blowit

I would not go that far. That sure sounds like water in the oil and it does not take much water to cause this discoloration. I would find the cuase of the water contamination which is more than likely the water pump or the o-ring in the water line going into the case. I would then just drain the oil very well, add oil, run for 10-15 min or good and warm, change oil until color comes back. They only take 1.5 quarts and you can add just one for cycling. It will not hurt your bearings as long as you are not in race mode. Brandon

Um, I can't tell you how many motors we have opened up from "fragged" clutch plates after people files on the baskets. DO NOT do it. The reason is pretty simple, the plates were designed to be loaded across all fingers equally, as you file and do not remove material equally, you will allow the clutch plate to load one finger more than the rest and it can cause the plates to shatter. Most will say it is fine and that is because it has not happened to them "yet". The thing to do is leave it until you can afford to replace it. Grinding may cause more harm than good. Even if you remove material evenly, this opens up the clearance of the basket and will allow the plates to chatter and wear even faster. Grab a good used one or grab a billet unit. Brandon

Let me know if you received my PM. I did not see it in my sent mail so not sure. Brandon

Yep, that one will get you every time but it is a rev limiter and not an ignition kill but maybe it is just not being conveyed correctly. I would sure look at that park brake too. The little lever at the perch must be all the way in or it will set the rev limit closed switch in the handlebar. I really doubt compression is it but hey, I cannot hear the thing either. Just seems electrical to me. You might verify blue spark at the plug. It will look rather weak but if it is blue, that indicates the coil are working. If it's yellow, you have an issue somewhere. We ran into a similar issue with a customer's Raptor and it turned out as the CDI. Keep that in mind. Brandon

I will bet on the TORS system. unplug the TORS system by unplugging the two plugs on the carb tops and the three wire plug to the small black box mounted just above the LH pipe. The bike should run normally at that point. You can leave it unplugged or troubleshoot the electrical in the TORS system to find the problem. Generally a frayed cable or throttle tension is to blame. They also have switches that hang up and cause momentary loss of spark. Unplug and go from there. Brandon

Installing a spacer plate will make matters MUCH worse. The only way to properly run high duration cylinders with a stroker crank is to deck the bottom of the cylinders to lower the ports and Customize a head mod for this application. Feel free to PM us for details or options. Thanks Brandon

Well I can honestly say I have not seen that one yet. Can you post a few pics of that mess?? I am rather confused as to the chain of events that took place. Were you trying to kick start the bike while rolling down or what? How fast were you rolling? Kinda sound like gear bind between the kick start gear and clutch. I would be looking for anything including a twisted crank shaft. If it was running and you popped that clutch while rolling backwards, that might just do it. You will have to share a bit more about this deal. Brandon

Check electrics continuity when hot but when it's hot sounds like another CDI kicked the bucket. Brandon

One other thing, that CDI is getting the finger on this one. Running for several minutes before heating up and failing. that is the right amount of time for a CDI issue. Generally, stators will heat and fail in 1-2minutes. You can them check the stator real quick while hot and generally find a ground loop short. With 10-12 runs before it craps out, I would lean damn hard on that CDI. We have had them run for 15-20 min before they show signs of failure. Just swap and try it. Simple, simple. Brandon

One thing you might look at is oil fouling. If your cases are not sealing, you can be oil coating and fouling those plugs in very short order. It does not take much and if you can put brand new plugs in and run with good results, it will be something to look at. Not saying a weak spark would not cause the same problem. I am sure you are running short plug gaps, aren't you?? .020 is about right. Brandon

Sounds like piston slap to me or a rod is tapping out. Better pull it down and see. Noise from the main bearings would be hard to hear but their failure WILL kill rod bearings. Radial play in the mains will cause an axial moment in the rod ends and they are only designed for radial loading. Better open it before something pops. Brandon

The round cover with three screws is a heat shield for your foot. You will not get anywhere. The entire cover must come off. Sorry. Brandon

Viscosity and type of oil are one thing to look at. The one sure thing I would suspect is the clutch basket. Grooves worn into the basket will cause both engagement and disengagement issues and will cause burned clutches as well as crappy shifting bikes. If you ride at least once per month, I would pop the cover and inspect the basket fingers for grooves and flip the plates into a new configuration. Worn plates will have smooth surfaces that suck to each other. It is NOT normal. Something is going on. Check the basket and mic all the plates and you will find your problem. Bluing of drive plates is a sign of overheat and they will lose their temper or tensile strength . They will also warp and cause clutch drag. Check them for warp by putting them on a suface table or piece of glass for inspection. Brandon Mull Engineering

Yeah, we do not have a bunch of experience with the RS coils. We generally use our custom coils but we have to mod some stuff to use them. I would like to take a look at the coil because if the coil does not read, it more than likely has a high voltage diode in series with the coils that must be energized to flow current. This can also protect the coil from feed back so that is not a bad thing at all. A diode is a one way valve for electricity but many high current and voltage diodes must be energized to be tested. IA, apply 10V to the primary coil and test resistance. Only good meters apply for this testing though. 10V is also a guess because it may need more but I think 10V would do it. The Banshee does not make that much at idle speeds. Brandon

