JustRandy

And here I thought you were slaving on a water pump. Any theories on why red kerosene. I sometimes use kerosene to clean an engine, but not a gas tank. Yeah I was thinking that's a funny looking lawn mower lol

I didn't know you had a chinese quad refurbishing operation. What happened to the 80 dirtbike for doing the fences? How long have I been asleep lol You split cases and yet you're worried you can't handle a valve seat?

Hey that's awesome, Mr Money Bags lol! Now we can troll for parts and backup the truck,,, once you get it fixed I know that to be true but I still don't do it. Sometimes I think I like being stressed n depressed If you can assemble an engine properly then you're already doing tasks a few rungs above cutting a seat. And I'm not sure what sort of training is possible other than just cutting a seat. Yeah, buying a seat cutter so early in terms of the usual progression of tool acquisition can be daunting, but it's an investment I wish I'd made much earlier on. But I guess farming the monotonous chore out is just as good. Anyway that's great news! I'm happy for ya! Can't wait to see what unfolds next ☕ (the beer drinking emojis seem to be tapped out )

Aw crap. I was hoping you'd fall into some money and time because I'd like to see you pursue your projects of leisure rather than necessity. You could do a lot of interesting things when not manacled to surviving. I've been listening to this USA prepares guy and he expressed the importance of changing antifreeze periodically. It's been 6 years since I installed a new radiator and was thinking I should probably change the coolant before I have to trash the dash to dig out a heater core. Changing fluids other than oil is just not anything I'm accustomed to. How much is the machinist charging? Hopefully not too much. I feel bad not being able to help. If you were here I'd just do it, but don't think I could save you that much with the shipping and fees for sending money. And I probably only have one more valve job before I have to replace the cutting teeth.

I guess you could put the 230 cam in the 300. 230s are notorious smokers. I figured it was due to the wrist pin wiggling in the rod end. What separates 230s from any other quad engine is the bore/stroke ratio. The stroke is so long that the rod is at a sharp angle causing the piston to press hard against the side of the bore. The 250S added a longer rod to mitigate that effect. Shorter rods increase the acceleration at TDC (which is good if you want a strong intake charge) while they decrease it at BDC. Longer rods spread the acceleration out more. The 250 also added a 17mm rod end because 16 is just not enough to hold the piston on while slinging violently from extents of that huge stroke at high rpms. Adding a heavy wiseco just makes the problem worse. The small end bore of the rod stretches into an egg shape and I'm assuming that a piston flopping around in the bore is what causes the rings to wear and the smoking. So in light of that about all you can do is make the bore as tight as possible to hold the piston straight and make the ring gaps as big as possible to be sure the rings never bind. Also keep in mind the inherent weakness when riding. You may have to learn to live with the smoking until you find a 250S engine or some other quad. There are too many things wrong with the 230S to make them worth building. The 300 on the other hand is a good candidate. Honestly I'd probably beat the snot out of the 230 until I saved up enough to find something better to invest in.

I guess webcams is the way to go but you have to send in your cam and rockers for welding which is hard enough to shred anything that isn't just as hard. Plus webcams will grind any profile you want. A lot of guys ran webcams stage 2 back in the day. Instead of doing all that it's just easier to get a 250S cam which I already know boosts power without sacrificing lowend and it preserves the longevity of OEM. A stage 2 webcam might be a bit more power but when dealing with 1/4 liter engines it wouldn't be so much that rider skill couldn't makeup for. A guy I know had a 660 raptor and I ran off n left him all the time on trails with an essentially stock 250S on a modded frame. I was actually trying to blow the engine so I had excuse to rebuild it, but never could. The 660 is too heavy and too much power to negotiate curves. Keeping the front tires on the ground so it could steer was the biggest challenge. If I had a 660 the first thing I'd do is put bald tires on it, but he had holeshots that were way too aggressive. Too many people buy into looks and names instead of what works (the jeet kune do of quading lol).

There was a "vault" on atvconnection that had everything in it. https://atvconnection.com/forums/suzuki/226867-85-88-suzuki-lt230s-quadsport-help-2.html Looks like it may be gone https://atvconnection.com/forums/suzuki/226867-85-88-suzuki-lt230s-quadsport-help-1269.html#post3447760 I guess it was hosted by a guy who got tired of paying for it.

