Cylinder Boring/Coating

[pearljazz]

Has anyone had any experience boring Ducati cylinders and NOT having the Nicosil coating . Does this mean IMMEDIATE WEAR. I have some 944 pistons I wanted to use with 900 cylinders, and wanted to know if this has been done without any problems. Anybody had a boring and coating recommendation?

[Howie]

The Nikasil coating is there instead of a steel liner.  You cannot run the rings on aluminum.  These people will do it for you   http://www.mt-llc.com/   or you could contact Chris Kelley at
http://www.ca-cycleworks.com   and get a plug and play kit, which is what I would do.  If you want to use your pistons, they will need them for fitting.

[Duck-Stew]

I'm having 2 sets of barrels bored and plated with Millenium right now.  Will post pics when they return in a couple weeks.

And a big +1 to Howie's comment.  You could have your barrels overbored and iron liners put in there so the rings ride on them, but the heat transfer to the aluminum fins wouldn't be optimal and you have dis-similar metals touching each other so they would immidiately begin to corrode each other...

[ducpainter]

I'm having 2 sets of barrels bored and plated with Millenium right now.  Will post pics when they return in a couple weeks.

And a big +1 to Howie's comment.  You could have your barrels overbored and iron liners put in there so the rings ride on them, but the heat transfer to the aluminum fins wouldn't be optimal and you have dis-similar metals touching each other so they would immidiately begin to corrode each other...

Yeah...

They haven't done that since pre-historic times.

[MotoCreations]

Best bet is to get coated -- it works and it is fast and is a known / reliable technique.  And it is cheap!

Second option is to do a cast iron sleeve.  Inevitably you will hear horror stories about them.  Mostly because they aren't machined correctly or mechanic installed wrong.  At the race shop, we used cast iron lines in aluminum blocks for years for the Ferrari's, Alfa's and more -- never a problem when installed properly.  When you are racing multi-million dollars cars, you can't afford to have things not work.

On one of my Ducati 2V projects here, it has 106mm pistons and required cast iron sleeves.  The aluminum cylinder cannot be bored that thin and alone handle the heat -- thus why the sleeves are required.  A few folks have done 104mm without problems.  Again -- it comes down to who is installing and doing the machine work.

I used --> http://www.lasleeve.com/  -- they are now installing sleeves for customers as well starting a few weeks ago.  There are various shops out there that have been doing cast iron sleeves for decades with good reputations.

[scott_araujo]

Curious on the history of this.  I remember feeling shocked a few years ago when I found out the new Ninja 650 had plated aluminum cylinders, I thought everything was sleeved.

Around when did they start plating aluminum cylinders instead of sleeving them?

How thick is the plating?  Does it ever wear through?

How thick are cast iron sleeve walls?

Thanks,

Scott

[koko64]

Best bet is to get coated -- it works and it is fast and is a known / reliable technique.  And it is cheap!

Second option is to do a cast iron sleeve.  Inevitably you will hear horror stories about them.  Mostly because they aren't machined correctly or mechanic installed wrong.  At the race shop, we used cast iron lines in aluminum blocks for years for the Ferrari's, Alfa's and more -- never a problem when installed properly.  When you are racing multi-million dollars cars, you can't afford to have things not work.

On one of my Ducati 2V projects here, it has 106mm pistons and required cast iron sleeves.  The aluminum cylinder cannot be bored that thin and alone handle the heat -- thus why the sleeves are required.  A few folks have done 104mm without problems.  Again -- it comes down to who is installing and doing the machine work.

I used --> http://www.lasleeve.com/  -- they are now installing sleeves for customers as well starting a few weeks ago.  There are various shops out there that have been doing cast iron sleeves for decades with good reputations.

How big a bore could you go in a 904 with cast iron sleeves? What year is the project bike?

I'm getting very bad ideas! Imagine that bore allowing reconfigured heads with really big valves![evil]

[ducpainter]

Curious on the history of this.  I remember feeling shocked a few years ago when I found out the new Ninja 650 had plated aluminum cylinders, I thought everything was sleeved.

Around when did they start plating aluminum cylinders instead of sleeving them?

How thick is the plating?  Does it ever wear through?

How thick are cast iron sleeve walls?

Thanks,

Scott

My recollection is from Yami race bikes of the early/mid 70s using plated bores.

The kwak street bikes as well as the yamis all used cast liners at that time.

It wears through occasionally.

The liner thickness varied....I recall under a 1/4"

[Speeddog]

As DP said, some time in the 70's.

Earliest ones I recall were hard chrome on 2-strokes.
Worked OK until it peeled off.

My '79 KX125 motocrosser had an 'electrofusion' bore coating, some variety of molten metal spray process.

[Langanobob]

Curious on the history of this.  I remember feeling shocked a few years ago when I found out the new Ninja 650 had plated aluminum cylinders, I thought everything was sleeved.

Around when did they start plating aluminum cylinders instead of sleeving them?

How thick is the plating?  Does it ever wear through?

How thick are cast iron sleeve walls?

Thanks,

Scott

Scott, I checked on this a few weeks ago when Ducatiz had his gapless ring thread.  The Nikasil coating is very thin, maybe a few thousandths of an inch.  It's some formulation of nickel and silicon carbide, is very hard and it takes a lot to wear through it on a street engine, although it can happen.

Bob

[jerryz]

Moto Guzzi were the first Italian manufacturer to use Nikasil on the bores in the late 1970s on the big 850 and 1000 V twins.

[LA]

It wasn't Nakasil and it wasn't the late 70's.  It was the V7 Sport Guzzi's of early 70's and it was hard chrome on Al cylinders and soft rings.

The first I remember from Japanese makers was mid 70's.  Kaw., I believe, had a process where they started with a bore that was almost the size required for piston fitment and then inserted strands of "pedigree" steel wire into the bore and ran BIG voltage through the wire which then exploded onto to cylinder walls.  The cylinders were then honed to the correct dimensions for piston fitment - or words to that effect. That was a lot of brain cells ago. 

LA

[Speeddog]

~~~SNIP~~~

The first I remember from Japanese makers was mid 70's.  Kaw., I believe, had a process where they started with a bore that was almost the size required for piston fitment and then inserted strands of "pedigree" steel wire into the bore and ran BIG voltage through the wire which then exploded onto to cylinder walls.  The cylinders were then honed to the correct dimensions for piston fitment - or words to that effect. That was a lot of brain cells ago. 

LA

Yeah, that was the 'Electrofusion'.

[Howie]

Yeah, that was the 'Electrofusion'.

Blast from the past.  How many of you remember the aluminum block Chevy Vega?

[LowThudd]

Blast from the past.  How many of you remember the aluminum block Chevy Vega?

Bleahh! You mean that water drinking mistake that often got an SBC in it to cure it's illness?