This Engine Rebuild Broke Me!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:07]I thought we fixed it.

[00:00:17]All right, let's get back to work on rebuilding this Suzuki SV 650 engine for the Mini Baja Bug project. Now, last video of this project, we discovered that that this engine has really bad compression. That's why it ran horribly.

[00:00:32]It smoked really bad. So, I bought new pistons, new rings, and new jugs. And I installed them. And then I was halfway through lapping the valves, and I discovered that the intake valves were heavily pitted. And I'm pretty sure this is the reason why it had really bad compression. So, I had to go and buy new intake valves. And I'm going to be honest, I was a little surprised at how expensive these were because for four of them was over $350.

[00:01:03]So yeah, kind of surprised at how expensive that was. Also, while I was waiting for these to get here, I also bought brand new cam chain because I mean, this cam chain looks fine and I was like, should I replace it or should But one thing I was noticing in the last video is when I was looking at the timing of the engine before I took it apart, I was noticing that the cams were just a tiny tiny bit off, indicating that these have stretched a little bit.

[00:01:32]And I wasn't really sure, should I replace them? But I went ahead and Let's just replace them. We're already in the top end of the engine. Might as well just replace the cam chain. Now, let's finish lapping the exhaust valves. Then, we do have to lap the new intake valves into the cylinder head. And then, we have to put the valves back. Then, we can start working on uh replacing the cam chain.

[00:02:20]So, let's get rid of the old intake valves.

[00:02:32]Yeah, they seem to work. Thankfully, they look like they fit.

[00:02:51]So, I just cleaned this with soap and water. Let's now clean the valves with soap and water to try and get all the valve compound off.

[00:03:11]I also bought new valve seals, so let's replace those as well.

[00:03:28]All right, let's put the valves back in place.

[00:04:00]Now, because I lapped the valves on the exhaust and I put new valves on the intake, I'm probably going to have to change all the shims under these. But that's something we do once we bolt this back on the engine. We put the cams on, tighten everything down, and then measure the valve clearances, and then calculate the new shims that I have to put in here. So, we'll do that later on.

[00:04:23]So, yeah, let's now work on lapping the valves on the other cylinder head.

[00:04:46]Stay on there.

[00:04:52]Why is it Why are these suction cups not working?

[00:05:08]Quit moving around. See, it works for like a couple seconds and then it just then it moves around. What about this suction cup just doesn't work after a couple seconds?

[00:05:23]Let's try this thing. I haven't tried this.

[00:05:47]Ah, I'm just now learning how to use this.

[00:06:14]Down.

[00:06:24]Down.

[00:06:29]Heat. Heat.

[00:07:09]So, valves are now done for both of the top cylinders. Now, next thing is let's work on replacing the cam chain. We are going to have to remove the clutch cover and stator cover, but I'm kind of really hoping we don't have to take apart too much internally. Hopefully, we don't have to remove the clutch basket. And I'm really hoping we don't have to remove the flywheel. Hopefully, we can just kind of snake the cam chain around the flywheel and not have to remove it.

[00:07:37]But kind of depends on uh you know, the clearances of everything internally.

[00:07:41]Now, one thing that's kind of funny is it says on the back of the box, "Do not install these engine cam chains by yourself. Be sure to ask your local dealers."

[00:07:52]Nope, I'm doing it myself.

[00:08:15]So, I do have a new gasket. So, I don't have to save this one thankfully. So, I can rip this one out.

[00:08:34]Yep. Definitely have to remove the clutch basket and this to be able to swap out the cam chain. Thankfully, it's not hard to remove the clutch basket.

[00:08:44]It's just kind of a pain to do.

[00:09:30]pulling out the big guns.

[00:09:37]This isn't reverse thread, is it? Let me double check.

[00:09:42]I had a feeling this has lefthanded threads. You're supposed to loosen it counterclockwise.

[00:09:49]I hope I didn't damage it by trying to All right, let me Oh, don't snap it. I hope I didn't damage it by overtightening it.

[00:10:23]Uh-oh. Where'd that washer go?

[00:10:27]Uh-oh. A washer fell.

[00:10:32]And I wonder if found it.

[00:10:40]Found it. Yep.

[00:10:44]Yeah, little washer fell in the uh in the oil pan.

[00:10:56]So, here is the old chain.

[00:10:59]Here is the new chain. Let's Let's see if the old chain stretched.

[00:11:10]Yeah, look at how much the old chain is sagging.

[00:11:14]So, it did stretch a little bit. My question is, how does that affect timing of the cams and everything? So, I mean, is it the end of the world if it's off by what would that be like even one degree?

[00:11:34]So, I don't know. Is it good that we're replacing the cam chain? Probably. Is it necessary? Probably not. But, you know, it's a good thing we're doing it anyways. Is this the new one?

[00:11:45]Yeah, this is the old one. This This is the oily one. Don't mix them up.

[00:12:06]All right, let me check the torque spec of that.

[00:12:11]So, this is 70 newtonm.

[00:12:25]Calling it good. Heat.

[00:12:42]Hey, Heat.

[00:12:49]Heat. Heat. N.