What I really like about the 250 cam is it holds the intake valve open longer. Both cams open the valve about the same time, but the 230 reaches .040 closed at 35 degrees after bottom dead center while the 250 is at 60 degrees after. Holding the valve open nearly 30 degrees longer allows porting of the intake to take advantage of the inertia of a column of air to keep filling the chamber even though the piston is moving up in the bore. It's a powerful supercharging effect that effectively makes the engine bigger than it's static displacement (ramming 300cc of air in a 250cc volume). I don't know to what extent exhaust duration matters and I'm fairly convinced that lift over stock doesn't add anything except stress.

That's possible. All specs at .040 lift unless stated otherwise: The 230 stock cam is 235/237 duration and .324/.290 lift. The hotcams 1 is 235/337.5 which is a misprint that it appears they fixed. So 235/237.5 is the stock duration. Lift is .352/.298. So hotcams is basically a stock 230S cam. Webcams 1 is 251/256 and .340/.340 Webcams 2 is 257/262 and .360/.360 Webcams has a 3 but I don't have the .040 specs, but the .050 specs are 264/264 and .425/.425 Megacycle 1 is 236/240 and .4/.4 Megacycle 2 is 282/284 and .43/.43 The following are what I measured myself: 230S cam 235/235 and .336/.311 with 15 degrees overlap LT4WD is 219/221 and .321/.286 with 2 degrees overlap (good cam for turbo) 250S is 252/236 and .339/.345 with 19 degrees overlap As you can see, the 250S stock cam is pretty good and close to the Webcams stage 1. I'm not sure the exhaust duration is that meaningful. I don't have any notes on the 300 cam but I'm pretty sure it's different than the LT4WD cam. I think it has a hair more duration.

The shipping back n forth will eat into my profits or your costs and I'd hate to charge anything of substance because I know you're on a budget. You could buy the tool and resell it on ebay. I'm sure it would sell fast at the right price. Just deduct the cost of having a pro do it and sell it for the remainder. Or have a local pro do it and check their work. Maybe they will do a good job. If not then I'm sure they will fix it. It's not hard to do. What's hard is doing it long enough to be sure you've done it right. You have to use paint or somehow determine where the contact patch is on the valve. So you have to grind, paint, check, grind, paint, check, etc. and it's too easy to say "aw that's good enough." Since your valve is already worn so bad, a lot of cutting will probably be needed on the seat (it was with mine). You won't need the 60 degree cutter since your seat is already too big. You'll use the 30 and 45 to move the contact patch back to the center of the valve. About the cams, I'm not sure I'd trust any specs from hotcams. If I remember right I think they were selling a stock cam with more lift with the wrong specs (some insane exhaust duration which couldn't have been right). I'd rather have less lift with more intake duration. If the LTZ250 cam were any good I wonder why no one was using it back in the day. It seems like it came up in discussion but I can't remember what was decided. That was way back in 2007, 8, 9. I'll dig through my notes and see if I have the cam specs for all the cams.

Looks like I'm consistent over a decade lol

Oooh ok. It didn't work because of the intake valve. Are you going to keep it or buy one without the diaphragm? The jets could be numbered differently and the fact that the pilot doesn't have a number suggests it was a rebuild kit.

What carb?

Now that you mention it, I think I bought that one or one like it and sent it back. Seems like it didn't have the cutter I needed because the sizes lie. So I bit the bullet and bought the pricey one. https://www.ebay.com/itm/264215390009 And the pilot https://www.ebay.com/itm/263155791974 If I had bought it in 2007 it would have paid for itself a few times by now. I think that cutter would do every valve on every machine I ever had, except maybe cars. The cutting teeth adjust in and out to fit a range of seats. I paid $114 and $24 from the same seller 2 years ago so that's how much prices went up. Man those plastics look sweet! I'd be afraid to get any mud on that jolly rancher lol

I was thinking that I wouldn't blame those guys too much because I can't remember how many intake valves I've installed without cutting the seat, but I always attributed the wearing to bad air filtration. Finally after making the same mistake over and over it dawned on me that there is no way to replace a valve without cutting the seat. No one told me that in all my reading. I mean, I might have seen it suggested, but not emphatically necessitated. Any wearing at all on the seat is not going to mesh with the new valve and all that's needed is to wear the hardness off the valve and it's gone. It's imperative to have the valve and seat at exactly the same angle. It's also important to have the contact patch in the center of the valve footprint. In light of that, I bought my own cutter. So far I've used it once, so it hasn't paid for itself yet lol. But after using it I discovered that I'd likely not trust anyone else to do the job. They could cut corners and most people wouldn't know.

