Quoted from an earlier thread:
"The cams are another thing again, because the UCE chamber is a different design which requires different things from the cams. However, cams could be made for that UCE platform to suit most any application. And the best choice would be to make them to suit, and if the hydraulic roller lifters are to be retained, there is no way to use solid lifter cam profiles with roller lifters. So, that would need to be done specifically for the UCE and my cams or Hitchcock's cams are not suitable for use with roller lifters. Again, it can all be done."
I am not sure that I fully picked up on the significance of that statement.
When you say "solid lifter cam profiles could not be used,...but it can be done" What is the alternative type of cam that could be used, and , ACE can you do it?
Given all that you have said about the complexity of pairing cam profiles to the breathing characteristics of a modified head, would some of the fiddly work you did with the Iron Barrel Fireball mod serve as a learning curve to effectively shorten the potential development path of a similar undertaking with the UCE, or is it a whole new ballgame from the ground up with the same number of engineering and bench hours .
You implied earlier that the performance objectives led the design of the head modifications. There was talk of RPM limitation of hydraulic lifters , changing stoke and bore , but in the end you came back to keeping the same stroke and using the RPM lints available -under 6000 I believe.
SO IF the goal was to more or less duplicate the performance characteristic of the Fireball, could a head be designed for the UCE guided by exactly the same performance profile expectation without changing the hydraulic lifters or fuel induction system keeping the same stroke , conrod , shaft and bearings,all below 6000 RPM, TRUSTING that the UCE bottom end and con-rod improvements are what they say they and if so THEN ACE, does the Z91442 standard (8.5:1) compression 535 piston bring us a step closer to Fireballing a UCE? You said before somewhere that half the cost went into "bottom end modifications" I don't know if this means strengthening the bottom end or if it includes the cam profile work , and if so, how the cost was apportioned between these. (If only the cams need work then costs may be lower)
Yes all just dreaming of future possibilities, but then so was the Fireball project. If my speculations about the market potential of the UCE are correct, the Iron Barrel Fireball may become a preparatory footnote to the next step. Again fortune favours the prepared. Nigel
PS In my defense, about typing, for some reason I only get about a 1 inch window to type in, and once a message passes a certain length, I am typing blind because it always reverts to the top of the box. Weird. I'll try the spell check .
Nigel,
The statement about the cams and lifters was only that they must match in type. Roller lifters require a different cam profile than the flat-tappet lifters which are used in the Iron Barrel engine. So, the Fireball cams cannot be used, and a new set of cams which have a suitable profile for roller lifters needs to be made.
As for the hydraulic part of the UCE lifters, that could remain of the rev limits are not increased much, or they can be replaced with solid roller lifters which are not hydraulic
So yes, it can be done.
As for the rev limits, from what I have seen from Chinoy, who tried modding one of these in India, we can't reliably see 6000rpm with these hydraulic lifters in the engine.
Regarding development time and effort, it's all a new ball game with the UCE.
The most basic parameters like bore and stroke might be the same, but everything else is different. Alot different.
"Duplicating Fireball performance" would have to be done in a different way than what was done on the Iron Barrel. If we want to keep the hydraulic lifters, we will have a lower rev limit than the Fireball. I think 5500rpm might be ok, but maybe a little lower would be more practical with the hydraulic lifters. And I can't make a definitive statement about the flexibility of the EFI system in the UCE, but I suspect it will need to be changed or modified to handle engine modifications of this nature under discussion.
Your question about using that specific piston cannot be answered at this time. It remains to be seen what the cams need to be timed at, and before we can do that, we need to see what the head can do. We also need to look at any mechanical limiting factors to see what limitations we might face from those.
On the Fireball, we had to deal with a weak con-rod and poor bearing quality, and sometimes poor assembly quality. But those parts to improve it were already available from vendors. I didn't have to develop them, but they are expensive. That was just "nuts and bolts" work. All of the development work was in the heads and cams and piston, and refining all the working relationships to avoid the previously inherent failures that plagued previous efforts.. The part about "half the cost is in the bottom end" referred to half the retail price to the customer to buy these parts to make the bottom end strong enough. The development costs to do the Fireball performance work was stratospheric in comparison, and takes a very long time.
Assuming that the UCE doesn't need bottom end improvement(which I am not ready to concede until that's proven) then the end user would have a lower overall cost because of the bottom end not requiring money to improve it.
Now, there ARE ways to approach this that could cost less money and be somewhat faster, IF a lower performance goal is deemed satisfactory. I could get a basic porting job done on the standard platform, and get a boost that people would feel, for not alot of money. It would probably need the Power Commander to go along with it, because the air flow rate would be increased.
That costs a whole lot less than an entire engine re-design. This is the way most other people do their mods, with more basic work and less intense design work involved.
No increasing of the rev limits or other drastic mods, and just give it a little more air.
It's not hard to squirt more fuel in there, and the PC could do that easily. It's getting the extra air in there to go with the fuel that's the hard part. And it's amazing what Joe Mondello could do with just a "Street/Strip" type valve job and blending for flow. I'd bet he could pick up an extra 15% flow in that head, with just a Mondello multi-angle valve job done on the Serdi machine, and a blending to the port. And that translates into power. Add the PC for getting proper air/fuel ratio for the new flow rate, use a free-flow exhaust, and you're probably going to like that alot.
Sometimes there is a middle-ground of some improvement for reasonable costs that people like.
Let's say for estimation that after a good stock UCE(21rwhp) gets a free-flow exhaust on it, that it pushes close to 24-25hp, just for sake of discussion. Add the ~15% increase with a PC and mild porting job, and you're possibly pushing close to 28-29hp at the rear wheel. And that's not bad at all. That would come out to about 33% increase in power over a stock bike.
Of course, those are "off the cuff" estimates, but it's probably not far off.
The worst offenders that are normally seen in the stock head flow path are at the valve seats. Production engines don't get hardly any attention to valve seat flow. they are just assembled enough to run, and they go out the door. It's too time-consuming and costly to pay attention to this stuff in a production environment. This is true of pretty much any production engine made, unless it's a costly performance engine, and even then it can be improved some. Any production engine can benefit well from more attention to the valve seats, and a blend to the port. It's a place where very good gains can be made, for not alot of money.
But it has to be done right, and that's why I have Mondello doing the work.
There's alot of ways to "skin the cat".
It all depends on how far you want to go, and how much you're willing to pay.
The early gains are usually some of the biggest gains, and as the engine gets better and better in its state of modification, it gets progressively more difficult and more expensive to get those last remaining hp.
Topic: 535 pston kit (Read 14767 times)