I was reading this just now. Brake cleaner is not safe to use right?

Shimming a flash 3 tuned .12 for 25 percent fuel would require how many shims? I was told 0.50mm. Can someone confirm this?

You can get away with shimming it to 0.5mm.

It should be 0.45mm but sometimes the 0.05mm or 0.15mm shims are impossible to find.

I don't see why as it is for the most part the same as Nitro cleaner, also once cleaned the parts are then either oiled (the bearings) or completely covered in after-run oil during reassembly. I ran the car today and everything was perfect, strong power and a steady idle.

Novarossi FTW:nod:

I use brake cleaner.

I just make sure to blow it away with compressed air.

Then re-lube it completely.

A lot of cranks have been ruined by brake cleaner....it loosens the silicon in the crank. When the silicon desides to separate from the crank at some point you have a paperweight. The NovaRossi manual even says not use use it. They recommend "petrol"...which is gasoline. I use denatured alcohol in a spray bottle at the track and I have a gallon of diesel fuel at home for soaking my engine between races. Save an old toothbrush to clean the engine. I would "lap" that head button with some fine emery cloth on a piece of glass to eliminate hot spots. Check your shim stack with a piece of solder after to make sure you have enough clearance if you take a lot off the head while lapping it. Don't touch the piston though.

Just avoid the brake cleaner. The warning in the manual is there for a reason.

I agree except for this part. You know that's an easy fix right? :D

Re losing the silicon ramp, This has been proven that it makes little to no noticable diff in performance. This question has been raised a number of times and several have reported no noticable diff when run with ramp missing. Re affecting balance its to close to the centre of the crank and silicon is much lighter than the steel that it replaces in an all steel shaft. The whole idea of useing silicon in this area is to get a better balance on the shaft hence replacing steel with silicon. The only slight diff with no silicon is slightly diff gas flow in this area. Cranks never had silicon ramps before and were not shaped in the inlet whether done in silicon or machined in the steel (they had square bottomed holes also under cut past the valve port in the passage).As has been said many times its easy to replace silicon ramp if you want to. Regards Martin.

Won't it affect the crankcase volume?

Its no where near enough to have noticable effect on performance. Nova went from a round back plate to one where they took away 2 areas to to give better flow to the transfer channels. This reduced case volume, Did it have any adverse affect no. They have since gone back to round back plates as well. If you look at some of the modders that carve the inside of these motors away ie piston skirts,windows in bottom of liners, ports bevelled, teardrops on ports, liner thickness reduced below ports, crankshaft bore increased, crank port inlet knife edged, crank turbo flutes, crank material taken away to rebalance, and motor still works well if not better as you hope it would having had these mods done by a good modder. Their obviously is a point that you can go to far re case volume but just no silicon ramp is not going to effect motor performance that much. Regards Martin.

The only place to show any difference is on the dyno. I have read somewhere the silicone insert would give 0.1 hp more.

Looking at the fabrication proces a silicone insert would save some machine work and so production time and wear on the milling tools.

The average consumer wants to see differenes in the improvement of a new engine and thats why every year the manufacturers show something new. The silicine insert was introduced as giving a better flow but some brands promote it today as light weight.

The only way it can be lightweight is if its done right. The idea behind it was that the manufacturer would drill the crank to make it lighter and fill the whole with the silicone, but a lot of people, and other manufacturers took it as just smoothing out the mixture flow, and thats just a side effect.

i beleive it has nothing to do with gas flow adding silicon ramp, Shafts in the past and some still have equally as good gas flow shape machined in the steel as shape with silicon. Re easier on tooling its the more expensive cranks that have this easier on the tooling method and then silicon added, If its just easier on tooling all cranks would be made this way. I believe its done to reduce rotational weight to aid spooling. Martin.

Previous thread a couple back i said it reduced case volume, Meant it increased volume.Martin.

silicon ramps
 

This a great subject .
The original idea was to lighten the crank and silicone putty was a good way of filling the hole left from drilling.Manufacturers noticed a positive effect in shaping the silicone.
Silicone ramps do not directly increase power but there is a flow on affect .
They cut down turbulence buy changing the angle of the fuel and air flow into the crank the same as the turbo scoop in a crank does buy by changing the angle to the backplate .
The use of putty is not to save on tooling wear. shaping the crank in its original form rather than using silicone is pointless as the original objective was to lighten the crank in aid of quicker spooling .:nod:;)