[00:12:59]Heat. Heat.

[00:13:42]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:05]H. Looks like we're going to have to remove the flywheel.

[00:14:09]Yeah, there's no way I can get the cam chain around around that.

[00:14:17]So, I have to hold this thing somehow.

[00:14:26]Oh, wow. That was loose.

[00:14:29]Wow, that was really loose.

[00:14:33]What's the torque spec on that? Cuz that that was that was really loose. Let me check the torque spec. So, this is supposed to be torqued down to 120 Nm.

[00:14:45]That was really loose.

[00:14:49]All right, let me look at the manual to see how to remove this.

[00:14:54]Well, I don't have the stock flywheel puller.

[00:15:01]Dang. It keeps getting magnetized.

[00:15:12]Hopefully this works. I don't know why I always get super nervous with doing this.

[00:15:28]Yeah, I really hope that we needed to replace these cam chains because yeah, this is kind of a pain in the butt.

[00:15:42]Am I going to melt anything if I try to heat heat this up?

[00:15:56]Come on, you stupid thing.

[00:16:09]Woo! Holy crap.

[00:16:15]Well, that worked. Ah. Oh, that's hot.

[00:16:19]Okay, that was hot. Don't grab that.

[00:16:22]Wow, that thing came flying off. Sheesh.

[00:16:28]I always hate having to remove these flywheels. And then then we have the fun of retorring it back down to what it needs to be torqued at. So, I'm going to let this cool down and then I'll replace the cam chain.

[00:16:54]So, all that work just to remove this.

[00:17:01]I hope it's worth it doing all this work to replace this stupid chain. I hope we really needed to replace these and it's not one of those things where it's like ah it's good to do it but you don't really have to.

[00:17:22]Do I need to oil this new cam chain before putting it in or I guess it oils itself. I don't Yeah, I don't think it's like a friction plates for a clutch.

[00:17:35]I don't know. I may dump oil on it once I uh put the heads on or something.

[00:17:48]So, the manual says you're supposed to clean this thoroughly. No oil on it.

[00:17:53]Otherwise, it won't it won't tighten down properly.

[00:18:13]How in the world am I going to hold this thing.

[00:18:34]All right, I am calling that good.

[00:18:43]All right, let's finally reinstall the cylinder heads.

[00:19:10]I I am going to use the original studs of the the original bolts just because the manual doesn't say that I need to replace these.

[00:20:06]You want to know what I just forgot?

[00:20:09]So, there's already a chain guide. There's this one down there, but there's this one that you need to install before putting the cylinder head on.

[00:20:24]And I forgot to do it for this one.

[00:20:28]And I already torqued it down.

[00:20:32]Yeah, on some engines you don't have to put this on before putting the cylinder head on. I guess I guess on this engine you do need to uh Yeah, cuz that that's not going to fit down there. So, h how bad is it to remove the cylinder head after I torqued it down and reuse the same uh head gasket?

[00:21:08]Is that a big no no?

[00:21:11]Do I have another one? I don't. Why would I have another one? It only came with two.

[00:21:23]Ah, yep. I love having problems like this. So, I guess let me pull the head off and see if the head gasket can be reused.

[00:21:33]At least I noticed it before putting this one on. At least I didn't mess up twice.

[00:21:41]I read the manual. I read that it said put the put the uh chain guide in. I thought it meant this one. That one's already installed.

[00:21:57]Come on.

[00:22:04]All right. Is this I mean, it doesn't look bad.

[00:22:16]I mean, it looks the same looks the same as as this one. It's it's it's crushed a little bit.

[00:22:26]So, I'm supposed to install this in here, just like that, and then put the cylinder head on. Here's a question. Can I reuse this?

[00:22:42]Probably. It It's a thing of it's like, well, do I have a choice? Do I have a better choice? Not really. Yeah, it's it'll be fine. It'll be fine. It's just for something I only drive twice a year, three times a year. It's not like I'm racing this thing and if I if it goes bad then I lose the race. So yeah, let's just put this thing back together.

[00:23:22]All right, let's torque it down again.

[00:23:27]Let's go down.

[00:23:59]So, now that the uh uh cylinder heads are reinstalled and torqued down, now I need to work on reinstalling the cam shafts. And because I because I lapped the exhaust valves and put new intake valves on here, I'm probably going to have to I'm definitely going to have to uh once I put these on, I'm going to have to measure the valve clearance and it's probably going to be wrong. So, then I'm going to have to take the cam shafts back off. These buckets have little shims underneath them. And I do, luckily, I already have the valve shim kit that works with this engine. I'll have to uh figure out what shims it needs under all four of them or all all eight, I guess. And then uh put the cam shafts back on, retorque them back down, and then reme-measure them. If they're correct, and if they're within spec, then I can put the uh cylinder head or the uh the valve covers on. And this engine is pretty much done and ready to go back in the frame.

[00:24:58]So hopefully I remember how to put this thing back together.

