lalala so i'm removing some valve springs

[THEMOTORHEAD]

and low and behold
theres no spring seats    
wtf
this is the 3rd fuckin time i have gotten a busa head with no spring seats wtf??????????????????????????

[blowerbike]

not stock (factory untouched) of course.  

[THEMOTORHEAD]

was the stock one i took out of my 00 when it had 100 miles on it

[blowerbike]

are the seats stepped like a gs or sheet metel shim type(i have never disass one before)

[THEMOTORHEAD]

stepped

[blowerbike]

i mean is the seat pressure within factory specs with the seats missing.is there enough variance from one head to another that the factory would leave them out on some to get the seat presure within spec? this is assuming that there not needed for locating the springs.  

[THEMOTORHEAD]

this is atleast the 3rd time

[speed_pigeon]

everything has it's quirks from the line. a lose bolt or two, maybe even a missing rubber cap or plug of some sort, but a spring seat is a gross over sight on the factoty's part! how would you ever catch that if you didn't remove the head? what would it do. would it just bog real bad or what!?

[Mileageking]

As you ARE all sick of hearing I inspect factories. What usually happens is they are ready to ship then I come in and inspect the lot and tell them if they can ship it or not. I see shit all the time that is just incredible. People make mistakes. The best thing you can do is notify Suckuki and tell them the engine number and let them run with it. If you have all three case numbers that would be a great thing. I will be buying suzuki bikes again. Any suzuki dealer is on the phone to the factory rep AT LEAST once a week....as for mistakes when my brand new 2002 Busa got its first plug check this summer at 8000? miles (it now has 11,400 I think ) my #4 plug boot was not slid down over the plug so it was arcing the whole time why #2 and 3 were oily I dont know but it was smoking on the dyno big time and gobbling up oil seemd to have stopped both....I regapped them and threw them back in ....just bought a new set...hey there Motorhead what gap should I run for best all around drivablilty and whats up with the new BOOST name? Thats not you name you are motorhead Not BOOST

[SJJBusa]

quote: i mean is the seat pressure within factory specs with the seats missing.is there enough variance from one head to another that the factory would leave them out on some to get the seat presure within spec? this is assuming that there not needed for locating the springs

The area where the spring seats belong is aluminum, and the springs are steel. The seats are supposed to always be there to keep the springs from digging & gouging the head.

SJJBusa

[blowerbike]

i know that steel kicks alm. ass  

[THEMOTORHEAD]

well i'll bet seat pressure woulda been a little less(not much)good thing i never put miles on this motor(stashed it away)
man if this was the first time i could say hey shit happens
but when i looked back and yep the 3rd time.

[THEMOTORHEAD]

ya directly on alum head surface

[crazybill]

i wonder how closley they try to get the seat pressure and if they bother checking installed height of the springs once in awhile .
 dennis , do you generally see different amounts or thicknesses of shims under different springs ? if they generally all have the same spring shim setup under every spring id say theyre not checking them . those springs and head machining cant be that tight toleranced to achieve accurate seat pressure for a generic assembly .
id say that means theres room for improvment there .

[THEMOTORHEAD]

valve stem heights are generally close
mass producing parts to within a few thou is not too hard(im guessing)
so i dont see seat pressures being real issues
stock valve springs are also progressively wound and go in only 1 way if you want innitial pressure light

[blowerbike]

any damage in the seat area from the spring compressing? i would think jay from ape could shed some light on this subject. or any other machine shop that has done  hundreds of busa heads  

[THEMOTORHEAD]

NO MAYBE MINOR IMPINTING
ONLY HAD 100 MILES ON IT AND IT WAS JUST STOCK.
APE SPRINGS COME WITH SEAT BASES AS THEIR SPRINGS ARE TOO SHORT TO USE WITHOUT EM

[blowerbike]

jay may have a figure of how many with and without spring seats of all the busa heads they have done. also maybe a reason why this happens or why suzuki does this  

[THEMOTORHEAD]

BET I'VE HAD MORE APART  

[blowerbike]

do you have like a shop or something                  

[crazybill]

ive shimmed out some chevy springs where some took hardly any and others took up to .100 or more on the same head . i just dont trust mass production and assembly line workers . valve seats in the heads will play a part in installed height too so the amount the seat is ground will make a difference too .
alot of people i talk to dont check installed height on bike motors and that seemed wierd to me since it was allways somthing to do religously on the big blocks with 260+ #'s of seat pressure . maybe the japs just do it better eh      
far be it from me to question the guys that do it weekly . im asking more than anything... input ... input ...    

[blowerbike]

           

[Dwight-PA]

That's why I posted what I did about the 9 out of 16 shims being installed upside FROM the factory on my 99 Busa as well as the brand new Suzuki issued head not having sufficient free valve travel to work with the Web cams. (only .361" to .365") Not all Busa's are created equal!

That being said, I still love my Busa but I won't assume everything was correctly milled or assembled as from the factory. Make no assumptions and you'll even catch the Suzuki production line flaws.

Admittedly, I'd much rather only have shims installed upside down than to find that the valve spring seats weren't even installed. Yikes!!! On a good note, at least you caught it early at only 100 miles. Good catch Dennis!

Have you contacted Suzuki about the missing spring seats? If so, what's Suzuki's response to the issue?

[blowerbike]

the prob is that if go sticking .100 or what ever the pads are under the springs you could end up with coil bind, to high of seat pressure ect... just seems to me that the factory did this to some heads for a reason. but i'm just guessing  

[crazybill]

well , coil bind is just somthing else you have to take into consideration when testing seat pressure at said height .