Nath...

Believe me, I'm not blaming you for the idiotic way Hot Cams and other companies denominate stuff... It's one thing that on the shims themselfes you skip the . since it's impossible to read at that size, even Honda does that, but they should learn to follow some simple rules... You do not denominate things like that in metric... Not cool...

Even if you guys are confused enough to measure in inches, you still count stuff out using decimal system, ie 10 digits, so with that in mind the metric measurements should make more sense...

If it help your thinking, just add a 0 behind the 5 making it "50"... Ie 195 = 1.95 = 1.950... That way 50 / 2 = 25 and the two neighbouring steps are then 1.950 +/- 0.025... Ie 1.975 and 1.925...

Oh, and believe me, I'm no going to leave my bike at no shop to get the valves set... My current favourite shop lets me "buy" the shims I need, and "return" the old one's later, after I have swapped them (The boss dislikes it when the computer says things are missing... )... And they use Honda shims of the right increments and nothing else...

Considering that most of their business is building engines for roadracing and dragracing, they would have a hissy fit if you even suggested that "in spec" was good enough... If there ever was anyone more **** about engines and tools than me, those guys qualify...

 

thanks tweety, that helps me to be able to compute shim sizes easier. Appreciate it.

I wouldn't mind so much, this process of learning the valve shim deal and how the CCTs work, and how much finger pressure results in what amount of chain tension so that it can be adjusted without seeing the chain, and how to arrive at TDC without seeing the cam lobes so the CCTs can be removed safely. The aggravating part however, is running back and forth to the freakin honda shop, spending days and money with everything torn apart waiting for this or that shim to arrive. SUCKS

I'm trying to put my experience out here so that others will not make the same errors as I have made and be able to breeze through this with the least amount of money and time involved. And, if they have a shop do their valve adjustment, they will be more likely to have the valves adjusted as they were from the factory, i.e., with .025mm increment shims instead of ballparking with .05mm shims, if the shop has Honda shims available and not Hot Cams et al which seems to be the present MO for all the jap bike shops I've visited locally.

Incidentally, I spoke with Wiseco rep today and their kits are disappointingly .05mm increments also. The rep I spoke to, Al, said that when they build engines in their shop, they frequently machine the shims to the desired thickness to get their engines performing properly, but they didn’t offer that service to others. If you have access to such a machine, you can buy a Hot Cams kit or other and cut them according to you needs

converting shim sizes to appropriate valve clearance numbers seems fairly straightforward, but for dummies like me who want to twist the numbers around, it can be a little challenging. Maybe with tweety's tutorials, I'll maybe eventually learn.

For example, a 208mm shim is the designation for 2.08mm which is actually 2.075mm. I went down 2 honda sizes to a 202mm or 2.02mm, but actually 2.025mm. This is a net reduction of .05mm reduction or .0019in , almost.002in more clearance. This seemed perfect for my intention to go from .005in to .007in clearance. The thing that confounds me is that I ended up with a tight .006in rather than the intended .007in. This is strange since I checked clearances several times before tearing apart, going to the next feeler above and below, and it was a definite. WTF This is why i believe that a .025mm increment kit, rather than picking up a shim here and there, is needed to do the job in a timely and efficient manner. Unfortunately I haven’t found such a kit, so it’s a matter of ordering specific shims from Honda and waiting. PIA.

 

Here are a couple of photos from a supercharged Toyota MR2 engine with 85k miles on it that I rebuilt.
the valves have been cleaned with a wire wheel. The intake valves looked fine and were reused. The exhaust valves are completely hammered and were leaking so badly that carbon was built up.

the head has been ported and unshrouded, but the valve seats have not been cut. You can see the pitting on the exhaust seats, but none on the intakes.

 

If you consider me spouting infanities at varios companies for not making decent products, feel free to learn as much as you like...

I know how it feel's to have the bike apart and want to go riding...

One of the shims on my bike was smack dab in the middle of that 0.025 mm increment, and was as a result machined at the above mentioned shop... At the same time, the valves got a fresh cut... It does wonders for the engine character...

 

you had your engine parts at wiseco in Ohio?

I know the engine feels great when all the valves are set close and that despite the exhausts being -2, and that's why i can't be happy until they're equal clearances. The character of this engine is the reason I bought this bike after one short ride and have owned it longer than any other bike since I began riding.

 

Hah, no... Not even close to Ohio... I was talking about the local shop that builds race engines... They for obvious reasons have the neccesary tools...

 

well i have finally had enough of this ordering shims ****, parts are scattered all over the place, working an hour here and an hour there. Some things I have patience for, for others it runs out like a dam that broke.

I picked up a couple more shims yesterday and found that I still needed a couple more.....so instead of ordering more and waiting another week, I pretended to have a machine shop in my garage. That means I reduced a few shims with a piece of sandpaper taped on glass and a micrometer left to me by my dad. He'd be proud of me. haha Took my time, reversing circular movements and rotating shim, piece of folded tape to allow my finger to stick to the shim, and periodic checking for thickness and surface flatness. Ain't that hard. If I would have known this, i'd had this done long ago and saved a bunch of trips, waiting, a little money, and a lot of other stupid bull ****.

