So during my last riding season before deploying to Afghanistan I blew the motor on my VTR Project bike... Anyone have any recommendations on a replacement? anyone selling a motor? are they outrageous to rebuild?

heres the bike. and yes....dont ask....dont tell......


And yes, thats Mario Nava bodywork and Moriwaki Ti Exhaust (read: unobtanium)

 

If you could be more specific on the damage to the engine that would help. i.e is it imploded front CCT or something more terminal?

If necessary there should be replacement heads or complete lumps on flea-bay

 

jeepingoose is parting out his bike- I can't remember if the motor is good or sold or not. Pretty sure it's good and he's just sold a few covers off of it so you may look to him if you go the replacement route.

 

Im not exactly sure what failed.....you see

when I put the bike together, when I was replacing the exhaust pan for the Mori exhaust and doing the clutch and timing advance....i found 2 random bolts and a couple peices of broken off casting in the old oil pan......lol....

bike ran for about a year with no problems, one day I was giving it hell and it just lost power, when I pulled over it was overheating pretty bad, it would start sometimes but wouldnt run very well. It may have overheated and blown a head gasket....not sure really. I feel bad if thats what caused it to go.....but its kinda hard to monitor the heat when your going 10/10ths on a backroad lol.....i wasnt too upset, i kinda had it coming the way i treated that motor.

 

If you are saying it ran for a year after you found random engine parts in the oilpan, the engine didn't fail, you did... And if that's the case I wouldn't recommend you to try a rebuild... If that was after the breakdown, well, then you just failed a little on the temps... Either way, the only way of knowing is to tear that engine apart...

Replacing the engine isn't that expensive... Rebuilds can be, but not neccesarily...

 

most likely cheaper to replace.....

 

I have COMPLETE 1999 engine/transmission- I can send it put together(with no extra parts) or send it to you apart..
Apart- shipping would be considerably less , than to ship the engine freight..
Let me know, if your interested, I will get some shipping prices together....

 

I dont think you nessecarily understand the situation, so allow me to elaborate:

This bike led a pretty hard life with an somewhat squidly owner before It came into my possesion, after removing various LED light "upgrades" and doing some preventative maintenence I rode the bike for about a year before deploying to Afghanistan, afterwards I started a Project to replace a bent rim....well....snowballed into something a little more involved.

When I found 2 bolts and a few chunks of casting in the oil pan I was obviously concerned, so I searched every inch I could of the motor without dissassembly.....found nothing, the bolts were there common type and size as many other things in the engine, so it was no telling what it was.... but the closest theory I could come up with was that someone had been replacing the Clutch or something else and had dropped these 2 bolts into the oil pan, these bolts had managed to shoot around and get caught on things and broken off some peice of casting.....and had probably been laying in the pan for atleast a year by the time I found them. The bike always ran strong so the best I could do was pull the peices out and call it a day, Run it as long as I could and then replace or rebuild the engine if it ever developed a problem (I.E now, which may or may not be unrelated....) It ran for another year flawlessly after this, so im pretty happy with it.

So what was I supposed to do, tear down and rebuild this engine that still ran fine to find out what was already broken on it....instead of getting what useful life it had left and taking on another project to rebuild or swap when the time came? the damage was obviously already done and it wasn't an issue so I chalked it up for an excuse to rebuild later. I really didnt care if/when it failed....im not exactly heartbroken about it either, I actually laughed all the way from the side of the road back to the house with the bike in the back of the truck. Its a project bike and swapping a 500 dollar salvage motor or taking on a rebuild is part of the game. Besides, I think something else failed and caused it to overheat, and at a bad time when I was having a little too much fun running the corners....either way, thats the fun of this old project beater. Ill spend a few dollars and have a few beers and it'll be better next time.

I started this thread more or less to gauge the sources people are using for replacement motors, and the costs of a rebuild. I realize that upgraded pistons/cams/ect can be expensive for this motor and hard to come by so Im looking to find someone with insight on weather or not its worth rebuilding with upgraded internals.....or if the gains arn't justified for the cost and simply replacing the motor makes alot more sense.

