88 max resurrection

ousidethebox · Oct 3, 2016

Hello all, Nik here. Though I would share my vmax story... 'bout 8 years ago picked up two maxes for about 3 grand in florida. An 88 and a 93. both had been stored for a while but nice shape overall. sold the 93 to my friend and kept the 88. 93 had t boost switch and supertrapp slip ons and ran very well. The 88 had full kerker header with a stupid trap also and stage 7 with vboost eliminated and according to the p.o. some other "work done to the motor". Having owned 3 other maxes previously I can say this one was not even in the same category power wise. Ran perfect and absolutely screamed. You could whack open the throttle in 5th gear at 1500 rpm and it would just go like hell with no complaint. 1st and 2nd it would boil the tire and finally hook up halfway thru 3rd. originally thought the clutch might be slipping till my friend video taped me drag racing and witnessed the tire spinning... seemed like more power than a header and jetting should provide by itself. weighing 220 without gear I ran an 11.01 quarter at 129 trap speed somewhat short shifting and not launching that well really. Then it began to develop a slight miss which rapidly escalated into running like crap and way down on power. Leak down test revealed massive lack of valve sealing. So knowing the valves were probobly burnt/pitted by now i removed the engine and then the heads and whoops, moved to california. fast foreward bout 7 years i take the heads to a local machine shop that claimed they could work on motorcycle heads and explained that i wanted a valve job and 20 thou taken off the heads please. got the heads back but didnt install them for a couple years and moved 700 miles away. finally put them on an discovered abolutely no valve sealing. AFTER buying some new shims and setting proper clearances of course. SOOO. now they need to come back off and I will do the valve job myself that obviously was never done and see what else i run into in trying to resurrect my poor beloved bike that i really only got to ride for a short time. Also after pulling the heads it was obvious that some bowl work and blending or the short turn radius as well as what looks to be mild porting was done before i owned it. I also found an old receipt for "camshaft regrind and hardfacing" that came with the bike. Seems this could be an explanation for the seemingly excess power for a stock bore motor. I intend on sharing my progress with the resurrection hopefully for the benefit of any one in a similar situation.

sdt354 · Oct 3, 2016

ousidethebox said:
Hello all, Nik here. Though I would share my vmax story... 'bout 8 years ago picked up two maxes for about 3 grand in florida. An 88 and a 93. both had been stored for a while but nice shape overall. sold the 93 to my friend and kept the 88. 93 had t boost switch and supertrapp slip ons and ran very well. The 88 had full kerker header with a stupid trap also and stage 7 with vboost eliminated and according to the p.o. some other "work done to the motor". Having owned 3 other maxes previously I can say this one was not even in the same category power wise. Ran perfect and absolutely screamed. You could whack open the throttle in 5th gear at 1500 rpm and it would just go like hell with no complaint. 1st and 2nd it would boil the tire and finally hook up halfway thru 3rd. originally thought the clutch might be slipping till my friend video taped me drag racing and witnessed the tire spinning... seemed like more power than a header and jetting should provide by itself. weighing 220 without gear I ran an 11.01 quarter at 129 trap speed somewhat short shifting and not launching that well really. Then it began to develop a slight miss which rapidly escalated into running like crap and way down on power. Leak down test revealed massive lack of valve sealing. So knowing the valves were probobly burnt/pitted by now i removed the engine and then the heads and whoops, moved to california. fast foreward bout 7 years i take the heads to a local machine shop that claimed they could work on motorcycle heads and explained that i wanted a valve job and 20 thou taken off the heads please. got the heads back but didnt install them for a couple years and moved 700 miles away. finally put them on an discovered abolutely no valve sealing. AFTER buying some new shims and setting proper clearances of course. SOOO. now they need to come back off and I will do the valve job myself that obviously was never done and see what else i run into in trying to resurrect my poor beloved bike that i really only got to ride for a short time. Also after pulling the heads it was obvious that some bowl work and blending or the short turn radius as well as what looks to be mild porting was done before i owned it. I also found an old receipt for "camshaft regrind and hardfacing" that came with the bike. Seems this could be an explanation for the seemingly excess power for a stock bore motor. I intend on sharing my progress with the resurrection hopefully for the benefit of any one in a similar situation.

I'd be interested in where all that low& mid range power was coming from? And what kind of tires were on the bike. It sounds like a big bore kit. Let us know bore size? Tks for posting this.
Steve-o

ousidethebox · Oct 3, 2016

Me too! its been years but Im pretty sure that i never measured the bore so a big bore kit is possible though i thought the pistons looked factory... not sure what the profile of b.b. pistons look like but will for sure measure when i remove the heads. also i am quite confident that the machine shop where i took the heads did no machining at all and no valve work either. looks like they simply sandblasted them and collected 350.00 bucks from me... i'll know soon enough. and now i have access to a lathe and a cnc mill and all proper engine measuring and assembly equipment as well as good accurate valve grinding tools. judging by the way the bike idled and the extreme midrange hit of power i suspect the cams were ground with a narrow lobe separation angle and the cranking compression when i first got it was high, above 200psi, which would also reflect this. also no significant carbon build up... i will report my findings soon as i am very curious about a few things! take care
nik