Thanks Adrian. There are lots of people who know much more than I do, but I have been around engines most of my life and modifying them from a young age.
@@JoelArseneaultTH-cam I have access to a Bridgeport or decent sized Lathe with 4 jaw chuck, but minimal cutting tools... Yeah, I'm considering my options and enjoyed watching your technique for sure. If you think lathe is the way to go, I'll consider that direction much more! I'll be watching your squish band in depth video soon as well but have some knowledge of the fundamentals. This will be my second 550 head. First one I pulled off with excellent results, but admit there was a LOT of luck involved that I can't count on happening a second time!
@@AtimatikArmy The three most important things to remember when cutting the squish are 1. Make sure that you are not starting with a warped / out of spec head. It is a good idea to resurface the head carefully before cutting squish. 2. Use the gasket surface as a reference point and not the plug hole or the currant squish. 3. Check the angle of your piston carefully and many times before deciding what angle you are going to cut. Pistons often have a convex shape and you want to get the angle from at the very edge. I probably checked mine 15 times to make sure that I was getting the same result over and over. You can always compensate with gaskets, but it is best to do some math and figure out how much to take including thickness of base and head gasket and what outside squish you are aiming for. I also have 2 videos about checking dome volume that you may want to watch Cheers.
Making your own tools, respect. In the video you say you are having camera problems, might I ask which camera you are using on this video? Great video though I really like that you a machining your own parts. I think the head looks awesome.
Thanks Josh. You know how it is. You do what you have to to get a job done :) Having Hero 7 problems. The Hero 9 Has been working pretty much flawlessly. Othan some odd issues at first (out of the box) and the Horizon Leveling, I haven't had any issues for as long as I can remember. Edit : You may notice in some of the audio that the camera software tries too hard to pick up sounds and adds a LOT of high end ... most noticeable when I'm on the water it will sometimes pick up the sound of the ski and it sounds like high pressure leaking air or dumping a million marbles on a plate of glass, haha. Just high pitch.
Well done good explanation, on my new 800 the squish is looking way too big, looks like 2mm from the top of the piston to the deck height plus head gasket I'll be close to .100 what are your thoughts? I never checked the 800 I'm currently running so maybe this is normal.
Thanks for the comment. It is quite common in stock form for squish to be way too large. That is why one of the first mods is to plane the head and bump up the compression. The nice thing about being really careful with your squish (cutting it accuratly and with a 1º taper, you can run quite high compression without having to run race fuel. A proper squish shape will help reduce knock and allow your engine to run a little cooler. The main reason why this isn't usually done is because it is fairly time consuming, as you have to do a lot of checking and rechecking after every change.
30 seconds in and already hoping you use the meted you told me about! AWWW! Not using the sandpaper piston trick.... Now that's manual machining! Hey so I was thinking about sending you an 1100 parts engine. You would need a crank pistons bore reed pedals, and it doesn't have a exhaust pipe or manifold or carbs. And the ebox is???? It needs everything but it's a starting point. What do you think?
LOL... I used the sandpaper and filmed it for you, unfortunately my head needed a LOT more work because of the compression and close tolerances I'm running... I don't want to ruin my new Wiseco pistons too quick, so I decided to play it safe and mill in an angle. I didn't publish the other footage, because I thought it would be confusing enough as it is... if I were to have showed me sanding and then cutting it, I would have totally confused a LOT of people. If I still have the footage, maybe I'll throw it up as an unlisted video, but I think I may have deleted it already. Yeah. Manual machining at it's finest, haha. I was rushed to get it done and actually messed up the tool. The tool was offset to the wrong side of the centre line so a whole 5/16" off centre ... I don't think it matters much as I did the pto side today and cut in reverse... my mill just isn't rigid enough to do a forming cut like that. OH HELL YEAH ! That would be AWESOME ! What an awesome project for me !! LOL... so that's why you were asking about what engine I -WANT- How clever. COVID and the tax man have really kicked my ass for funds this year, so anything helps !! I read this part of your comment and I wasn't even sure how to respond. That's super generous of you to consider that. I would totally put it to good use :)
The sand paper piston trick!!?? OMG, I thought that was my invention (of course not, what was I thinking!)! Thats exactly how I shaped my squish on my last head and it actually turned out perfect and ran like a bat out of helll! (even if it wasn't "perfect") I even created a mandral for it using an old sparkplug that I busted out the ceramic and machined is match fit shaft that I threaded and had nutted to the donor (shaper) piston to keep things true... I'm sure that wasn't an original idea either! DIY modders and backyard machinists unite!
@@AtimatikArmy I actually think the spark bushing and mandrel are next level. I think the safe way to do it is still with a cylinder, as you don't want to be aligned with the plug hole as your reference point. It might work out 90% of the time but the piston will be in the bore 100% of the time, so following the bore is a fail safe way. It's cool to see how different people come up with different ideas. One thing I've always had problems with is clearing the aluminum from the sandpaper. I was thinking if you built a bushing with a air fitting and could flow a little air in and take care of that.... or if you have a lateh - use a lathe 😂
Wow Joel , your knowledge is unbelievable, very informative
Thanks Adrian. There are lots of people who know much more than I do, but I have been around engines most of my life and modifying them from a young age.
