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https://www.twinair.com/
410 East Walnut Street Unit #2
Perkasie PA 18944
Phone: 1-800 749-2890 / +1-215 258-5124
Fax: +1-215 258-5126
E-mail: info@twinairusa.com
Very cool stuff.
I've never tried their coolant but I have a whole series of test's to perform this summer on two other products so I'll test this coolant as well..
The twin air stuff is good. On these new frame ktms, never mind the back fire screen your bike had, the cage itself isnt that great. The center has a edge that likes to over time wear a hole in the filter. And the new cage has more mounting points for the foam. So the trick cage sorts a few issues out in one.
Thank you.
I thought it was something good to have and made good sense.
I can't wait to ride this bike.
What I'm really looking forward to is having some of the guys at MXA get off it glad that they rode it, but happy that they never have to ride it again...
Can you ever have too much power?
Probably... but we'll see..
KX450f Clutch cover with the filler neck for an adapted KX500.
Troy is making them without the filler neck.
The Shop
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Have to see if they can make some bits for my 380 project or my kx250
Got a question, are you Mike or Oscar? I just got a TSR Power valve cover from Mike this week.
Everything fits just like it should and you can't beat his finish quality.
The Exhaust valve cover fits a large range of KX250's....
Oscar???? Who's that???
I'm Mike...
Oscar and I started KX Guru Racing a little over a year ago when we built Sean Collier's KX500 which was featured on the April 2017 MXA magazine cover...
KX Guru Racing is not a commercial enterprise.
We started it to promote big bore 2T bikes and how they can be made competitive with anything out there on the right track and with the right prep.
Sean has been hurt far more then he has been well so he has only been in a few races.
Where he raced he has done very well on a Pro level.
Partially because of Sean's success others have swung a leg over the big bore and won several races in many different classes.
Which proves what myself and many others knew when manufactures (Excluding KTM) began dumping their 2T's... 2T's rock!
If the manufactures continued to develop the 2T's like they did the valve slingers it would be a different world..
But when in business, follow the money....
I hope you like your cover.
I bought 40 of them and sold all but 9 of them in about a week.
I wish I could buy all of TSR's products and keep them on the shelf both KX500 and CR500 but I'm a poor guy
Oh well...
I've enjoyed your build and encourage you to keep up the good work.
In the mean time I am working on some mods to make the KX500 even more competitive with the valve sliingers...
Some of those mods will be featured on this build so stay tuned...
I was just curious, have read and checked out a bunch of stuff you guys have put out there. By sharing your finds has really saved me some time building a solid machine (I hope). My goal is similar to your mission statement, I want to get this 500 to the front in my class, show the old aint slow in both rider and bike
I have to admit Sean's exposure really inspired the build. Came across from Fasthouse, really loved everything they were doing with the brand. Simple, clean, creative, etc. Not to mention the gear fits awesome, some things made in the USA.. Then seeing Sean rip on the 500, style for miles.
The TSR cover is a work of art. Not one flaw. I'm waiting on one seal I forgot to order... the clutch case "Governor Shaft" seal. So bummed a few days ago I didn't have one. The feeling you get when you don't have something on a friday evening.. jeez
Appreciate the compliments on the build and look forward to the mods you come up with!
I can tell you from my perspective few people will buy them in stock configuration.
Why? stock used cases are expensive but still available.
You can also repair a LOT of damage for not a lot of money.
Adding too that, a counter balance setup would add quite a bit to the cost limiting those who will buy.
At approx 1800 USD these aren't for everybody.
Then, which rod and piston and piston size combo do you balance it for?
If I was TSR I would wait and see how the market reacts to a stock setup and go from there.
Again, that is my own thoughts and not TSR's.
If TSR really wanted to go all out they could add E-start, 6 speed trans, Counter balance for Wosser rod and piston, move the mounts around to fit AF chassis, KTM chassis, ect, ect...
For now I'm just happy that they offered the cases and covers
I will take great care of it after I cut it up a bit
This will really accent my custom Growler Racing pipe
For now I'm in a holding pattern waiting for a few more parts to get here so I can move to powder coating.
On the engine, I'm waiting for some custom parts I designed to come back from welding...
Then I can get with it and get all the hand work on them done.
I have had samples sent to three different shops to get them machined new.
After about three months of waiting I bailed on the first shop.
The second shop was not willing to listen to me, ruined the sample parts, and then raised the price to finish the job.
That blew another 2 months.
The third shop was not equipped to do the job.
So I've wasted about 6 months and am not willing to wait any longer.
Funny thing is I worked at a machine shop for 15 years and I know they (Where I used to work) have the equipment to do it.
But I don't want to pay for programming for the prototype until I know it works
If this works like I think it will everyone with a KX500 will want these.... All 23 of us
But time will tell...
On this bike I'm waiting for the pipe to get back so I can do final fitting before disassemble and powder coating.
I've used some of the time to work more on my Guru Drum valves.
I'm on rev 3.0... It's a pain but could give huge rewards but more on that later...
I'm playing around with Cerakote for the piston tops.
First, I need a little testing...
First test.
Uncoated piston
Starting temp 62F
15 SEC 120F
30 SEC 185F
45 SEC 227F
1 MIN 263F
1 MIN 15 SEC 296F
1 MIN 30 SEC 313F
1 MIN 45 SEC 328F
2 MIN 353F
In the trans i coat everything that moves, shift forks, drums, shafts, gears, etc with a moly coating.