Thanks to tweety, who really does know dam near everything, no i mean everything, at least compared to dumbasses like me, and who deserves some recognition for his willingness to teach the thick of mind. I have always tried to help others myself, but don't possess the same level of ability, that's why I always enjoyed working with mentally challenged.

I have gained some understanding of the numerical designations on the shims and how they can be translated to meaningful numbers for those who have only standard feeler gages and micrometer. As stated before, commercial shim kits are all 5mm increments except for honda who doesn't sell kits. 5mm shims don't get it for me and unless you don't give a **** but only to have the valves in spec, then you need closer tolerance shims, at least .025mm. Anyway:

2.050mm=.0807in
2.025mm=.0797in
2.000mm=.0787in
1.975mm=.0777in
1.950mm=.0767in
1.925mm=.0757in
1.900mm=.0748in
1.875mm=.0738in

No need to be concerned with these measurements but to understand that dropping one Honda shim size(.025mm) is roughly equal to .001in. This makes it easy to predict what shims you will need to buy after you have measured valve clearances with standard feeler gages.

So you can pull the valve covers, turn the rear to TDC, check valve clearances and write them down per position(or make a little drawings of the heads noting intakes and exhausts), then do the same for the front. If your valves are not where you want them, remove frt and rear top chain guards(note chain tension), loosen the sprocket bolts(i.e., just break them loose and that's all.Turn crank to bring them above case so you don't strip the heads trying to break them loose). Do this for both front and rear cylinders.

Next get the rear on TDC mark, pull the ccts and mod them or back them off to max. plastic tie the chains to the sprockets, and first put a rag down alongside the sprockets to keep from losing a dropped bolt where it will be difficult to retrieve. Remove sprocket bolts and lay them gently aside on the rag with chain attached. Take a pic of the cam lobes or note their position which will be opposite of the front at FTDC.

Remove cam covers, may have to tap with a plastic hammer to losen, and lay them aside in the position they came off. Pull the cams and set them aside the same way. Use a strong magnet to pull the chrome lifter cover up and the shim may stick on the inside or remain on the valve, so be careful not to lose it. Wipe the shim and write is size on the little diagram you made and replace it. Check the others in the same manner. replace shim covers, cams covers and sprockets, and cct, and adjust chain tension and remove plastic ties making sure the RE and RI marks are aligned with the top edge facing out.

Move the crank around to the front TDC mark and do the same. Write all the shim sizes down and do your computations, and your set to order your shims. You won't need to put the front back together since you can start with the front when the shims arrive.

Now to calculate is easy: if your intake shim is a 205mm and the valve clearance is .005in, all you need to do is drop one size, to a 202mm to achieve .006in clearance, or 2 sizes to go to +1, .007in, to a 200mm. This makes it very easy to calculate and this can be done in a few minutes. I went to one over to .007in Intake and .013in for the Exhausts.

An important thing to remember in measuring clearance is to use the next lower and higher feeler gage to make sure you got the correct size. for example, my intakes on the rear cylinder were a tight .005in, maybe closer to a .004in, and so I had to go down 3 sizes, from a 208mm to a 200mm to get to .007in. The 202mm(2.025mm) i put in first was a tight .012in, maybe .011in, and i wanted to get to .013in. So what i'm trying to say is that if you're measuring clearances, try to be precise if you are fussy at all.

Perhaps it would be wise to follow Tweetys suggestion and use all metrics if you have the $ or the tools since you'll need a metric feeler and metric micrometer for that. Since there are +- 3 in mm as compared to +-1 in inches, there is some additional preciseness in the metric numbers.

this is my experience so far, but I haven't got it back together to see if it's gonna work. I did the CCT mod also and will check the carb syn because, accord to the authorities on this thread, it will need done even though they were not removed or adjusted. We'll see.

 

 

Lucky that all the valves came out to +1 as intended. To cold to test now, but sounds good. Thankfully I could cut the shims down with my new milling machine which incidentally takes up very little space.

The carbs were a little out of sync and I had just synced them a little while before, so appears that when you set the valves, whether or not you remove the carbs, you need to re-syn As was stated earlier.

I tried to re-adjust the CCT with the engine running (as per Tweety's method) after I synced the carbs, but could not hear any diff in sound. So I just did the finger pressure deal again because when I had it apart i could see and feel the cam chains while turning the CCT bolt and it works.

The thing I wanted to do when I had it apart was to turn the crank to TDC w/o using the visual position of the cam lobes to assist. I wanted to do this in case i had to remove the CCTs without having the valve covers off. I know it can be done. I am not certain how though.

Anyway there's a pic of the cam lobe position for the rear TDC and the front is opposite in that the lobes are facing out instead of in. Honda Manual pic sucks.