HiCam Oil Pressure, Gross Stupidity and why you should always listen to Chuck

[Weegie]

This is a long sad saga on how one person can be so stupid and how you should always listen to Chuck.

I purchased a low mileage Australia 98 from Japan a few years back, HiCam engine and running gear identical to a Daytona RS

As Winter was coming on apart from idling the bike to check as much as I could that all was in order the bike did no running. I purchased a Caruso pump and gear set to remove the "grenade with the pin pulled" oil pump and to a lesser degree the suspect OEM Aluminuim gears for the service shaft and oil pump drive, the OEM crank gear is steel. I also installed an oil pressure gauge and a dipstick temperature gauge.

There were other things done along the way but they're not relevant.

Come the next summer I took it out for a ride, the first thing I noticed was the low oil pressure on cold oil at idle, around 50-52 psi. The traffic getting out of town was particularly bad, with road works, diversions, queues and snarled up traffic. Just as I got by the worst of this I seen the oil pressure light come in. Went into panic mode looked at the pressure gauge somewhere between 5-10psi. Pulled off into a convenient car park adjacent to me, killed the engine and freewheeled to a stop. Checking the temperature it was in excess of 120C. Waited for well over an hour perhaps longer until the temperature dropped to around 60C and rode home via a backroad a cab driver told me about. On the ride home I was still dropping oil pressure and rising temperature. As I recall it was about 25psi when I got home, I cannot remember the temperature. Although a backroad with less traffic I was still limited to 30mph, so at no point did I really get the chance to get up speed and some real airflow around the engine.

With the low pressure at idle I was convinced that the overheating and low pressure were linked and as the pressure was low from the outset thought I'd start there. The 2V bikes I'm used to will run cold idle circa 60-65+ psi. Cutting to the chase after pulling the bike apart several times, installing several pressure gauges, the OEM pump plus another Caruso pump, running multiple experiments swapping over all sorts of parts between my Sport engine and HiCam, dimensioning several bearings and journals (but not all) and about to strip it again. Lucky Phil stepped in and started to make suggestions on checks. These came to nothing BUT give me a far greater understanding of the engine architecture and I'm very grateful to him. Without his intervention I'd probably have had the engine apart (or in a skip). I also got a friend with another HiCam engined bike to install a gauge onto his and he saw 50psi cold idle.

This took another interesting turn when Phil fired his blueprinted HiCam, as he had installed a stronger relief valve spring and obtained 105psi. This told me that the pump has more than enough capacity to support engine oil requirements when escaping via the normal engine bleeds & bearings BUT with the relief closed. When Phil then installed the standard spring, his pressure dropped to 50psi cold idle, so the culprit had to be the relief partially lifting early, that Chuck had told me about so long ago.

I'm hazarding an "informed" guess here, but think with the large oil feed to the heads, not present on the 2V bikes to anything like the same degree, it doesn't take much lift from the relief for the system pressure to start bleeding down.

Joe Caruso has been brilliant and invaluable during all this, providing me with a lot of pump data and insight. One of the facts made me go "WIDE EYED" was the HiCam oil flow from the pump, was the highest of all the bikes of this vintage. The pump gears are longer (all the pump gear diameters are the same) and spinning faster than the V11 or the MGS-01.

So that's where I am now, I'm going to install a Setrab 13 row cooler, which involves shifting some components around & will hopefully improve the heat rejection avialable from the cooler.

At the moment there is 15/50 full synth in the bike and if I still encounter rising temps the next move will be to step up to a 10/60 to see if the higher viscosity at elevated temperature will sustain the oil pressure. This was also Lucky Phil's suggestion and Paul Minnaert's on a Facebook Daytona page.

I've still a ways to go though to complete the cooler install & here we're still under lockdown, so sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, I'll be able to take it out and see what happens

Just thought it might bring a little insight to those of you lucky enough to posess one of these wonderful machines.

I'll update this as and when but it will be slow

John

 

[Lucky Phil]

9 hours ago, Weegie said:

This is a long sad saga on how one person can be so stupid and how you should always listen to Chuck.

I purchased a low mileage Australia 98 from Japan a few years back, HiCam engine and running gear identical to a Daytona RS

As Winter was coming on apart from idling the bike to check as much as I could that all was in order the bike did no running. I purchased a Caruso pump and gear set to remove the "grenade with the pin pulled" oil pump and to a lesser degree the suspect OEM Aluminuim gears for the service shaft and oil pump drive, the OEM crank gear is steel. I also installed an oil pressure gauge and a dipstick temperature gauge.