So, anyone have a breakdown on rebuild costs? Im guessing my best route will be to scrap this motor and start fresh with a good condition salvage motor....I guess im just curious if a piston/cam upgrade is worththe effort.

 

If you want to thrash/trash it for fun then a simple motor swap can be done - rinse and repeat depending on what workshop facilities you have available for rebuilds.

But have you checked to see what the coolant levels are? Is the overflow tank full? If there's coolant in the oil. (in the photo there's water around the bike - is that from the VTR?) A simple compression test? Anything to tell what has gone wrong as it could be just the sensor...

 

I'm not sure you understood, it might be that you misinterpreted... I'm not judging, just stating facts... You ran the bike for a year after finding random parts in the oilpan... I can find no other word/description for that, than to say that you failed... But, I can fully understand making that choice and failing on purpose... It's still failing though...

If we are talking cost effective, nope, upgrading the VTR engine is not cost effective... Not even close... It was dated technology when it was new, and now it's ancient... The parts that you can find, are increasing steadily in price, and the selection of parts that you can find and buy are decreasing rapidly...

Is it even sane to try? Um... Nope... But is it fun? Hell Yeah!

 

The Honesty- Tweety. Uhhhhhhh... Just inspiring.....Ha Ha ! ! !

 

See this thread:
https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=24607

 

First of all THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE! Second, it's probably true that a replacement would be cheaper. I had a timing jump/valve break/piston ruined etc. Mine had sat for 9 years before I got it and it had 1400...yes 1400 miles on it. I think it failed because it was parked so long. Regardless, I was apprehensive about putting a motor in that I knew nothing about with god knows how many miles. I had mine rebuilt. It cost me nearly $2500 but I ended up with a motor that had 1400 miles, numbers matching etc. etc. If it was a track bike, I'd have bought a used motor and probably had pistons, cams, etc. put in it. Good luck! You could probably find a used motor for under 1k.

 

Ok then, I think we're on the same page now.... yeah It didn't make ense to rip it apart when whatever was broken was already borken anyway and id already missed out on 3/4ths of that riding season.

Id like to put a set of Cams in it atleast....but even that could be crazy expensive....I guess the problem is that even with a ton of work 120whp is all you usualy end up with and thats not much for the headache and work... I never really felt down on power with this bike though, it was really more about what it did in the corners.

The water around the bike was definately from the HMMWV's in the background, they had just come back from the washrack. I was on leave and stopping by the Company for a minute and snapped some pics. It definately had full coolant and had never had any problems with overheating, I was even running that ridiculously expensive coolant the cycle shops sell (kind that doesnt mix with regular water, have to flush your system with distilled first)

during the rebuild im goiing to try a front fork swap, and maybe a few other mods. itll be fun and cheap and thats what VTR's are about.

 

Let's just say it like this... I have had the most amazing luck in finding mindblowing deals on parts, soi have gotten some parts a lot cheaper than I though would be possible...

My engine is at this point is just missing the pistons for a full STG 1 build (I have them, just not installed, as I'm debating building a STG 2 engine for playing on track)... I'm pushing just shy of 120 hp at the rear wheel as is... And I have at this point more invested in parts than a newer, pristine VTR would cost twice over just in the running engine, and have more sitting on a shelf waiting for me too decide...

I'm pretty confident that I could get 135-140 out of a STG 2 engine with a few additional parts on top of my current goodie bag which contains a few of the near unobtainable parts... But is it cost effective... You decide...

To me, it's been worth it... But I'm not exactly considered the most sane by my friends... They do prefer me to fiddle with "that old bike" instead of something more modern though, as they have enough problems keeping me behind as it is...

 

HisHawkiness:

How many parts will you be swapping over from your existing motor? The oil pan will have to go with that exhaust right? Do you have stage2 cams to match that stage2 exhaust?

Or will you be selling some of your neato bits to fund the build?

Edit: there are quite a few motors on Ebay right now, including some cheap ones. And my first impulse is always to contact inderocker to see if he has any right now.