[00:25:04]I'll be honest, this book kind of does a terrible job at explaining how to do the timing of these cam shafts. The way it explains it is kind of very confusing. So hey, hey, All right. So, I did not bother to film doing the valve clearances because basically all of them were incorrect. I had to take all of this back apart. Once I measured everything, I wrote down what uh the clearance was and I had to again take it apart, measured the shims, put new shims and basically all of these and then put everything back on, rettime it uh which is kind of confusing, I'll admit. The manual kind of doesn't really do that great of a a job explaining how to do it uh that well. It's a little bit a little bit confusing. And then measure the the valve clearances again. And now thankfully they're all within spec. So, I I'm trying to think of why was this engine smoking? Because if you guys remember the first time we had this engine running, first of all, it was kind of nightmare to get it running. I bought new spark plugs, those didn't work. I tried other new spark plugs, those didn't work. And then I tried used spark plugs and then it fired up immediately. It was just smoking really bad. Then I put in the original new spark plugs and then it wouldn't fire up. So, I put the original or I put the old spark plugs back in. Then it ran, but it ran kind of terrible. It smoked like crazy. Kind of backfired.

[00:27:46]And I'm trying to think of what could do that. What? At first I'm like, okay, it's got to be the rings. The rings have to be bad causing the low compression, causing it to smoke cuz oil may be getting into the cylinder and burning oil. But the piston rings were fine. The pistons were fine. They were actually in really good shape. Then I thought of what if it's the valve seals? were the valve seals leaking and causing oil to get into into the combustion chamber, but the valve seals were fine.

[00:28:14]So, I don't know. Why was it smoking? Why was it running as horribly as it was?

[00:28:20]Why was it really hard to start? And why did it only like a very specific spark plug? A spark plug is not even for this engine. It was for a CBR1000.

[00:28:31]So, I don't know. Hopefully with this engine rebuild, hopefully this thing now starts easier. Hopefully it doesn't smoke as bad as it did.

[00:28:42]And hopefully hopefully this is now a good reliable engine. So now that that's done, now that the uh the cam the uh valve clearances are now within spec, now we can put the valve covers back on.

[00:28:54]And then this engine's pretty much done and ready to go back in the frame.

[00:29:14]Heat. Heat.

[00:29:36]Now, I did buy new exhaust gaskets because the original ones were in pretty bad shape.

[00:29:45]Does this not fit?

[00:30:03]Now, I did buy a new oil filter, but I don't think I'm going to install it because this one is brand new. I'm pretty sure I put a brand new oil filter on this engine before firing it up. And it it doesn't even have an hour of run time on it. So, I'm going to fill this thing full of oil. I'll try to do a break-in procedure. I'll do the best I can for a break. I kind of can't do a breakin cuz to for a break-in procedure, you kind of need to drive it. Well, I can't really do that around here. So, I'll do my best with doing a break-in procedure or next time I take it off-roading, I'll run this engine and then I'll drain the oil and put a new oil filter on. Put this new oil filter on here. But I don't think it needs a new one now.

[00:31:51]Hey, hey, hey.

[00:32:15]Heat. Heat.

[00:32:34]So before I put the radiator back on, I first want to double check that I hooked up everything electronically.

[00:32:46]It turns on. I do not have the spark plugs hooked up.

[00:32:59]It turns over.

[00:33:02]I never uh I I just realized I So, last video of this project, I put a ton of seafoam in this gas tank. I don't think I ever drained it out. Yeah, let me let me drain the whole gas tank and get all the seafoam out of there and then put fresh gas in here and then I'll put the uh radiator on.

[00:33:37]Is it empty? Did I Did I already drain this gas out?

[00:33:40]This is the problem of having having a really long time go by between last working on something. I forget if I already I guess I already drained this gas tank. Either that or all the gas is in this fuel line right here.

[00:33:54]Is this leaking right here? Is that why there's a yellow puddle right there?

[00:33:59]Right there.

[00:34:16]So, moment of truth to see if this thing will fire up. It's got coolant. It's got oil. I put gas in the gas tank. The batter is hopefully not dead. And I I'm not sure if I have the wires going to the uh the coils in the correct orientation. They're not really labeled.

[00:34:34]So, it's kind of a 50/50 shot of, you know, if I have them on the right coil.

[00:34:39]So, it may not fire up. If that's the case, I just switch the wires around and then see if it works. So, all right. Hopefully, this thing works.

[00:34:57]I may have the coils hooked up wrong.

[00:35:02]That didn't sound good.

[00:35:05]Now, I'm kind of hoping that this engine will be quieter because I again, the mini rock crawler project has this exact same engine. I know the the headers and mufflers are slightly different on that engine, but it's it's so much quieter.

[00:35:22]So, I'm kind of hoping that now that we rebuilt this engine, now hopefully this engine will be as quiet as the mini rock crawler project.

[00:35:34]So, that's switched around. It's got brand new spark plugs in it.

[00:35:39]Hopefully, it now runs.

[00:35:53]It runs. It's got a pretty high idle still. And it's So, it's still smoking, but who knows if that's uh who knows if that's Oh, wow.

[00:36:08]Who knows if that's residual oil in the cylinders because again, it's freshly rebuilt. Let me turn the idle down a little bit.