There were other things done along the way but they're not relevant.

Come the next summer I took it out for a ride, the first thing I noticed was the low oil pressure on cold oil at idle, around 50-52 psi. The traffic getting out of town was particularly bad, with road works, diversions, queues and snarled up traffic. Just as I got by the worst of this I seen the oil pressure light come in. Went into panic mode looked at the pressure gauge somewhere between 5-10psi. Pulled off into a convenient car park adjacent to me, killed the engine and freewheeled to a stop. Checking the temperature it was in excess of 120C. Waited for well over an hour perhaps longer until the temperature dropped to around 60C and rode home via a backroad a cab driver told me about. On the ride home I was still dropping oil pressure and rising temperature. As I recall it was about 25psi when I got home, I cannot remember the temperature. Although a backroad with less traffic I was still limited to 30mph, so at no point did I really get the chance to get up speed and some real airflow around the engine.

With the low pressure at idle I was convinced that the overheating and low pressure were linked and as the pressure was low from the outset thought I'd start there. The 2V bikes I'm used to will run cold idle circa 60-65+ psi. Cutting to the chase after pulling the bike apart several times, installing several pressure gauges, the OEM pump plus another Caruso pump, running multiple experiments swapping over all sorts of parts between my Sport engine and HiCam, dimensioning several bearings and journals (but not all) and about to strip it again. Lucky Phil stepped in and started to make suggestions on checks. These came to nothing BUT give me a far greater understanding of the engine architecture and I'm very grateful to him. Without his intervention I'd probably have had the engine apart (or in a skip). I also got a friend with another HiCam engined bike to install a gauge onto his and he saw 50psi cold idle.

This took another interesting turn when Phil fired his blueprinted HiCam, as he had installed a stronger relief valve spring and obtained 105psi. This told me that the pump has more than enough capacity to support engine oil requirements when escaping via the normal engine bleeds & bearings BUT with the relief closed. When Phil then installed the standard spring, his pressure dropped to 50psi cold idle, so the culprit had to be the relief partially lifting early, that Chuck had told me about so long ago.

I'm hazarding an "informed" guess here, but think with the large oil feed to the heads, not present on the 2V bikes to anything like the same degree, it doesn't take much lift from the relief for the system pressure to start bleeding down.

Joe Caruso has been brilliant and invaluable during all this, providing me with a lot of pump data and insight. One of the facts made me go "WIDE EYED" was the HiCam oil flow from the pump, was the highest of all the bikes of this vintage. The pump gears are longer (all the pump gear diameters are the same) and spinning faster than the V11 or the MGS-01.

So that's where I am now, I'm going to install a Setrab 13 row cooler, which involves shifting some components around & will hopefully improve the heat rejection avialable from the cooler.

At the moment there is 15/50 full synth in the bike and if I still encounter rising temps the next move will be to step up to a 10/60 to see if the higher viscosity at elevated temperature will sustain the oil pressure. This was also Lucky Phil's suggestion and Paul Minnaert's on a Facebook Daytona page.

I've still a ways to go though to complete the cooler install & here we're still under lockdown, so sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later, I'll be able to take it out and see what happens

Just thought it might bring a little insight to those of you lucky enough to posess one of these wonderful machines.

I'll update this as and when but it will be slow

John

 

Here's another thing to consider John. I emailed Karsten yesterday on the Guzzi.de forum to thank him for the Centi .bin maps he sent me(2 off) and asked him how well his bike used to start from cold. I had noticed a big difference in the engine temp trim between the Centi and V11 maps esp from 0 deg to 65 deg and was interested if his bike was an "easy starter" ( my V11 with the 2 valve motor was never an "easy starter" not bad but would never start on the first crank) I just put it down to big Italian twin stuff after 35 years of cold blooded Ducatis.

Anyway he said it started fine BUT he had REMOVED the std oil cooler and made a bypass unit between the oil cooler fittings because his engine used to run too cold in the rain and didn't get off the mixture enrichment part of the trim.

