New motor ride report

[dunerinaz]

Well, a few weeks ago, I expressed how I wanted more power and was going to go higher compression and some porting. I decided to get it done and went with venom performance porting and a venom 12.25:1 piston. It's a mild build but I wasn't in this to be the fastest. I just wanted something that would be a lot of fun to dune and maybe quicker on the hill. I got it all buttoned up and headed for the dunes

So for the halloween weekend we hit the dunes and on the first day I took a few hours for break in to seat the rings. It felt great with lots of power but I took it pretty easy while breaking it in. Later that day, me and a couple of friends took off for a dune ride and the quad ran awesome. It had more power than I was hoping for and I was super happy. We hit the hill and I smoked my buddy's yfz with full pipe, cam mod, and esr intake. The rappy 700's were even further behind. The day went flawless.

Then on Sunday (we went on Sat. morning and were planning on staying until Tues.) we decided to go for another dune run. About an hour into the ride, I was off the throttle, coasting down the face of a dune, and all of a sudden, the dreaded TICK TICK TICK TICK. I shut it down instantly. We pulled the valve cover off in the middle of the dunes but found nothing, so out came the tow strap. Believe me, you don't want to get pulled out of the big dunes behind a quad with 8 paddle extremes and an 8' rope. So my trip ended. I came home and tore it apart. When I was taking the cam carrier off, my finger bumped one of the intake valves and the retainer fell off the valve. I looked and noticed the NEW kibblewhite vavle had snapped in two inside the retainer and the ticking I heard was the valve kissing the piston. I took the head off expecting to find a damaged piston and not even a scratch. I contacted venom performance and let them know about the valve breaking and he said he had never even heard of a valve breaking where mine did. He concluded that is was a bad valve and that he would fix me up and get credit from kibblewhite.

I definitely lucked out by not having any damage other than the valve. I do know now that the motor runs great. It just sucked to come home early.

[Jeremy]

Sorry to hear about the engine troubles....but the worst part of your story is the part about being towed behind someone with extremes!!! lol Just riding behind people with paddles like that it horrible, even if you stay far back!

So the valve snapped in the retainer groove? I understand that right?

[dunerinaz]

Here you go,

[Jeremy]

OK, so below the groove. Interesting. I wonder if Morgan has ever seen that before? I know he runs KW stuff in most all their builds.

[dunerinaz]

And you're correct about the extremes..lol. It felt like I had three people with shovels throwing sand at me as fast as they could. The sand is one thing but when you get into the valleys there's rocks too. That sucked. Felt like I was being shot with BB guns in the legs. I don't recommend it...LOL!

[Jeremy]

Did you get the jetting dialed in at KMS before you went or just go off of feel?

[GDT]

That sucks, but then again knowing that it was right and will be taken care of has got to be a good feeling. I had thought about the venom porting, but am pretty sure I will go with racers edge when the time is right.

I know how you feel with a broke down machine at the dunes, it sucks. I had cam bolts back out of mine last year, oil window looked like my daughters make up, all glitter.

[dunerinaz]

Jeremy, I didn't make it to KMS before the trip. I didn't get the motor back together until Friday afternoon and we were leaving Saturday morning. The jetting felt pretty damn good for just guessing. As soon as I get it back together, I'll take it to Kelly and get it tuned. I think he's been really busy lately so hopefully he'll be able to do it while I'm there so I can watch what they do.

GDT, I was going to go with racers edge because of all the good things I've heard about them but for the money I saved with venom, I'm happy. If I was trying to get every ounce of HP that I could, then I would have gone with RE for sure. I will say that the venom port job on my head didn't look like what I expected. It looked VERY clean and well done compared to some I've seen.

[GDT]

I have read a ton on venom/KBR, all really good results and some pretty good customer service.

[D.A.D.]

Dunerinaz, I have similar bike and am very interested in the same mods if you don't mind telling what did that cost you? I put kibblewhites in my wifes predator so it is a little scary to hear about the valve breaking. Glad to hear your whipping up on the WFZ did you get a chance to run your friend with the LTR?