocks - just not the cylinders.
But I've done these in the past and just made sure I put the lifter blocks in before installing the cylinders.

So, just had to lift the cylinders up enough to allow the inlet blocks to drop

in.

Job done.



Here's what gets me. I had to do this on the Dytch engine just a few months back. But I had forgotten all about it. Until I actually worked out what I had to do with this one.

Maybe I am getting too old,

[joe s]

Getting old isn't for sissies. But as I've told myself many times, any job worth doing is worth doing over. Keep at it, it'll be worth all the hassles.

[RicThompson]

To think some people still can't figure out a Rubiks Cube.

[brucstoudt]

you'll run into the same issue with oem cylinders and intake lifters.i did it was either lift the cylinders which i wasn't doing or clearance the cylinders with a die grinder.that's really a poor design i.m.o. obviously the lifters were put in place before the cylinders were installed at the factory with no regard to replacing the lifters at a later date.

[Ferrous Head]

I'm hoping to devote more time to y projects in the first half of this year but it's a question of priorities and time.

I will have to build a new workshop at Tarbuck Bay as the plan is to move down there to live permanently. Nice house, no workshop.

Yesterday Mr. Marston came by and put gentle pressure on me to work on my sidecar as there is a meeting in March and I am re-doing the top end. It's been running 5 years now without being touched.

And Covoid has hit a number of businesses here slowing down everything including my machinists. Still waiting on two re-bores from last year.

And I know I am forgetting some very basic things now. Don't know if I'm better or worse than 5 years ago but it kinda surprises me when I do it.