It makes a notchy shifting bike effortless. I did my 99 ktm in 99, that was the first year for the billet shift drum, so the forks had these rollers on them. Very notchy, and it was the kind of vike that neutral was hard to find, and you usually always had to let off to shift.
After i coated the trans, it was like an old honda. Butter smooth, wide open shifts no prob, and one good side effect was my oil stayed clean.
I took that motor apart in 07 to freshen up.
At that point the lower end had around 350 hours. The trans looked identical to the day i put in after coating.
On outside of engine, i use a type of coating like a gun barrell would have. Heat disspersant, has teflon in it so i found it sheds dirt easily. In the comb chamber/ dome of piston one kind of ceramic, on powervalves, ex port, spigot, another type of ceramic that when cures is slick, nut yet contains the heat. The stuff works. My porting buddy did this stuff back in the air cooled days, and with it was able to keep an air cooled motor from fading,
Also found i can run an abnormal amount of compression without the normal side effects. And i could usually run leaner jetting. Made the engine more efficient. That 500 of mine in that ktm frame has all this mess. The black motor is a thermal disspersant. Also have been told before the ex note of my coated motors are different, not sure about that but whatever.
So yeah, depending on what cerakote is, you cant go wrong with it. Depending on what you do, apply x coating to keep heat in, get heat out, make slick, etc etc.
The thermal stuff works great on radiators, calipers, anything you want to shed heat off of.
The moly works great in old kawi transmissions, or any for that matter, piston skirts, etc
There are mAny types of ceramics, the stuff i use in ex ports looks black/ brown when cured, the dome/ chamber stuff is kinda greyish.
Pit Row
The work is in the prep. Certain blast media inhibits this stuff from sticking right, so thats a key part of the process to get right. Then i wash the part, dry it, then use mek to get it even cleaner. On old sand cast stuff, that stuff holds in oil, so i preheat it to let it sweat that out. But yeah, the prep is the work. On the moly/ disspersant stuff an airbrush type spray gun is used, as well as one of the ceramics. The slick ceramic is brushed on. All of it bakes in oven to cure.
I have always used castor927, probably most of my life. But if you know anything about that oil, it needs heat to work at its best. I found with all these coatings, keeping heat where it needs to be, etc etc only helped the castor work even better.
But the compression thing is nuts. Its always said how too much pop in a 2 stroke is bad, but with all these thermal coatings in a top end, right fuel, etc you can make a very high amount, and still habe an engine that revs and is reliable.
My 300 ktm for example, made for most of those 350 hours around 275 psi. Very flat, but fast bike, and insane reliability. I still have that motor, its now going in a 2016 350 ktm chassis, but in its last overhaul i lowered it down to 240.
I raced a 03 cr250 for around 5 years. It was a jet. Lots of psi out of it too. Forged piston a must though. I split a few vertex on that bike making a consistent 260.
The gun barrell coating, the thermal disspersant is also nice because it has teflon in it. It sheds dirt. Racing in Oklahoma back then was easy to stain an engine. Mine always just came clean.
And you can blend it with colors. I built a cr500/ mugen wannabe 6-8 years back. Did the whole motor tahitian red. But it was a dispersant, so it shed heat and looked neat at same time.
That ex port ceramic though is awesome. You get the slick part, like a port guy is looking for, but the ceramic keeps the heat where it needs to be.
I'll try and dig up some photos of parts coated.
Look up techline. Where i get most everything from.
You could write a full on comment as long as a single page for a Vital thread and I would meticulously read it.i love tech info on stuff like that, the knowledge is like food for my brain!! I most likely dont have the resources or talent to effectively apply these coatings but it would be good to know and Id eventually like to try some of the methods youve mentioned at some point.
Here is a couple of other pics to show the direction I'm headed
Jason Meyer, CR500 Expert. I know, it's a valve slinger
Here's a pic from Alex Ward, KX500 Guru
In the directions is says not to use use aluminum oxide.
Guess what I'm using... Yep Aluminum oxide.
At 40 lbs the media comes out at a low velocity so it won't blast through the metal to quickly
In the oven for an hour...
We should be able to have some test numbers late this evening or tomorrow afternoon..
He does a lot of R&D work for race teams... Including Nascar. He's also be very involved in developing race fuels for some of the largest producers.
134 mph on a stock bike
He didn't use head or piston coatings but rather used other methods to keep the piston crown cool.
His method gained him 3hp on the top end.
With the kinds of mods I'm doing to my engine I can't use his method so I need something else.
Then again, I'm not shooting for a land speed record with this build but I am shooting for a much longer power curve then you see in most KX500's.
When we go after the land speed record we will pull all the stops out and do all the craziness I can dream of
So, the product does work as far as being a thermal barrier.
Now I need to do the head and exhaust port and get something built so I can test.
Yes, there are products made specifically for this application.
And Cerakote V-136Q is one of those products:
Description
This coating is designed to be applied to piston tops, combustion chambers, valve tops, exhaust ports, external turbo housings and exhaust components.
So why test it before I drop it into a engine?
Cause I want to :-)
I have a buddy Jeff Grawbarger (7 time drag champion) running NOS on his drag KX500.
We want to work on getting that engine a bit cooler and I think this will do it.
And, I like to do things myself as much as possible and with the right prep I can do it.
Which means you can do it too.
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