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B-Girl

214K views 611 replies 124 participants last post by  tyrawskyjfederico 
#1 ·

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. We always had Popular Mechanics and Popular Science magazines around the house. Back then these magazines were full of articles about how to build things using materials from around the house and how to repair things. I can remember one article on building a metal lathe out of water pipe fittings. People had less money to spend then, they spent less time watching TV and playing video games. And many of them spent a good deal of time in their shop.

Fast forward to 2010, the economy is still in the tank, millions of people are unemployed and consumer credit is almost nonexistent. Thousands of people have lost their homes not to mention their motorcycles. Most people are very reluctant to go down to the local Honda shop and plunk down 20 grand for a new Goldwing . But there's plenty of inexpensive used motorcycles for sale, and even some free ones. This is an ideal time for someone who can scrape together a little bit of money and has a few basic mechanical skills to build a really decent motorcycle without having to kiss some bankers hinder.

This is basic grassroots hot rodding stuff. It's what I'm fairly good at. What I've never been any good at his writing. I'm dyslexic and can't spell or type worth a damn. One of the great new technologies to come along in recent years is voice recognition software. Now I can talk and let the computer type. Talking is something I'm way too good at so I'm going to try to combine the software and my experience with rebuilding machinery to post a complete build diary of a low-cost, relatively high performance motorcycle

I like to give my projects names, if nothing else it provides a shorthand for describing the project. Given the similarities between now and the 30s I looked at some depression era slang and came up with the name that I think is appropriate. During the depression, the last one, not this one, a lot of bars and ladies whose job it was to encourage the patrons to hang around and buy more drinks. They called them B-girl's, to me it sounds like a great name for motorcycle.

The B-girl will be a GL 1000 with a GL 1200 engine. Built a tight budget with retro styling. I hope you'll follow along as I build it. I'll do my best to provide a clear and accurate build diary and I would love to hear your comments as we go along. We will kick it all off tomorrow with a discussion about preparing the shop and thinking a little bit about the budget. Stay tuned!

Steve
 
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#78 ·
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I use Engine Analyzer Pro for my stuff. I had a thread going last yearasking for information that nobody seemed to have. It took quite a while to gather all the data by hand, ...measuring each individual component.

http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum1/81471.html
Captain

Your post were from before I joined the group and I never saw them. Hopefully we will be able to fill in some more of the blanks . I'm not much of a mathematician but I get frustrated when people aren't willing to look at the whole picture. I have an older Dos program called Desk Top Dynos.

Steve
 
#79 ·
imported post

I use Engine Analyzer Pro for my stuff. I had a thread going last yearasking for information that nobody seemed to have. It took quite a while to gather all the data by hand, ...measuring each individual component.

http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum1/81471.html
Captain

Your post were from before I joined the group and I never saw them. Hopefully we will be able to fill in some more of the blanks . I'm not much of a mathematician but I get frustrated when people aren't willing to look at the whole picture. I have an older Dos program called Desk Top Dynos.

Steve
 
#80 ·
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Steve, I saw a post somewhere showing how to simply fill the heads with liquid and use a syringe to suck it out to get the volume on the head. Valves head to be in, and head laying flat on a bench. I think it was on a site for porting heads. I suppose you could do the same with the piston in the cylinder. I am still hoping you can get some definitive answers to this. I remember in some of my earlier reading that the 1200 pistons came above the top of the block a bit, but I remember someone else saying that wasn't true.
 
#81 ·
imported post

SuperSkypilot wrote:
I use Engine Analyzer Pro for my stuff. I had a thread going last yearasking for information that nobody seemed to have. It took quite a while to gather all the data by hand, ...measuring each individual component.

http://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/forum1/81471.html
Captain

Your post were from before I joined the group and I never saw them. Hopefully we will be able to fill in some more of the blanks . I'm not much of a mathematician but I get frustrated when people aren't willing to look at the whole picture. I have an older Dos program called Desk Top Dynos.

Steve
I'm old-school too, but that modeling program has saved me more time and money than I care to think about. I've gone Ken's route out of necessity in the past, asI had no choice. I have collected all of my GL1000 data/figures, and have finished building my engine. I plan to use a chassis dynamometer for final tuning, and to verify the model. I'm certain the modeling is accurate, as I bought and used the program for the last rebuilding of the engine in my Camaro and it was accurate for that build in most respects on a engine dyno. I'll have to extrapolate the results and be happy with the chassis route.

The program takes the guess-work out of the "what if I tried this". Spec'ing everything out for a GL engine is tedious and time consuming work to say the least, but again, enjoyable for those that like it.