Awesome, I'll be doing the same thing to my 550sx head very soon. Glad I found your channel :-)
If you have a large lathe and make sure you set the head up properly. it is a much faster / easier way.
@@JoelArseneaultTH-cam I have access to a Bridgeport or decent sized Lathe with 4 jaw chuck, but minimal cutting tools... Yeah, I'm considering my options and enjoyed watching your technique for sure. If you think lathe is the way to go, I'll consider that direction much more! I'll be watching your squish band in depth video soon as well but have some knowledge of the fundamentals. This will be my second 550 head. First one I pulled off with excellent results, but admit there was a LOT of luck involved that I can't count on happening a second time!
BTW, I've subscribed!
@@AtimatikArmy The three most important things to remember when cutting the squish are 1. Make sure that you are not starting with a warped / out of spec head. It is a good idea to resurface the head carefully before cutting squish. 2. Use the gasket surface as a reference point and not the plug hole or the currant squish. 3. Check the angle of your piston carefully and many times before deciding what angle you are going to cut. Pistons often have a convex shape and you want to get the angle from at the very edge. I probably checked mine 15 times to make sure that I was getting the same result over and over.
You can always compensate with gaskets, but it is best to do some math and figure out how much to take including thickness of base and head gasket and what outside squish you are aiming for. I also have 2 videos about checking dome volume that you may want to watch
Cheers.
@@AtimatikArmy I appreciate that, thank you !
You are doing some awesome work, very inspirational.
Thanks Marcus !! I appreciate the support !
Making your own tools, respect. In the video you say you are having camera problems, might I ask which camera you are using on this video? Great video though I really like that you a machining your own parts. I think the head looks awesome.
Thanks Josh. You know how it is. You do what you have to to get a job done :)
Having Hero 7 problems. The Hero 9 Has been working pretty much flawlessly. Othan some odd issues at first (out of the box) and the Horizon Leveling, I haven't had any issues for as long as I can remember.
Edit : You may notice in some of the audio that the camera software tries too hard to pick up sounds and adds a LOT of high end ... most noticeable when I'm on the water it will sometimes pick up the sound of the ski and it sounds like high pressure leaking air or dumping a million marbles on a plate of glass, haha. Just high pitch.
Well done good explanation, on my new 800 the squish is looking way too big, looks like 2mm from the top of the piston to the deck height plus head gasket I'll be close to .100 what are your thoughts? I never checked the 800 I'm currently running so maybe this is normal.
Thanks for the comment. It is quite common in stock form for squish to be way too large. That is why one of the first mods is to plane the head and bump up the compression.
The nice thing about being really careful with your squish (cutting it accuratly and with a 1º taper, you can run quite high compression without having to run race fuel. A proper squish shape will help reduce knock and allow your engine to run a little cooler.
The main reason why this isn't usually done is because it is fairly time consuming, as you have to do a lot of checking and rechecking after every change.
30 seconds in and already hoping you use the meted you told me about! AWWW! Not using the sandpaper piston trick....
Now that's manual machining!
Hey so I was thinking about sending you an 1100 parts engine. You would need a crank pistons bore reed pedals, and it doesn't have a exhaust pipe or manifold or carbs. And the ebox is???? It needs everything but it's a starting point. What do you think?
LOL... I used the sandpaper and filmed it for you, unfortunately my head needed a LOT more work because of the compression and close tolerances I'm running... I don't want to ruin my new Wiseco pistons too quick, so I decided to play it safe and mill in an angle.
I didn't publish the other footage, because I thought it would be confusing enough as it is... if I were to have showed me sanding and then cutting it, I would have totally confused a LOT of people. If I still have the footage, maybe I'll throw it up as an unlisted video, but I think I may have deleted it already.
Yeah. Manual machining at it's finest, haha. I was rushed to get it done and actually messed up the tool. The tool was offset to the wrong side of the centre line so a whole 5/16" off centre ... I don't think it matters much as I did the pto side today and cut in reverse... my mill just isn't rigid enough to do a forming cut like that.
OH HELL YEAH ! That would be AWESOME ! What an awesome project for me !! LOL... so that's why you were asking about what engine I -WANT- How clever. COVID and the tax man have really kicked my ass for funds this year, so anything helps !! I read this part of your comment and I wasn't even sure how to respond. That's super generous of you to consider that. I would totally put it to good use :)
The sand paper piston trick!!?? OMG, I thought that was my invention (of course not, what was I thinking!)! Thats exactly how I shaped my squish on my last head and it actually turned out perfect and ran like a bat out of helll! (even if it wasn't "perfect") I even created a mandral for it using an old sparkplug that I busted out the ceramic and machined is match fit shaft that I threaded and had nutted to the donor (shaper) piston to keep things true... I'm sure that wasn't an original idea either! DIY modders and backyard machinists unite!
@@AtimatikArmy I actually think the spark bushing and mandrel are next level. I think the safe way to do it is still with a cylinder, as you don't want to be aligned with the plug hole as your reference point. It might work out 90% of the time but the piston will be in the bore 100% of the time, so following the bore is a fail safe way.
It's cool to see how different people come up with different ideas. One thing I've always had problems with is clearing the aluminum from the sandpaper. I was thinking if you built a bushing with a air fitting and could flow a little air in and take care of that.... or if you have a lateh - use a lathe 😂