Finally got the 555 motor running with the Megacycle cams and the stock head. Damn electrical gremlins. A connection must have got corroded (from sitting too long) and was only allowing intermitant current to the left coil. Unpluged and replugged all of the connectors in the wire harness and she fired right up. Been so long since I started her...WICKED!!!! Idles great with no hang up at 3k. Great throttle response. I may need to adjust the valves, due to slight ticking. Not sure if it better to have the valves loose or tight?

Now for the bad news, there is a knocking sound from the right side. I had a problem with piston-head & piston-plug clearance from an earlier thread. I doubt that is a problem now with the head & gasket I have installed, but then I have been wrong before. Actually I hope it is since that would be easier to fix. One thought is that this may be piston slap in the cylinder. The right piston had a little extra wear then the left one. The cylinder & left piston were supplied together and the right piston came from another. I am going to first check for clearance issues again.

Can not wait to head to Jennings on May 9th now....WooHoo!

Is this the same knock you had earlier?
Is it from the top or bottom end?

It is hard to tell if it is the same knock with the bike actually running now. From what I can tell it is coming from the top of the right cylinder. I am hoping is is just the piston hitting the head again. I did not grind any off of this head like I did on the milled head.

Be careful with all this head bashing. Its REALLY bad for the crank and main bearings...

I hope you get it straightened out,  I am trying to talk a friend into taking my former SV down there and spliting the track day on it (My GS is dismembered and buried under boxes of junk...).

No signs of impacting. Checked the head clearances and all look good. Not sure what the knocking sound is. I am running it without the gas tank installed this time, so it may be a sound from before I never noticed. I made a auxilary tank for tuning and used it for the first time on this start.

Could be a rod bearing :x
Drop the oil pan and check for bearing bits.

What kind of compression are the 555 pistons? Seems like there is a ton of room with stock pistons and cams. I've read that guys will mill .05 off a stock head to bump compression when running stock cams.  
Do you have your cam timing set properly?

Read this thread for all the gory details of Mr. Dgyver's tribulations.

Just dropped the oil pan...good news, no bearing pieces, just a very small stone (about 2mm), a small piece of metal that looks like a drill shaving (about 1mmx2mm) and the indexing pin from a cam journel. It was missing when I swapped cams the very first time. Colin must have dropped it when he had to replace the blown head gasket. There was some other grit in the pan but too small to be of any significance.

Not sure the compression of the pistons. I have 2 heads...1 stock & 1 milled. I have to run with the thicker .028" copper head gasket, which just so happens to be the same clearance of the right piston to the head. I had to remove some material from the milled head at the sides of the compression cavity since the edge of the high dome of the pistons were hitting the egde. I added the same relief in the stock head as well eventhough I did not see any interference. The pistons had to have spark plug reliefs ground as well.

I have .417" lift Megacycle cams and the timing is set correctly. I have gotten really good at this.

Quote from: JamesGRead this thread for all the gory details of Mr. Dgyver's tribulations.

I have had to go back to that thread serveral times and use it as a diary of what I have done and the results.  :mrgreen:

I pulled the 79s out last night. Looks like the knocking sound was piston slap in the cylinder. The right one appears to be a little loose in the cylinder, at least more than the left. I did not check them too closely when I first put them in but would have installed them anyway since I do not know what clearance is required between the piston & cylinder. I do not have an accurate way to measure them anyway. For now, I put the 75s back in until I get another cylinder bored for the 79s. Have not started it yet since the oil pan is still off.

James...finally got the May RRW. Interesting article, wish I had the 5 before it. Do have them? If you make it to Jennings on the 9th could you bring a copy of them?

The 500 motor is back in and runs with no ill sounds. So the only thing it could have been is piston slap. Going to make a few calls tomorrow to have someone to bore another cylinder to match these 2 pistons. Then I get to do this all over again.

At least it is ready for Jennings in 2 weekends.

Are you using a GS head or something else?

THx
Shane

Using a GS head.