I'd imagine Germany and Scotland would have similar climes to some degree. Just some further info to complicate things:)

Ciao

[Weegie]

11 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

Here's another thing to consider John. I emailed Karsten yesterday on the Guzzi.de forum to thank him for the Centi .bin maps he sent me(2 off) and asked him how well his bike used to start from cold. I had noticed a big difference in the engine temp trim between the Centi and V11 maps esp from 0 deg to 65 deg and was interested if his bike was an "easy starter" ( my V11 with the 2 valve motor was never an "easy starter" not bad but would never start on the first crank) I just put it down to big Italian twin stuff after 35 years of cold blooded Ducatis.

Anyway he said it started fine BUT he had REMOVED the std oil cooler and made a bypass unit between the oil cooler fittings because his engine used to run too cold in the rain and didn't get off the mixture enrichment part of the trim.

I'd imagine Germany and Scotland would have similar climes to some degree. Just some further info to complicate things:)

Ciao

Hi Phil Hummmm, that's interesting, depending on where in Germany he is, he'll probably encounter higher ambients in the Summer than we get in Scotland. So you're telling me that Karsten actually junked the cooler and made a loop pipe.

Although not to the same degree I do know of another Australia owner, whose bike has the standard Daytona engine but upraded to Stage C. His bike seems to run low oil temperatures too, it has a 10 row Mocal cooler installed and even with a Vee piece across the front of the fairng (from a Ducati to stop muck getting thrown into the engine) his temps  are on the low side.

Running a 23-25C ambient, he told me 20 minutes to achieve 80C, normal running 90C and extended traffic light stops up to 105C, These temperatures are with the Vee piece in place. The vee piece has raised his oil temps by 5-10C.

I wonder if mapping has anything to do with this.

Joe Caruso also sent me a screenshot he'd taken from the Daytona Facebook page which originated from Jens Hofmann

The Daytona Rs Vam is the Kit cam from Daytona 1000 like you know.
This cam has a very long ramp. The result is that the head gets very hot because the valves are 60 ° not presses is the valveseat and cant give their heat away.

There seems to more to this as some seem to report good to low temps and others on the high side, but as I've no clue why all I can do is see if the new cooler improves anything

The cooler arrived this morning and looks a bit smaller than the standard which doesn't fill me with confidence, but I'll press on anyway as presently I can't see another path to pursue

John

[pete roper]

John, I have this Stelvio cooler. It's worth nothing over here. Nobody will pay shipping. Take it or it goes to the tip.

I don't know enough about early hi-cams to say but I tend nowadays to think that unless they are 'Racing' all big blocks are generally over cooled.

[Weegie]

Ok Pete I'll gratefully accept your more than generous off.

If the Setrab fails to deliver the Stelvio cooler would certainly be an option worth trying, PM me with the shipping costs.

You've lived and breathed these engines all your working life Pete, so any advice you care to throw my way I take very seriously so I'll go away for a "think"

All I can say from my (very limited) experience, with the RS is that the HiCams seem to behave a bit differently to the 2V engines that I'm familiar with. That's limited to to bikes up to the turn of the last century. I read that Beetle's torque monster engine was stupidly overcooled (paraphrasing his word) but know absolutely nothing about the more recent engines and the technology involved.

About the only consensus I can get on the HiCams from outside sources (forums etc:) is the heads run hot. Some seem to be able to tune them to stupid powers and get them to run fine yet mine "appears" to overheat stock.

My old stock Daytona which I sold never seemed to have any issues, yet the stage C kit only contributes around 5bhp.........................there just has to be something staring me in the face and I'll be dammed if I can see it

Oh and the point of the quote on the cam was that Dynotech Germany offer a cam with a steeper ramp profile that prevents the valve being lifted for long periods and improves the head temperatures.

John

[Lucky Phil]

9 hours ago, Weegie said:

Ok Pete I'll gratefully accept your more than generous off.

If the Setrab fails to deliver the Stelvio cooler would certainly be an option worth trying, PM me with the shipping costs.

You've lived and breathed these engines all your working life Pete, so any advice you care to throw my way I take very seriously so I'll go away for a "think"

All I can say from my (very limited) experience, with the RS is that the HiCams seem to behave a bit differently to the 2V engines that I'm familiar with. That's limited to to bikes up to the turn of the last century. I read that Beetle's torque monster engine was stupidly overcooled (paraphrasing his word) but know absolutely nothing about the more recent engines and the technology involved.