Not many offering performance parts for GL1's, but WEB-CAM does some regrinds unless you have a shop that already does this kind of work, in caseany areinterested. Providing specs, they could probably regrind a set of GL-12 cams no problem.

http://www.webcamshafts.com/pages/motorcycle/honda/install_data/tc_002468_000144.html

My calculated redline is 10,200 RPM on my build.Theoutput is inits ability to rev...

It will be interesting to see what you find. It's pleasing to see the effort. :cooler:

:byebye:
 
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#82 ·
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This really is 5 star thread and I'm personally enjoying it more than almost any other, even though I doubt if I will ever want to put a 1200 motor in a 1000. The recent deviation into compression ratio measurement has probably been discussed over the years, but perhaps beforeI joined too. I have been modifying Minis (the old Brit ones) for many a year now and have often needed CR measurements. It's really only a matter of accurate measurement and an understanding of what is actually going on in the secondphaseof the suck/squeeze/bang/blow process.

When the piston is at the BOTTOM of the stroke; there is all that volume down to the top edge of the Top piston ring and up to and includingthe combustion chamber (with its valves and plug) which has to be squeezed into just the bit above the Top ring and including again the combustion chamber.

When working out the first bit we must add together the volume in the cylinder plus the small annular volume above the top ring plus the volume of a compressed head gasket plus the combustion chamber volume, with the valves shut and the plug fitted.

Secondly we need to know the volume at the TOP of the stroke byadding together the combustion chamber volume plus the compressed head gasket volume plus (again) the small annular volume above the top ring.

With a dished piston we must also add the volume of the dish to both of the Top dead centre and Bottom dead centre calculations, but in the case of a Wing we must subtract the dome volume.

Measuring the actual combustion chamber volume is fairly straighforward and I used to stick a thin piece of clear plastic sheet to the head face with grease. This sheet had 2 eighth holesin, and by angling the head so that the holes were uppermost, thin coloured oil was dripped into one of the holes (the other is a vent)using a measuring Burette until full. This is now the combustion chamber volume.

The bore volume is simply the bore diameter squared, muliplied by Pi (3.1416) and divided by 4, then multiplied by the stroke length.

The small annular volume is just that little bit between the piston and the bore down to the top ring.

Thecompressed head gasket volumeis quite straightforward but its not normal exactly the same diameter as the bore (a bit bigger to prevent the edge heating and detonating the fuel)

Measuring the piston dome can be done by clamping a thin strip around the piston crown with a hose clip and setting it a know distance above the edge, then filling it with oil using the Burrette as you did for the combustion chamber. This will be less than the volume of the space above the piston crown if it was flat - which can be calculated by using the piston diameter and height of the strip above it - it's just a short cylinder.

The compression RATIO is the that ratio between the big volume at the bottom of the stroke and the volume at the top of the stroke.

So if the above calculations gave figures of 330 ccs at the bottom and 30 at the top, then the ratio would be 11:1.

However, in reality temperature comes into play when you compress any gas so thefigure will not be the calculated one under running conditons - but we have to do the math(s)
 
#85 ·
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...if the online calculators are of interest, then the Wallace Racing site is the standard..

http://www.wallaceracing.com/Calculators.htm

I was going to post it last night, but their site was down. I haven't used their site for a while and I didn't know what was going on. It's back up now though...


Edit: You won't find these on the Wallace site and I realize that you'll probably stick with the factory carbs, but you implied that options are on the table. I had to find the calcs below because I haven't usedthem for a while either, but if you go with a alternate induction set-up, thissite uses Java and is the best I've found:

http://www.flowmeterdirectory.com/flowmeter_venturi_calc.html

The othercalcs are of interest also. :)

CM :byebye:
 
#86 ·
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Just found this on an old motorcycle specs site: "In order to increase intake velocity, Honda reduced the intake valves' diameters 2.0mm, to 36mm; the 32mm exhausts are the same as the 1100's. The '84 head uses a combustion chamber with more squish area to centralize the air/fuel charge, and the new GL has slightly more "radical" valve timing and more valve lift. The new 32mm Keihin constant-velocity carburetors follow the pattern of the carbs used in the Honda V-four engines." More confusion, this must be the reason for the smaller dome?
 
#87 ·
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This is cool, and way beyound my expertise in building engines. I will pay close attention to see how things are going only because I have a 1200 standard that I want to make go a little faster. and I am redoing my standard this winter with a few mods.

I am all ears guys.
 
#88 ·
imported post




Today's menu includes a healthy helping of crow.

I CCed the cylinder heads today. Here's how I did. I started with a 4 x 4 sheet of Lexan and a veterinary syringe.