Not sure why you cannot test that coil. If you really do not have someone to test it, you can send it to us and we will test it for you free of charge. You can absolutely test the OEM coil on the bench. Coils with resistive wires simply need the wires removed to test. All it is is a boosting transformer with a primary coil and secondary coil pack. The KEY here is wires!! Wires cause problems and indicate coil failure when you have a wire failure. You must remove the wires when testing to isolate the problem. Checking resistance in the wires, cap, coil, are all things that should be looked at. If you are using non-resistor plugs, it can overheat the secondary coil pack due to back talk from the plug. Similar to detonation only with AC current. It will increase your voltage in the coil and can cause dielectric breakdown in the laquer coating in the coil. This is our reason for good resistive caps but wires will do the same. This back talk is not seen in near the amplitude on the down side of the coil due to the coil bucking the voltage. Brandon

I have heard that a circus balloon can be used to replace my stock, weak, powerband for more power. Is that true?? Do I have to eat the balloon to make more power?? Brandon

Just curious what you might pay for a trick temp meter that mounted to the bars, that you could read at a glance?

We have never had any concern of OEM pistons breaking skirts if they ARE in spec. The problem is most people will wait until it is too late for a rebuild. When the piston reaches TDC and BDC, the rod changes loading direction thus causing a rocking motion in the piston. If the tolerance is excessive, it will not really rock, but bang against the sleeve until it breaks. Tight pistons=no worries. If you don't know if your motor is within spec, you better find out. We have run casted pistons with 20psi under boost without piston failures. Brandon

As stated earlier, the gauge should not leak down at all or your gauge is not working correctly. You would need to purchase a leakdown tester for ring seal information but this still does not tell you the whole story because the entire piston must be within spec for the engine to operate properly. Piston slap or excessive piston to wall tolerance may not be noticed in any testing other than sound and measuring. If you are not sure, open it and mic it. Gaskets are cheap compared to new cylinders and cranks. Factory cast pistons are well know for dropping skirts on the intake side. This will generally kill the crank. $$ Brandon

Banshee guy is right, you should be looking right at that stator right now. If you "heard" a noise from the engine, then your spark is no more, that sounds like a sheared flywheel key, kicked initiator coil, or something like that possibly. If you toss your coil, send it to me. I am betting the coil is good. Your testing may be flawed or the meter might not be on its game or something but this sure sounds statorish to me. Brandon

Thats a 10-4. .030 will still allow good squish clearance. Any more and you should have rechambering done which should be done anyway to correct the squish velocity issues with the factory setup. A simple mill is cheaper but will not offer the best performance. Brandon

I would want to know how you know it is overheating? Are you putting a temp gauge on it? Are you running the factory burp bottle? It is normal, if the bike is over full, to kinda "level off" the water but puking a bit. If you are sure it is overheat, the very first thing I would do is inspect that impeller. The factory uses a cheap plastic POS that nukes. Inspect it asap. Also make sure the vent line coming off the top of the head is in place and not clogged. This will cause an air pocked to form on the head and can cause vapor lock. sometimes running without the radiator cap can burp this but the banshee should not need burped if hoses are all good to go. Brandon

The both serve the exact same function but the billet is a MUCH better quality part and will be much more ridged. We see the casted ones with very poor threads that strip easily and the billets will not have this problem. Your call and checkbook but there is just not debating which is the higher quality part. Hope that helps. Brandon

I would agree that a custom block would be pretty tight but we just would not have the time to invest in the 5 axis programming for a billet piece and I doubt anyone would buy a 8-10k$ block. Would be nice as a show piece though. Software, we only made what we needed but yes it is "limited" simulation software. We link our data from the dyno and flowbench to obtain VERY specific data that we need. We did not see any need for the fancy bells and whistles seen in commercial software. I would say that our 3D port flow analysis is extremely helpful for our needs. We just kinda build as we go along.

I happen to have a piston on my desk that meaures 3.4mm from timing edge to top of first ring land. 5mm does not work. We have built about 30 of those bikes. Sorry to sound ignorant but we have just done so many of those and know the dims of banshee engine well. Not saying you can;t go bigger, you are just not getting the most it could offer because port timing will ultimately suffer. We try to be honest on this stuff because we want the best bang for the buck too. I am not sure what piston you are using but the piston we commonly use and the banshee wisecos are limited. We have removed the top ring to allow for the extra travels but low end compression suffers. Not sure of your setup but we wrote engine analysis software to help ourselves with these questions. We have seen many BLACK crank cases from flow reversal. There just is nothing that the OEM cylinder has going for it compared to the Cheetah other than cost. This is just my opinion though. I still have bikes with the OEM cylinders too.