About the only consensus I can get on the HiCams from outside sources (forums etc:) is the heads run hot. Some seem to be able to tune them to stupid powers and get them to run fine yet mine "appears" to overheat stock.

My old stock Daytona which I sold never seemed to have any issues, yet the stage C kit only contributes around 5bhp.........................there just has to be something staring me in the face and I'll be dammed if I can see it

Oh and the point of the quote on the cam was that Dynotech Germany offer a cam with a steeper ramp profile that prevents the valve being lifted for long periods and improves the head temperatures.

John

The other thing Karsten mentioned was Guzzi Germany recommended that the valve clearances be opened to .15 and .2  from .1 and .15 for similar reasons you mentioned about the cams. Although it may help the valves more than the seats as the longer the valve sits on the seat the more heat it transfers to the head so not sure how it keeps the head cooler.

I must say that the opening ramps do seem quite long from my memory doing the cam timing.The exhaust lifter starts moving around 150ish degrees BBDC. You dont need to go much past TDC to get the valve clearance slightly wrong on the exhausts at least.

Ciao

 

 

[pete roper]

You'd better tell me where to send it then John!

really there isn't much to compare between the 'Old' and 'New' Hi-Cams apart from the layout.

The 'New' Motor has two oil pumps, one of which delivers to a dedicated, and unthermostatted, cooling circuit that's only purpose is to deliver cooling oil to the galleries around the exhaust valve seats. Lubrication, and the other cooling sprays, are fed from the other pump. This includes the cam bearings which are fed by galleries surrounding two of the studs, not, as many think, by the oil lines from the cooler.

More later, I just got an SOS call........

[Weegie]

Ok @Lucky Phil that's handy to know, may try that or at least make sure my stock clearances are on the loose rather than the tigher side. I'd have thought that you'd want to transfer heat to the head from the valve as much as possible, the head surely is running a LOT cooler and the mass of the head will result in a higher thermal inertia, not to mention the oil in it and the airflow over it. Mind if it's hot in the first place the exhaust valves are going to have an even more difficult time................Sodium core valves anybody? Phil's bound to know all about them

Your cams are Centauro and mine are RS, slightly different but I don't know if it's significant. Of course Dynotech could just be wanting sell cams

From what I can gather from the description Pete it appears that Guzzi must have had issues with the exhaust valves over the years, to go to the trouble of a dedicated pump

Looked at the MGS-01 and V11 parts out of interest. They both have similar looking oil coolers but different part numbers, but that's all I got. The MGS also has what I think was a transducer (perhaps going to warning light?) across the cooler but later replaced with a relief if I've got it correct. It also sports lines directly to the heads on the cooler outlet. That's not presesnt on any of the other HiCams........................mmmmmm, wonder if that was a first attempt to feed colder oil directly to the heads.

After some messing around it does look like mounting the cooler won't be as bad as I thought, just need to make up some straps and I reckon I can mount it with 4 P clips to the frame rails.

One question for the more knowledgeable, most cooler installation feed & return lines to the top of the cooler. I've seen some installations on other bikes where they feed & return to the bottom. I'm guessing the top is desirable to allow gas/air to escape through the lines, rather than potential trapping of air inside the cooler reducing efficiency.

Unsure if I'll be able to install with the lines to the top, it will be more difficult for sure due to all the other stuff crammed above the cooler

John

[Lucky Phil]

3 hours ago, Weegie said:

Ok @Lucky Phil that's handy to know, may try that or at least make sure my stock clearances are on the loose rather than the tigher side. I'd have thought that you'd want to transfer heat to the head from the valve as much as possible, the head surely is running a LOT cooler and the mass of the head will result in a higher thermal inertia, not to mention the oil in it and the airflow over it. Mind if it's hot in the first place the exhaust valves are going to have an even more difficult time................Sodium core valves anybody? Phil's bound to know all about them

Your cams are Centauro and mine are RS, slightly different but I don't know if it's significant. Of course Dynotech could just be wanting sell cams

From what I can gather from the description Pete it appears that Guzzi must have had issues with the exhaust valves over the years, to go to the trouble of a dedicated pump

Looked at the MGS-01 and V11 parts out of interest. They both have similar looking oil coolers but different part numbers, but that's all I got. The MGS also has what I think was a transducer (perhaps going to warning light?) across the cooler but later replaced with a relief if I've got it correct. It also sports lines directly to the heads on the cooler outlet. That's not presesnt on any of the other HiCams........................mmmmmm, wonder if that was a first attempt to feed colder oil directly to the heads.