[00:36:32]Heat.

[00:36:38]Heat.

[00:36:49]So, it runs it. It's I'll be honest, it's still a smoke machine. The front cylinder is smoking the worst. The rear cylinder isn't smoking as badly. We just need to run this engine a little bit and clear out the smoke.

[00:37:14]Come on, don't quit now.

[00:37:32]Come on.

[00:37:45]It's not running fantastic, I'll admit.

[00:37:48]Let me raise the idol up.

[00:38:16]It's still pretty loud, but I got I'm going to let it air out in here.

[00:38:48]So, I think I just need to run this engine. Just run it. Let it blow out whatever it needs to blow out. And hopefully hopefully it'll stop smoking. I don't know. cuz yeah, it's still smoking pretty badly and it's not running as great as I would like it to be. But maybe it's because it's smoking.

[00:39:24]Why do I have to keep blipping the funnel for it to run?

[00:39:57]So far not super I'm happy with this rebuild. Come on.

[00:40:43]I'm having to give it like half throw for it to start.

[00:40:56]Come on.

[00:40:58]Come on. You can do it.

[00:41:14]I don't I don't get it.

[00:41:17]I I do not get it.

[00:41:21]>> So again, this is the mini rock crawler project. This is the exact same engine.

[00:41:25]It's a 2005 Suzuki SV 650. Let's uh let's compare the two engines.

[00:41:50]not smoking. It's idling. It's not loping really bad.

[00:42:12]It's not smoking. It's not loping really bad. It's firing on both cylinders. It's idling properly. It's It's a consistent idle. So, what's the difference? Why is this one running correctly and that one just refuses to to run properly?

[00:42:39]So, one thing I kind of want to try, I I wanted So, I want to take these throttle bodies and put them on the Baja Bug and just see if that makes a difference. If it makes a difference, then it's the throttle bodies. If it doesn't make a difference, then it's not the throttle bodies. But, I at least want to try because this is kind of driving me nuts.

[00:42:59]It's driving me nuts why I can't figure out why that engine is not running that great.

[00:43:08]I just want to do it again.

[00:43:14]Yeah. Fires up instantly. On the Baja Bog, if I don't touch the throttle, it won't fire up. I have to like give it half throttle for it to come to life.

[00:43:24]That's clearly clearly something is wrong. So, let's take the throttle bodies off of this and put them on the Baja Bug.

[00:43:48]God, that did not want to come off. All right, these injectors are stuck.

[00:43:57]So, I don't want to take the fuel line off because it's kind of a pain in the butt to do. So, I'm trying to just pull the injectors off, but wow, they're stuck in there.

[00:44:10]There we go. Holy crap, that did not want to come off.

[00:44:21]Yeah. This is why it's nice having two of the same engine because if one's not working, you can rip the parts off of the other one to figure out what's wrong.

[00:44:42]I'm not going to bother removing the throttle cable with this one.

[00:44:47]Just put that there.

[00:44:56]just keeps spilling fuel everywhere.

[00:45:03]I'm going to put the same air filters cuz I kind of want the exact same setup as it was on the mini rock crawler just to see, you know, does that make a difference?

[00:45:14]One thing I thought of when installing the injectors, is it possible that cuz there's two plugs that go to the injectors. Could that could I have maybe just had them switched and could that be what was what is causing this to run different? If this doesn't work, that's one thing we can try.

[00:45:41]So, moment of truth.

[00:45:44]Let's see if this works.

[00:45:57]Idle's a bit low.

[00:46:05]The idle is a tad low.

[00:46:08]Let's raise it up just a little bit.

[00:46:20]What time is it? It's kind of getting late. It's already dark. It's 8:00.

[00:46:24]Should I be running this thing at 8:00 at night?

[00:46:29]All right. So, it is the next day now.

[00:46:32]I'm just I'm going to try and just get this engine to run. I think the reason why it was smoking really bad yesterday is I did use a ton of assembly lube when assembling the engine. So maybe it just needs to burn that off. But I'm going to try to just run this engine, get it to run long enough to do at least do one heat cycle and maybe that'll I don't know. I I think I just need to run this engine and just see if that clears up and makes the idle a little bit better. So, the main reason for replacing the throttle bodies is I wanted to see if maybe these injectors are clogged or something or maybe the throttle position sensor is faulty because again the rock crawler project that thing runs fine.

[00:47:20]So, it's either the throttle bodies or the wiring or a sensor.

[00:47:27]What else could it be? It's a freshly rebuilt engine. It should have plenty of comp. Ideally, I should do a compression test.

[00:47:38]Starts up a little easier, but then it dies.

[00:48:15]I re I really don't understand this. I really don't.

[00:48:39]That's only one cylinder.

[00:48:58]So, one idea I had is so there's these two connectors going to each injector.

[00:49:06]Could they be switched?

[00:49:09]Is that going to make a difference? So, turn this turn this off. Let me switch these connections around and just see if that does anything.

[00:49:23]So, let's put this one onto this one. Is this going to make a difference? I have no idea.

[00:49:56]Okay, it really didn't like that. So, let's put it back.

