From:Barry Brown e-mail:oldmill@kingston.net
Subject:RE: RE: RE: New cylinders and heads on Cannonball Date:Thu Nov 8 18:11:48 2012
Response to:4355
Mark's last name already starts with an "H" so the next logical step is to
change it to Henderson ! PUT ME ON THE LIST FOR A HOT DELUXE CAM.

----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS -----
The two engines that had new cranks in them were the Crouch kj and
Bramwell kj.

No Dyno testing has been done to date.

The cams have proven in service to work real well in the deluxe and we have
had mixed results in the KJs. New timing gears are being made that will allow
me to move the cam timing around.

Yes the parts will be ready soon and prices are on the way.

One word about the Cylinders they worked great. Dale and the hole team that
worked with the cylinder project have done a great job. I have great
confidence in the cylinders.

I also have great confidence in the camshafts in the Deluxe engine.

The new manifold is good. We think it can be better and we are going to do
more testing. The same can be said for the new cam in the kj engine. I wont
even begin to judge any manifold/camshaft combo at this time. One thing is
for sure all the pack KJ bikes were better than the stock KJ.

Think about this: The Henderson Motorcycle Company had 8 years to work on
the Deluxe engine and perfect it to the best state of tune they could get at the
time. They had 18 months to perfect the KJ before the plug got pulled. Our
team has had about the same time. There is much more left in the kj to
extract and civilize. I feel the KJ engines I built were Good not "Great" I am my
own worst critic. I could not be more happy with the Deluxe engines not so
many rough edges. At the end of the day these are great old bikes and can be
pushed hard however they are not G.S. BMWs or KTM 990 Adventures and
never will be. We are getting closer.
I am headed back to S.A. racing next week for more development.

Mark





----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS -----

Sounds great. Which bikes had special ground cams and counterbalanced
cranks and are these items going to be available too? Were these engines
tested on a dyno to compare before and after and if so what effect did the
different cam grinds have?
----- ORIGINAL MESSAGE FOLLOWS -----
New cylinders and heads on Cannonball:
New high performance cylinders and heads were used on the following
motorcycles:
Byrne Bramwell’s #32
Mike Fockler’s #65
Dale Stoner’s #99
New high performance cylinders only were used on:
Clyde Crouch’s #31
Motors in each motorcycle were set up differently to test parts. Coast 4’s
built all motors.
My motor was 100% stock except for the cylinders and heads. I used a
Schebler DLX 84 carburetor with .937” venture. This carburetor is believed to
be the original KL carburetor by some people.
All new cylinders and heads on all of the bikes performed flawlessly. There
were other issues with some of the motorcycles but no issues with cylinders
or heads.
These new cylinders are identical to originals on the outside. The inside has
been changed to raise the compression from 4.7 to 5.7. The cylinders use a
domed piston similar to a KL design. The exhaust valve and port are smaller.
This increase velocity in the port and scavenges the exhaust out of the
cylinders more efficiently. The more efficient removal of exhaust also makes
the engine run cooler.
We decided to develop a new head because the original head flow tested so
poorly. In the original design the air has to flow around push rod and bolt
columns. The air is directed up and down to get to the end cylinders. End
cylinders receive 40% less flow than the center cylinder.
The new head we designed all cylinders flow within 2% of each other. When
using new cylinders and heads together all cylinders flow 30% better than the
original center cylinders. Obviously, flow bench tests and real world differ.
But these bikes out performed stock KJ’s by a large amount. At first glance
the new head looks stock. The right side is nearly identical to an original.
The left side is where the differences can be seen. The only way a person can
see that a Henderson KJ has the “Cannonball Special” head is to knell down
close to the motorcycle and look under the gas tank on the left side and look
for the log style manifold. The carburetor mounts in its original location
except it protrudes 5/16” out further.
The cylinders and heads have been designed using professionals SA Racing
and New Class Iron, worked together developing the combustion chamber and
port design. SA Racing did all the flow bench testing and directed New
Classic Iron in revisions to develop a casting with better air flow. New Classic
Iron made the patterns to cast all the heads and cylinders. The tooling and
machining of castings was also performed by New Classic Iron. Professional
laboratories were used to select proper chemistry of the cast iron and were
also used to select aging and annealing processes.
High performance and stock KJ cylinders will be available in January, 2013.
Cannonball special heads will be available hopefully in February, 2013.
Pricing has not been established, but will be posted in a few weeks.