After some messing around it does look like mounting the cooler won't be as bad as I thought, just need to make up some straps and I reckon I can mount it with 4 P clips to the frame rails.

One question for the more knowledgeable, most cooler installation feed & return lines to the top of the cooler. I've seen some installations on other bikes where they feed & return to the bottom. I'm guessing the top is desirable to allow gas/air to escape through the lines, rather than potential trapping of air inside the cooler reducing efficiency.

Unsure if I'll be able to install with the lines to the top, it will be more difficult for sure due to all the other stuff crammed above the cooler

John

Top feed stops the oil gravitating back to the sump when resting John but I've seen it done both ways. Dont think it matters that much.

Ciao

[Weegie]

So ading to an old thread as it's in the same vein, Phil suggested using the Griso relief valve spring instead of the OEM item for the HiCams may up the pressure stopping the relief lifting early so I got me one of them

Its obvious the Griso spring is shorter and heavier gauge.

Checking the lift with a bicycle foot pump had the OEM lifting at 50 the Griso lifting at 70 psi, hopeful.

Installed the Griso springed valve into the bike filled with oil and tried a crank test, plugs out and grounded. A little high for my liking, not sure where to go from here, perhaps a short idle check and see what happens to the pressure when the oil gets toasty. If it's too high as I suspect the next approach would be to measure and send the data (or just the springs) to a spring supplier and request either a custom made or off the shelf spring that approximates to a halfway house giving a pressure around 65-70psi which I reckon would be ideal

https://youtu.be/x6gzMWLS740

Still don't know how to insert a YouTube video on here

John

[docc]

4 hours ago, Weegie said:

Still don't know how to insert a YouTube video on here

John

Simply copy the URL from the YooToob address bar and paste into your post without using the link function and  . . .

(Hey, that's the pressure just cranking!!)

[Weegie]

Thank you docc

Yeah, plugs out so its spinning close to idle speed. If it's anything like the old spring, the crank and idle pressure will be identical. I don't think many are that interested in the HiCam but I thought this thread might be worthwhile. The agony I've been through trying to understand this engine and the MGS (no I don't own one) changes etc have taken forever and were hard won (and I'm only in the twilight knowledge wise). I'm not that bright but luckily I lucked in when

1) Found Lucky Phil's HiCam thread

2) I'm taking advice from Phil on and off about where to go to next, thank goodness for another "superfan" of these lumps and brimming with experience and know how to boot

I'm pretty sure that the pulsing you can see is the spring lifting, so it controls around 82psi but I worry about what will happen when the valve chokes, relatively few revs required for that to happen on cold oil.

As I mentioned in the original post, which is a bit long, so a lot may just skim through it and not take it all in. But for anybody thinking about which way to go to eliminate the "Grenade with the pin out" pump there is a lot to chew on, bad news as it is for the cheapskates of this world.

A lot think that the MGS-01/V11 chain config must be the "Dog's Doo Dahhs" because the MGS-01 is the pinnacle of these engines. It is but the thing is Guzzi made significant changes to the head design and the MGS heads don't drink oil like a Scotsman finding a pub with free beer in the desert.

The pressure on these engines is governed by the relief valve (Duhh) but the kicker is that the valve has only just gotta crack a little and the pressure starts to drop through the floor. Combine that with the heads insatiable thirst for oil and signifcant cooling issues (these engines run toasty hot, well mine does) and you can be balancing on the head of a pin.

I've still got a few rabbits in the hat yet, including a new oil cooler, a second oil cooler to be mounted in series to the first and finally going to a 10/60 synth, not to mention perhaps trying to source a halfway house spring. My worrry about the high cold pressure is the rear mains seal, it's not the end of the world to replace but its not a job I'd lke to be doing every time I took her out for a run.

John

 

[Weegie]

Here is what happens when the engine was run with the Griso spring in

 

[Chuck]

Be still my beating heart.. that thing sounds awesome. Man, I love those engines.

[Lucky Phil]

9 hours ago, Weegie said:

Here is what happens when the engine was run with the Griso spring in

 

Nice work John. Personally I can't imagine a better outcome oil pressure wise. Hot max pressure will be around 75psi, cold around 82 and hot idle around 30 psi.

Ciao