[00:50:02]So, now we know that at least this is correct because it really did not like that. So, let's put it back to what it was. And now try it.

[00:50:21]And dead battery.

[00:50:39]That's only one cylinder.

[00:51:10]So, according to Google, a fuel injected motorcycle that won't idle usually indicates a dirty throttle body, clogged fuel injector, or faulty sensors.

[00:51:21]So, we know that these fuel injectors are fine because they worked fine on the mini rock crawler project. Dirty throttle body. Well, we this throttle body was working fine on the rut crawler project or faulty sensors. Common causes include a dirty IACV idle air control valve, stale fuel, vacuum leaks, or an improperly set throttle cable.

[00:51:48]I wonder if there's a giant vacuum leak.

[00:51:53]So, this is the cylinder that's not firing. I removed the spark plug. Why is there soot on on the ceramic?

[00:52:05]Are you seeing that?

[00:52:09]Why is there soot on the sur? It almost cuz there's a ton of soot on the end.

[00:52:16]And that just could be just cuz it's not firing properly.

[00:52:20]That to me looks like could it be a leaky spark plug? It's brand new. I'm not really sure how it could be leaking, but let me try a different spark plug and see what that does.

[00:52:33]I know these videos kind of get a little monotonous of it's not working. Let's try this. That didn't work. Let's try this. That didn't work. Let's try this.

[00:52:42]That didn't work. I don't know what's wrong.

[00:52:45]And just turning it over. It's not running. It's not firing up. I'm not sure what's going I know it kind of gets a little boring, but I don't know what else to do and I don't want to just cut the video into Okay, it's now perfect. It's now running. It took me 3 days of problem solving, but not going to show that. So, let's see if this works.

[00:53:22]Why did Why did it die?

[00:53:28]It's not idling perfect, but at least it's not dying.

[00:53:34]This is a little hit and miss.

[00:53:53]So now the question is if I revert to back to the original throttle bodies, will it run the same? And if so, then it's not the throttle bodies. So let me let me put the original thrott throttle bodies back on after I let a hair out in here.

[00:54:44]So, I just reinstalled the original throttle bodies. So, we'll see how it runs with this.

[00:55:29]This sounds like a It idles like a Harley like that where the other one is just a typical.

[00:55:39]So I don't get that. I I I don't get that.

[00:55:51]Come on, just run.

[00:56:01]I thought we fixed it.

[00:56:25]So, these are the spark plugs that are technically for a Suzuki SV 650. And these are what I tried before. These are I believe these are for a CBR1000. I'm just I want to see what how this thing runs on these spark plugs cuz remember when I first tried to get this thing running, it would not run. Then I took some old CBR1000 spark plugs, put them in, and then it immediately fired up.

[00:56:51]So, I just want to see what it does with these spark plugs.

[00:56:57]Yeah, the front cylinder is always a lot harder to get to.

[00:57:02]Let's see if this does anything.

[00:57:29]Heat. Heat.

[00:57:32]Heat.

[00:57:55]Heat.

[00:57:58]Heat.

[00:58:09]Heat.

[00:58:18]Heat.

[00:58:31]Heat.

[00:58:54]Ooh, that kind of made it run a little bit better. I messed with the uh the sinking of the carbure or the uh throttle bodies. It kind of made it run a little bit better.

[00:59:14]Now it's a black smoke.

[00:59:18]So, my friend Glenn has a good suggestion on something to try. I'm going to fire this thing up and I'm going to spray some starting fluid around all of this. And if the idle increases, then that's a vacuum leak. So that could could possibly be the issue.

[00:59:55]Heat. Heat.

[01:00:31]Well, I didn't really hear any uh any RPM change.

[01:00:38]So clearly uh the bad compression was not the only issue with this engine cuz this is the second day and I still haven't figured out why this thing is idling like garbage. Now I don't know if you could tell when I had it running out uh running outside. Uh, but it was starting to produce some black smoke, which is running rich. And I've been messing around with the uh the sinking of the throttle bodies to see if that's it. So, clearly it did not like those spark plugs. So, here is the spark plugs from the mini rock crawler project.

[01:01:15]They're pretty black. They're pretty used looking. I'm going to throw these in this engine and we'll see what that does because I'm out of ideas of things to try. And I just checked it's not pulling up any error codes. It's not pulling up any faults. So, it's not like a sensor that's malfunctioning or not hooked up properly. It's it's you would say that you would say it would show a fault and it's not. So, yeah, this is starting starting to kind of get annoying. So yeah, let's throw these spark plugs in it and just see what that does.

[01:01:56]So spark plugs are swapped out cuz the theory is if it's working fine for that engine, it should work fine for this.

[01:02:03]Yeah. And breathing in all this exhaust is giving me a headache.

[01:02:38]Heat. Heat.

[01:03:02]It seemed to just So, as soon as it starts idling on two cylinders, then the idle just raises really high. And then I lower it a little bit and then it goes back to to idling on one cylinder and then the idle drops.

[01:03:20]And why do I have to give it throttle for it to start?