The intake valve is open all the time whether hot or cold, but it only affects starting when cold. I can only guess why. Maybe it has something to do with the propensity of the gas to ignite. The screw above the nut is what's used up. Eventually you'll have to take the screw all the way out. So however many threads are below the nut is how much you have left. Switching cams wouldn't change anything because it's the part of the cam with no lobes that would affect it. Now I see why they sold it cheap. Things are starting to make sense. Luckily it won't take much to fix it.

So loosening the lash fixed it? Now you have to figure out about how much of the valve is worn so you know how much time you have left. Basically you're at the end when the adjuster screw is flush with the bottom of the rocker, so if it has a long way to go then the valve is just starting to wear. Once it's warm it should start, so you could loosen the lash to get the engine warm then tighten it again to keep the valve from wearing. What's happening is the valve isn't contacting the seat, so it can't hold the compression. Somehow that doesn't matter once it's warm.

That sounds like a jet is plugged. Did you change something while trying to get it started?

Your valve probably looks like this:

Yeah but don't bother measuring the gap. Just loosen it and see if it starts. You can run a 1/8 inch gap. If that's the problem, it will eat through .001 in no time. I used to run 1/8 gap at the start of the day and by the end it had eaten it up. Most of the time I didn't bother to find TDC, I just loosened the lash however much and went. I'm almost positive that's your problem.

Are you sure the intake valve lash is set right? Take the inspection cap off and after you see the intake rocker move, stick a screwdriver in the sparkplug hole to feel for TDC. It won't be far and it's easy to go past it. Then once you're sure it's TDC, feel the rocker to see if there is a gap. If there is no gap, that is your problem. If in doubt, just loosen the lash just to see if that's the problem. You can always reset it later. It's possible that you have an intake valve that is wearing down. If so, you will have to reset the lash every few days. Hard cold starting is how I knew it's time to loosen the lash. You can do it for a long time before the valve finally pops through the head. Someone may have installed a new valve and didn't cut the seat.

Yeah 30 is way too much for a 200. 30 may even be a lot for my 300 with mods. The 230S and 250S had 26mm carbs, so 28mm is probably right for a 300 (280). My carb has fallen off a couple times in 5 years. Not sure what intake boot I have though. Like I said I originally designed and ported everything for the 32 then backwards engineered it to work with the 30 out of frustration. I'm not sure if I did more port work in 2019 when I rebuilt it again or not, but I know I still have trouble with the carb falling off sometimes. Not a big deal, but it happens. Probably a better hose clamp would fix the problem. I doubt you'll notice any difference in a 7 and 8 plug. I have 6s, 7s, and 8s and unless there is oil burning or carbon then it probably doesn't matter. I was just suggesting to change plugs to be sure the problem is not the plug.

26 is a little small but it might work. It would be easy to tune by having plenty of vacuum. I originally designed mine for a 32mm, but the 32 I used was designed for a 2-stroke and was impossible to tune. I finally decided I didn't have a big enough engine to produce the vacuum required to get a 32 tuned right so I stepped down to a 30. I really didn't care about performance anymore and just wanted it to work. I'm of an opinion now that smaller carbs are better. My Honda 250 (229cc) has a teeny weeny 22 or 24 or something ridiculously small, but doesn't seem to have problems revving. That is the most reliable quad I have. Always starts in any weather (by virtue of the strong vacuum on the carb). It's a pushrod engine with no oil filter. A 28 is probably about right for you. I'm overbored 1mm with the 250 cam with some exhaust mods so maybe that justifies a 30. Just keep in mind the bigger the carb the harder it will be to tune.

In the video they all backed away from the apparatus so maybe. There are some videos on youtube of people in india making some neat castings while barefoot with rudimentary tools. Almost makes me think I could do it, but probably not lol. Yeah when you said you replaced with a diaphragm carb I kinda cringed. That sort of balancing act is the first thing I wanted to be rid of. I think I finally settled on a carb from a 250 dirt bike or something. You don't want a new carb or you'll be back in the same boat figuring out the jetting. If you buy used it should work. I think this is what I have: Carburetor Suzuki GS125 GS250 GS300 Motorcycle Carb PZ30 Intake 30mm Hard starting when cold can indicate that the intake valve is not closing all the way. And sometimes sparkplugs can act like carb problems. I try to remember to at least swap the plug before tearing a carb apart. I've had brand new plugs not work right. I have some short stubby screwdrivers for that. Sometimes a screwdriver bit for drills can work. I think they put it there so people don't tinker with it.

That was interesting. I wonder what gas they use to harden the sand.