After drilling in eighth inch hole near the top of the plastic I smeared a little bit of grease around the edges of the combustion chamber.



The grease is used to seal the Lexan plate to the head.

With the plastic seated in the grease and the head tilted slightly so that the hole in the plastic is near the top of the cylinder. I filled the combustion chamber with colored water using the syringe. The head was tilted so that any air pockets moved out through the hole in the plastic plate


I recorded the number of cc of water it took to fill the combustion chamber. I repeated this process three times to make sure I had an accurate reading. I repeated this process with the 1200 head.

To my absolute amazement both combustion chambers were about the same size within a CC or so.

I used about the same technique to fill the cylinder with colored water to calculate the volume of the piston dome. With that information in hand I was able to use a compression ratio calculator to determine that the compression ratio with the GL1000 head on the 1200 engine block would be about 9 to 1.

Next I set up a dial indicator to check the lift on both the GL 1000 and the GL 1200 cams. The lift on the GL 1000 was .275 for the intake and .261 for the exhaust. On the GL 1200 the intake lift was .227 and the exhaust lift was .228. I didn't profile the cams and I'm not sure that I will the GL 1000 has substantially higher left on both the intake and exhaust and I doubt that there is anything that could be done to the profile of the 1200 cam that would make it outperform the 1000 cam.

I'm not surprised at the cam profile differences but I would've sworn that the GL 1200 combustion chamber was smaller than the GL 1000. I guess that's why you need to measure everything, looks can be so deceiving.

Tomorrow I'm going to investigate milling a little bit off of the GL 1000 head to see if I can up the compression ratio. I also plan to get to heads refurbished and ready to go.

Steve
 
#90 ·
imported post

Ok I'm going to show my ignorance here with a couple of questions.

Are you going to relocate the pulse generator? Or do away with it completely? I was under the impression that it is an integral part.

Isn't the 1200 block wider that the 1000? Will this require major frame modification?

How much of this build do you think could translate to an 1100 frame?
 
#91 ·
imported post

you can do away with 1200 ignition if you use 1000 heads...

motor mount location are the same even thow the 1200 block is wider...

all of it its even easier to fit 1200 mortor in and if you had an 84 1200 motor you could maybe swap ignition units from 1100 to 1200 and keep the 1100 ignition ithink they will interchange but i havnt look at this very hard yet so i might be all wrong on the ignition
 
#93 ·
imported post

joedrum wrote:
you can do away with 1200 ignition if you use 1000 heads...

motor mount location are the same even thow the 1200 block is wider...

all of it its even easier to fit 1200 mortor in and if you had an 84 1200 motor you could maybe swap ignition units from 1100 to 1200 and keep the 1100 ignition ithink they will interchange but i havnt look at this very hard yet so i might be all wrong on the ignition
Thanks for that.

Ah ok, I didn't make the leap from CDI to mechanical ignition.


I'm assuming the better flow of the 1000 heads results in a horsepower gain. Is there a similar difference the 1200 and the 1100 heads as with the 1000?

And just out of curiosity, if the 1200 motor was put in an 1100 frame there would be room for the pulse generator and vacuum advance correct?

If the above is true, is it possible and would it make sense to simple remove the points from the 1000 head and use the CDI system from the 1100 with the 1000 heads on a 1200 block?
 
#94 ·
imported post

Awesome work, Steve. The other factor to compression would be cc's at the top of the stroke of the two different pistons, right. The article I cited yesterday said the 1200 had a different piston top to centralize the area of combustion better on the 1200. It would be hard tell with the naked eye what the volumes are at the top of the stroke, but if you had one of each open, you could do the same thing as the heads. It may be that you're still right. So far I really like your"find the facts" approach. The other factor is the smaller intake was used to increase velocity into the chamber. That's where the flow bench could help a bit. I know, you're all over it.
 
#95 ·
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thats some good connect the dots there ....let me srart off with what i already have ....i have 75 1000 cams install in a 82 1100 motor...the cams are it a 1100 head....theres some differences in the 1000 and 1100 heads but they are small....im still useing the 1100 ignition ....the bike runs so well im having trouble justifying changing to the 1000 setup ...im running 1100 carbs and they work great overall ...im so pleased that im going to do this to my 83 1100 too ....

