Low compression could be of concern.
How bad is the smoke? is it only a whiff when you crack the throttle or is it like a corvette avoiding a Uboat, what year are your heads, early shovels never had seals, you could pull the bolt nearest your oil return drains from your heads, if the bolt is wet head gasket gone, compression test, then squirt oil into cylinder and recheck, check plugs for colour, check timing etc. do you have a 2 into 1 or sep exhausts? is it only 1 cylinder or both? so little info.
Had a look at your picture, looks like an 80" it will have seals.
Hi Dave and Kymbo,
Just re-read the post and realised mine sounded stupid, in the first post when Dave asked "why dual plug" I should have realised he wasn't really asking for an explanation. And in my post I sound like I'm advocating the dual plug setup. I only meant to explain the reasons normally given for doing the conversion, Apologies Dave, I should have known what you meant. As far as spending money on improvements on engine work goes, Shovels should be improved for reliability and long life, I still reckon a mildly improved Shovel (single fire, 8.5 to 1comp, good carby, lightened by removing useless stuff.) can take a stock Evo. Not that Shovels have anything to prove.
Kymbo, for the life of me I can't think of a reason for the copper gasket/plate. It sure looks like it did nothing good as far as sealing goes. Bore looks ok, but without taking a few measurements I wouldn't know for sure. Get it checked and be sure. Pushrods incorrectly adjusted could be the reason for Comp loss. A good cleanup of gasket surfaces, if bore/ piston/rings are ok, maybe guides and seals and James gaskets. Could be back on the road in a couple of days. ( or we could go 101 cu in, nitrous, and lots of fresh underwear!!!!)
Cheers
2 oil drain holes in bottom of bore? what size is bore, what length cylinders gasket face to gasket face should be 5.330". Stroker cylinders have oil drain located lower, someone probably redrilled hole for stock stroke, check to see if oil ring goes down to top oil drain hole, seems to be a lot of oil around.
hi, the old shovel design is not the best 90 deg vavle angle etc the top-end wear out a bit there short vavle guides & top heavy pistons ,etc but if kept in good order etc, if running solid tappets you have to keep the barrels & rocker box & head bolts tight & do the pushrod adjustment reg very important + the timings electric ign are good set & forget no points & bob weights to wear-out ,
they have steel fire type head gaskets these days better than the old blue fibre ones , don't waist your $ on twin plug you can set some squish up on & around the out side of the of the combustion chamber the outer dia of the piston, the std comp is low on shovels 7.5 to 1 to not quite 8 to 1 very low but machining the bottom of the barrel & the head you can put some squish into the old shovel its a trick i do from years ago, if your bike already has a cam in it wich most shovels do not many left with the std cam these days ( i have a 80 sturgis with a std cam still in her ) theres is enough room for vavle to piston clearance etc normaly depends on cam size of coarse , check & measure the top barrel spigot height with the head gasket on & then measure the depth into the relief spigot into the head you want about 0.010" to 0.020" clearance , as so the head is sitting on the gasket only , not the barrel spigot , even you can weld the sides of the chamber to get a nice squish shelf by a 1/4" to 1/2" wide easy to do but what ever always check with plastercine for clearance you get squish & build up the comp ratio at the same time watch out EVOs the old HEMI head has big valves & ports std doing mods is a good kick
they go very good setup like this cheers
hi, as houli mention about the two oil drains in the bottom of the barrel only strokers have this mod ,, they sleeve into the old oil drain & then drill a new one lower , you can measure the stroke of the engine to see what stroke lenght you have 1979 later flywheels have a 4 1/4 " stroke & measure that the rings don't travel over the oil drain hole , cheers
At least it isn't major surgery mate, the gear they've used is good stuff. Makes me wonder about other mods (tranny, Primary etc.) If it went pretty hard before and held together it may have been made up to be a sleeper. Not that Shovel owners ever did sneaky things like that