[01:03:40]So, I want to do a compression test just to double check to make sure the compression is where it needs to be.

[01:03:51]Throttle wide open.

[01:04:07]Not as great as it should be.

[01:04:12]175.

[01:04:16]The book says it should be 213 or 214.

[01:04:24]Is because the rings aren't broken in yet?

[01:04:28]Could that be it?

[01:04:32]Let's try it again.

[01:04:34]Throttle wide open.

[01:04:45]175.

[01:04:49]I wonder I wonder if it's just because the rings aren't seated yet. I'm trying to do heat cycles. I'm just trying to get the damn thing to run long enough to do a heat cycle.

[01:05:01]I mean, it is better than what it was, but it's not it's not what it should be for a freshly rebuilt engine.

[01:05:12]Yeah. 175. Before it was 15 something or I don't know. One cylinder was 155. The other cylinders was 160 I think.

[01:05:26]It's a 175.

[01:05:29]I swear this mini Baja bug project is cursed.

[01:05:34]I think it's cursed to have a bad engine, an unreliable engine that no matter what I do, it doesn't want to run, doesn't want to work.

[01:05:51]Do you guys have any idea what could be wrong?

[01:05:55]because I'm out of ideas of things to try that don't take forever.

[01:06:01]Pull the whole thing out.

[01:06:09]So, because I'm basically just trying everything I can think of right now.

[01:06:13]This is the ECU.

[01:06:16]This is the one off of the mini rock crawler project. Let's plug it in and just see what that does.

[01:06:25]If this doesn't work, I'm considering swapping the whole damn engine cuz that'll definitively tell us if it's the engine or the wiring. I'm not sure if this will do anything, but it's worth a shot.

[01:06:52]Heat. Heat.

[01:07:26]It's still I mean it's idling better, but it's still smoking like crazy.

[01:07:32]I did not do this engine rebuild just to have the same damn problems.

[01:07:40]Well, it's uh I mean it's it's idling slightly better with the other CDI or ECU, what whatever it's called, but it's still smoking like crazy, and I'm kind of getting really fed up with this. This is the second day of trying to figure out why this is. And I I don't know how much footage I'm going to show of this. It's just basically just let's try this.

[01:08:13]Run the engine. Ah, it's smoking like crazy. Okay, I have to let it air out for 25 minutes and then let's try this.

[01:08:19]Let's try new spark plugs. Let's try the So, as far as I know, it's not the throttle bodies. It's not any sensor on the throttle bodies. And it's not the injectors because I took all that stuff from the mini rock crawler project, put it on here, and it's still doing the same thing. It's not the spark plugs cuz I took the spark plugs from the rock crawler, put it in here, and it's still smoking like crazy.

[01:08:45]It It's interesting how before it was smoking white smoke, but I think that was because of the assembly. I used a ton of assembly lube on this engine and I think that just needed to burn off.

[01:08:55]But now it's smoking black smoke, which means it's running rich and it's still idling really poorly. And it seems like if I lower the idle, then it just idles on one cylinder. If I raise the idle up a little bit, then it's running on a cylinder and a half. Like one cylinder is firing while the other one's like little uh like firing every two or three times. And then if I raise the idle up a little bit, then it idles on both cylinders. And it revs to the moon. It revs to like 4,000 RPM and then if I lower the idle just a little bit, then it just goes back to idling on one and a half cylinders.

[01:09:35]I'm going to be honest, I did consider taking the whole damn engine from the mini rock crawler project and putting it in here.

[01:09:44]That would be a definitive test. that would really tell us if it's the wiring or is it the engine or is it the headers? Cuz that's basically what it boils down to. It's either the wiring, it's either the the engine or the headers. And swapping an engine that we know runs and runs good into this and seeing what it does, that would truly tell us what it what it is.

[01:10:13]And so I'm trying to get this thing ready for Mini Mayhem. Mini Mayhem's coming up pretty soon.

[01:10:19]Definitely want to bring this product and I definitely want to have this thing running good and running reliable because last time I had it there. Last couple times I've had a couple projects there, they're just not really that reliable.

[01:10:37]So, I want to have something that I is good and I know will work. It'll fire I I I want to have it to where I know it'll fire up. it'll run and not have any issues. And so far, uh, this rebuild kind of feels pointless because it's still running the same.

[01:10:56]Worst case, we can just take the engine off the rock crawler and put it in here.

[01:11:01]And if it runs better, all right, leave it in here and just I I want to have a good running engine for this project because I feel like I'm going to take this project more places than the mini rock crawler project, especially because that thing's unfinished. So, as far as what do I do now? I really, as far as what I know, it's running rich. Why is it running rich? I don't know.

[01:11:28]Or it could be the fuel pump. Is the fuel pump bad? And but if the f fuel pump is low pressure, should we swap the fuel pump?

[01:11:41]Let's try the fuel pump and see what that does.

[01:11:54]So, I decided just to take the whole damn gas tank, fuel line and all. So, yeah, let's uh let's test this.

[01:12:09]Yeah, I hate to be taking just a ton of parts off of this project, but I'm just I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with the Baja Bug.