no i dont think you can put points in the 1100 cdi there nothing for the points to ride on and the location is impossible to deal with adjusting points and replacement...i did look at it to see if dyna 1000 ignition could be put in 1100 cdi but i dosnt look like it would be easy there just bigger than honda cdi units but im still lokking at it ...this would be the best i think ...there are a lot of timing adjustment and advance adjustment in the 1100 cdi unit known commonly as non adjustable ....this would be the ultimate way to go for ones who want to stay with 1100 carbs in my opinion....most 1200 motors have front crankshaft run cdi and simply could not be set up this way ....only the 84 yr 1200 has the rear ignition...mines an 86 1200 and i dont see anything other than strait 1000 ignition for it in my case i do not have the stuff to complete the 1200 ignition so its off the table in my project...

as far as heads go the 1200 has the smallest capasity for flow and yes 1000 heads would provide bigger flow along with eraly 75-77 1000 cams is why im trying to do this mod im thinking it will scream with the better flow and hotter cams....oh and im still on the fence about what carbs to use on the 1200 project 75 carbs would be the biggest ....but it hard to argue against the 1100 carbs with the wat the 1100 is doing
 
#96 ·
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The bigger intake valves of the 1000 heads makes you think it would be better flow, but velocity of the charge coming into the chamber is also a factor. That is why I am interested in the results of his flow tests. The compression is also going to be a factor, but it based on his head cc's numbers that the difference will be minimal, which is good as I really don't want to burn the expensive fuels. I wonder if the flow could be restricted in another location ( runners or end of the carbs) to improve characteristics. It's way past my knowledge, but I sure enjoy reading it. I will be gone at noon today and won't get back until tomorrow. I will be looking forward to the results.
 
#97 ·
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Just a opinion, or a thought really, asI've no experience with the 1100 or 1200 heads on my 1000, but I've noticed something in the 3-head picture that SSP posted on the previous page.

To me, in the picture, there are obvious differences in the sparkplug angle in the combustion chamber, along with the bosses that make-up the shape of the chamber.

This, combined with the pistons dome and resulting squish area,will have an effect on flame travel and burn in many respects relating to performance. What they are, I've not thought about; just something I noticed in looking at the pic.

Off the top of my head, mixing and matching heads/pistons may change where the burn starts and ends. Ideally it should be centralized in the chamber with the plug aimed directly at the center of it.

Again, just an observation... :byebye:
 
#98 ·
imported post

ekvh wrote:
Awesome work, Steve. The other factor to compression would be cc's at the top of the stroke of the two different pistons, right. The article I cited yesterday said the 1200 had a different piston top to centralize the area of combustion better on the 1200. It would be hard tell with the naked eye what the volumes are at the top of the stroke, but if you had one of each open, you could do the same thing as the heads. It may be that you're still right. So far I really like your"find the facts" approach. The other factor is the smaller intake was used to increase velocity into the chamber. That's where the flow bench could help a bit. I know, you're all over it.
I did cc the tops of the pistons and I used that information along with the CC's of the combustion chamber and the thickness of the compressed head gasket to determine the overall net compression ratio. I'll be looking into this a little bit more closely today and I have to try and determine what the valve clearances going to be and what's acceptable. I'd like to take a little bit off the head to increase the compression ratio but I don't know if I can.

I will get into flowing the heads but I will probably do it on the SaberWing project because this project is aimed at a lowbuck approach and modifying cylinder heads is probably beyond what most people would like to tackle.

Steve
 
#99 ·
imported post

CaptainMidnight85 wrote:
Just a opinion, or a thought really, asI've no experience with the 1100 or 1200 heads on my 1000, but I've noticed something in the 3-head picture that SSP posted on the previous page.

To me, in the picture, there are obvious differences in the sparkplug angle in the combustion chamber, along with the bosses that make-up the shape of the chamber.

This, combined with the pistons dome and resulting squish area,will have an effect on flame travel and burn in many respects relating to performance. What they are, I've not thought about; just something I noticed in looking at the pic.

Off the top of my head, mixing and matching heads/pistons may change where the burn starts and ends. Ideally it should be centralized in the chamber with the plug aimed directly at the center of it.

Again, just an observation... :byebye:
I think if you look at the pictures closely you'll see that the plug is in about the same location in all three heads and moving them is probably beyond the scope of this project .

Steve
 
#100 ·
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Thanks again, Steve. How close were the cc's of the piston tops of the 1000 to the 1200? Apparently if they are close to same for totals, then the 1200 heads had a smaller combustion chamber (as was your first observation) to make up for the larger volume of the cylinder ATDC and keep the compressions similar for regular petrol. I am assuming the 1200 would have a larger cylinder-combustion volume due to it's larger diameter. Boy this is so helpful to us guys who want to do the mod and have to tinker with what's left to get it to run right. It gives some direction as to what mods could be done in the future as well, ie supercharge, turbo or whatever.
 
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