Those of the Athena 290 persuasion...

...check your head bolts.

Son flies in from CA for the Holidays. Son is a motorcycle dude (has a KTM & Duc). Give him the key to the WR and tell him that it is his transportation while he is here.

So far, the X has been dumped once on pavement. Fortunately, only the right handguard was affected, but wait, the formerly solidly mounted mirrors are now loose as well. No problem. A little loctite will fix it.

He's hell on wheels. Throttle pinned wherever he goes. Might have been too much for the stock torque specs to take with the high-compression Big-bore kit installed.

I have oil seeping from the head gasket. I also have oil weeping from the cylinder base gasket. Checking the oil level today, I thought for sure that with all of that oil seeping out through the gaskets, it must be low, but I was mistaken. Upon inspection, the oil level completely covered the sight glass. Hmmm, that's odd, it was at the top line a couple of days ago.

Decide to drain the oil. Definitely more coming out than I put in. Finished draining, I give it the sniff test. No mistaking the odor of $3.77/gal 93 octane (with 10% ethanol) gasoline.

So, I am leaking at all of the joints, and raw fuel is making it past the head gasket into the lube system. Obviously, my next step will be to re-torque the head, and I'm hoping that will fix it, but I'm doubtful. I'm fairly certain that all of those hot gases passing across the head gasket have already damaged it.

Oh well. Thumper Racing kit coming sometime in January.

Can't we intall the big bore kit with the Oem-gaskets? The high compression comes from the smaller Athena Cylinderhead gasket(!?) If i install the oem gasket with the kit, the compression schould be only 11,8:1 (stock)...

I have the 290kit here, but i am afraid of the high comprssion, so i didnt install it yet...

Have anyone install the kit with the oemgasket??

Don't know how you can use the OEM (stock) head gasket with a big-bore kit.

YZEtc wrote:

Don't know how you can use the OEM (stock) head gasket with a big-bore kit.

sharp scissors ;)

Sorry i mean the cylinder-base-gasket.

The original post does not make sense. The fuel is injected and burnt. I can understand fuel in the oil from a
carbed bike ( can happen when parked and engine is off ), but how the hell does it get there in an injected bike
unless the injector is leaking when the bike is not running? Also, to get a noticeable amount of fuel in the oil......
means quite a bit of fuel.

I ran an Athena kit on my DRZ400 and hammered that bike on the circuit and street and off-road. The bike
had a multi layer base gasket which I halved, so i was running about 12.8:1 I find it hard to believe that a properly
torqued cylinder/head with properly installed gaskets would leak, no matter the hammering it got, unless from a
crash.

NihonWRX wrote:

The original post does not make sense. The fuel is injected and burnt. I can understand fuel in the oil from a
carbed bike ( can happen when parked and engine is off ), but how the hell does it get there in an injected bike
unless the injector is leaking when the bike is not running? Also, to get a noticeable amount of fuel in the oil......
means quite a bit of fuel.

I ran an Athena kit on my DRZ400 and hammered that bike on the circuit and street and off-road. The bike
had a multi layer base gasket which I halved, so i was running about 12.8:1 I find it hard to believe that a properly
torqued cylinder/head with properly installed gaskets would leak, no matter the hammering it got, unless from a
crash.

I can explain it for you. During the compression cycle, the raw fuel/air mixture is being pushed past the the gasket am into the lube system. Some of it may also be going into the cooling system. I haven't checked that yet.

You mentioned that you can't believe that a properly torqued head would leak. Well, there you go. It appears that it was not properly torqued.

No to worry though. This has provided me with the perfect excuse to send the head off for a valve job and porting. Got it back yesterday, so the X will be back on the road soon.

BuilderBob wrote:

This has provided me with the perfect excuse to send the head off for a valve job and porting. Got it back yesterday, so the X will be back on the road soon.

I expect to hear some feedback on the head mods. I think you're the first person to get the head ported on the forum.

Arkmage wrote:

BuilderBob wrote:

This has provided me with the perfect excuse to send the head off for a valve job and porting. Got it back yesterday, so the X will be back on the road soon.

I expect to hear some feedback on the head mods. I think you're the first person to get the head ported on the forum.

I'll definitely post up on my progress and impressions. Gonna have it dyno'ed after the break-in, so we'll see what the old X is capable of.

BuilderBob wrote:

Arkmage wrote:

BuilderBob wrote:

This has provided me with the perfect excuse to send the head off for a valve job and porting. Got it back yesterday, so the X will be back on the road soon.

I expect to hear some feedback on the head mods. I think you're the first person to get the head ported on the forum.

I'll definitely post up on my progress and impressions. Gonna have it dyno'ed after the break-in, so we'll see what the old X is capable of.

I am curious at what point the stock cams become a limitation... I'm sure you'll have reached that point with your list of mods. The dyno will be interesting.

Arkmage wrote:

I am curious at what point the stock cams become a limitation... I'm sure you'll have reached that point with your list of mods. The dyno will be interesting.

Well, I don't know about the cams' limitations, but I know I will have reached mine! LOL I hope to never go into this motor again.

heheh... fair enough. I'm kinda of hoping I can squirrel away enough cash for the 306 kit next year, but not sure if I'll see any benefit from the stroker without cams and head work. That would put the price tag over $2K.

If thumper ever releases a dyno we'd be able to learn a lot when comparing it to yours.