[01:12:22]So, there is an actual difference between the fuel lines. So, the fuel line on the Baja Bug, this is just standard fuel line. And it is rated for like 300 PSI or something, but it does expand a decent amount whenever the fuel pump kicks on. This again, this is from the mini rock crawler project. This is steel braided line. So it's rubber and then surrounded by a steel woven thread basically.

[01:12:54]So this does not expand. And I'm curious the difference that's going to make.

[01:13:01]I'm starting to think this engine rebuild was a giant waste of time and money because I rebuilt it and it's now running worse. How does that work?

[01:13:17]So, now I need to figure out how to wire this plug into this fuel pump.

[01:13:25]A, it doesn't reach. and B, it's actually a different plug cuz it was broken on on this one. So, I had to replace it.

[01:13:34]So, hopefully that's correct.

[01:13:38]Let's try it.

[01:13:43]All right, this one is pumping.

[01:13:52]Nice. That actually worked.

[01:13:55]Let me prime it a couple times to get try to get all the air out.

[01:14:01]So, is this going to work? I have no idea. Is the wrong fuel pressure going to cause it to run rich?

[01:14:10]I have no idea. But at this point, I'm basically just trying anything I can think of.

[01:14:38]Ah, see it's always the idle's too low, the idle's too high. It's never there's never any in between.

[01:14:52]Come on.

[01:15:13]Heat.

[01:15:19]Uh, I want to try some I want to go back to the original spark plugs and see what that does.

[01:15:28]All right, so I reverted back to the original spark plugs.

[01:15:33]One more thing I could try if if this doesn't do anything, one more thing I could try is side gapping the spark plugs and just see what that does.

[01:15:44]Heat.

[01:15:55]Heat.

[01:16:23]It's It's still smoking really bad. And now it's like a white slash black smoke.

[01:16:32]Heat.

[01:16:53]Heat.

[01:17:09]I have no idea how much of this footage I can use. This has been three days of this. Three days of Let's try this. Let's try that. This isn't working. Let's try the CDI. Let's try the spark plugs. Let's try the fuel inject the throttle bodies. Let's try the fuel injectors. Let's try the gas tank from the mini rock crawler project.

[01:17:34]The only thing I really haven't tried is let's just take the whole damn engine from the rock crawler, put it in here, and see what that does. I did seriously consider doing that, but that would be a lot of work. And now I have to let it air out from here again.

[01:17:54]It stinks. it. This engine stinks of fuel.

[01:18:00]So, the next thing I want to try is side gapping the spark plugs. Now, is that going to do anything? I don't know. But I'm I'm trying basically anything I can think of. So, side gapping spark plugs just means cutting a little bit of the top electrode away to expo to expose a little bit more of the bottom electrodes. So the the right one is side gapped and the left one is unmodified.

[01:18:27]So will this do anything? I don't know.

[01:18:32]Test 39. Seeing what side gapping spark plugs does.

[01:18:56]It did not like that. Did not like that at all. Only running on the front cylinder.

[01:19:05]Now, something I will admit, uh, I haven't really wanted to say this because I'm kind of hoping it's because, well, maybe the rings haven't seated properly because I did do a compression test on this cylinder. It's a little bit of a pain to do on that cylinder. So, I only did that one. And I'll be honest, the compression wasn't as high as I was hoping it was going to be.

[01:19:27]Also, it's got a ton of crankcase pressure and there is an insane amount of air coming out of the crankase vents.

[01:19:39]And I'm kind of hoping that maybe it's just because the piston rings haven't seated properly.

[01:19:49]Did I rebuild this engine wrong? That is a very po that is a very real possibility. Maybe I just reassembled this engine wrong or something. Uh, so here's what I want to do. I want to fire this engine up. I put these tubes on here. I'm going to plug them up and see what that does. So, let's try that.

[01:20:34]Heat.

[01:20:41]Heat.

[01:21:01]Heat. Heat.

[01:21:19]Well, I admit defeat. I I give up. I I have tried everything I can think of that's not going to be a huge pain in the butt to do cuz there is a couple things I haven't tried. One of them is taking the whole wiring harness from the mini rock crawler project and putting it on here and seeing what that does. And there's also taking the whole damn engine from the mini rock crawler project and putting it in here and seeing what that I'll be honest taking the engine out of that putting it in here. That would honestly be a really true definitive test and that would tell us what is exactly cuz if it runs if it runs like it runs in the mini rock crawler project then it's this engine this something's wrong with this engine or if that engine in here runs the same as this engine does now it's either the wiring or the headers and mech and electronically This and the rock crawler are identical.

[01:22:24]I have double checked. I have triple checked looking at all the sensors on that project and making sure they're all plugged in. They're all hooked up exactly the same as how I have it on the mini rock crawler project. And they are.

[01:22:37]They're all identical. They're all the same. And as far as I can tell, they're all working. And I've already borrowed how many parts from that project. Put it on here to see if that does any. I I I borrowed the throttle bodies. I borrowed the injectors. I borrowed the fuel pump.

[01:22:54]I borrowed the spark plugs. I've borrowed the CDI. This is actually the still the CDI from that project.

[01:23:01]And nothing's working. So, so now I'm thinking, okay, this is obviously just not tuned correctly, and we need to tune this engine. So, I looked up uh uh Dino Jets. They make Power Commanders. I remember kind of having a similar issue with the CBR1000 uh when I first got that thing fired up.

[01:23:23]It kind of didn't really idle that great. Didn't really run that great and it just kind of smoked a little bit and I bought a Power Commander 5, I believe, for that project. I didn't even have to put a tune on it. I just remember plugging it in and it fired right up and it's been running great ever since. I looked it up and they do make a Power Commander 6 for this engine, but it's $520.

[01:23:51]I already spent how much money on new pistons, new rings, new jugs, and new valves. And apparently that wasn't the issue. It's still running like crap, and it's smoking a lot worse.

[01:24:06]So, how does an engine rebuild make it run worse? This almost feels like another issue with like the H2 project where it's a sensor. It has to be a sensor. I have looked over the whole wiring harness and I don't see where anything and and it's not pulling up any error codes or any faults. The FI light is not on indicating that something is not hooked up correctly.

[01:24:34]So, I almost think that I may need to just buy the Power Commander 6, plug it in here, and tune it because clearly it's running rich.

[01:24:46]But why does the Mini Rock Crawler project not need it? Why does that one run perfect? It idle. It It idles perfect. It starts right up. It doesn't smoke. And why is it so much quieter?

[01:25:00]The only difference is the headers.

[01:25:02]And I did consider, okay, well, let me modify this header and then flip this around, have it go into this header to where it's basically the same as the Mini Rock collar project.

[01:25:13]I almost wonder if I should just do that.

[01:25:17]Does separate mufflers and headers cause an engine to run rich? Is that a thing?

[01:25:24]So, for now, I admit defeat. I I give up. I can't figure it out. And I'm tired of breathing in exhaust. It still stinks in here of exhaust. It always takes a couple couple days for that smell to go away.

[01:25:40]And it this thing just smokes so bad.

[01:25:44]Ideally, I should I should run this out on the driveway, but uh again, neighbors my neighbors are everywhere. So, so I think the next video of this project, I think we should take this over to Pickle's property, have him look this over. I want to rip this thing around a little bit and see maybe if we just need to if we just run this engine, maybe finally get some heat in this thing. Will that get it to run better?

[01:26:12]And may maybe just needs to run for a little bit to clear out whatever or maybe selftune.

[01:26:19]I don't know. But yeah, I think next video on this project, let's take it over to Pickle's property and uh see if he can figure out what's wrong with this thing.

[01:26:29]But right now, let's put the seat back on and put the fiberglass body back on.

[01:26:36]So, I just finished putting everything that I borrowed from this project. I just finished putting it back, and I'm just kind of curious if this thing will fire up.

[01:26:48]Heat.

[01:27:05]Heat.

[01:27:21]It runs perfect.

[01:27:48]So, I just reverted everything back to the way it was. New, you know, the original air filters, original spark plugs, and I'm just kind of curious, you know, just to see what it would do.

[01:28:20]Heat. Heat.

[01:28:26]Heat. Heat.

[01:28:55]Heat. Heat.

[01:29:48]So, it is a full week later and I felt like before I have to start editing this video, let me show you guys some more things that I've been trying to try to get this engine to run right now. One thing I realized I did not try yet is I took the MAP sensor from the good engine, put it on the bad engine, and still nothing. Still runs like crap, still smokes like crazy because I'm kind of thinking it has to be a sensor. It has to be something. But and the MAP sensor is what controls the air fuel mixture. So that's so taking the good sensor that we know works and putting on the bad engine. If that doesn't solve it, then that's not the issue. So, it's got to be something else. So, also, I did buy a carburetor sync tool. I don't know why I haven't bought one of these before. It was actually really not that expensive. So, I used that to sync these throttle bodies. It was not off by much.

[01:30:49]And it did make it idle a little bit better, but it's still it's now idling at like 2,200 or 2,300 RPM on two cylinders, but anything below that, it just idles on one cylinder and it still smokes like crazy. So, I improved it a little bit, but did not fix the issue.

[01:31:08]And one thing I've been thinking about is is my timing off. So, here's what I did. I took the valve covers off on this engine and on that engine and compared the two. I had to take the radiator fan off. Had to take that part of the frame off. It was kind of a pain to uh get to everything, but I put both of these engines at top dead center on the front cylinder. And I'm comparing the timing marks on the good engine and on the bad engine and they are identical. So I am 99.9% sure the timing is correct. So now I am truly out of ideas of things to try and I don't know what to do now. Aside from I am honestly kind of tempted just to take this engine, put it in the Baja bug. Problem solved. I don't really use this project very much, but I do have an event coming up in in uh July where I do want to take this thing to Windrock and I do need a good engine, but for Mini Mayhem, I really which is coming up in a month. I really need a good running engine for this project. So, if I cannot figure it out, I am tempted to take this engine, put in the Baja bug, and problem solved. And whatever the problem is with that engine, I will figure it out later.