Well, Cylinder Head number two has just gone south. Same problem as the first. The exhaust valve seat has come loose and worked its way out. I guess I will be calling Raceway again on Monday. They have been AWESOME to deal with, but I must admit this is getting a little old. I did pull the head off in record time though. I am convinced that there is a manufacturing flaw. I think the press fit is not correct and once the engine gets warm enough the seat begins to fall out. My daughter was riding it when it quit and she is very timid to say the least.


Shawn

 

of course give us a call on Monday and we will work it out, but it does sound very weird to me because kazuma has been making that motor for a long time now I have never had much trouble with them at all! But lets see what we can do to fix it!

Raceway ATV

 

I hope I don't have this problem on my son's Falcon 150. (knock on wood) This thing has been quite the tough ATV. He's had this quad on the typical rocky PA mountain trails, and has the banged up skid plates under the axle to prove it. The only problem I've had with this quad so far, is DON'T GET THE KILL SWITCH WET!!! We washed it off once with the hose after getting it covered in mud, took it for a ride to dry it off, and it just shut off. It wouldn't restart unless you flipped the kill switch on and off again, and it would run for another couple of minutes. I took the switch apart and used the blow dryer to dry it out. And it has been fine after that. One other thing I have noticed is this quad does something really freaky. If I haul it on the trailer to the place we ride, then start it up, it runs like crap for about a minute and you have to keep giving it gas for it to stay running. The same thing for the ride home too. But this only happens when it's on the trailer. Go figure. I'll never get rid of it because I think it has it's own personality disorder. I don't want it to come back and kill me in my sleep because I sold it.

 

John, I hope this is some crazy isolated case. It did exactly the same thing that it did the first time. Ran fine, turned it off and it would not start again. First thing I did was check the valve lash and found them both to be way loose, just like last time. I pulled the head and saw that the exhaust seat had come out of the head just like the original head. On a positive note, the second head lasted twice as long as the first one did.

Shawn

 

We will take care of it!

 

I have a Falcon 90 I bought at Christmastime as a gift for my daughter. It has about 18-20 hours on the engine and has started exhibiting similar symptoms but has not yet reached the point of being unable to start.

I suppose I'll have to put the borescope in through the sparkplug hole and have a look.

On the other hand I picked up a gently used Falcon 150 today for a song and a dance. :-)

-Mike

 

Well, there doesn't appear to be a dropped valve seat. I was able to clear up the sporadic running with a shot of SeaFoam in with the gasoline to clear the carb out. But it is still persistently smoking. It is a constant light smoke that increases under load.

I suspect the piston rings or intake valve seal. I warmed it up and drained the oil. It seemed to have alot of metal particulate suspended in the oil. It makes no odd noises but still smokes. I am sure it is not a rich mixture smoke.

The spark plug is a little oily. So I guess that means it will need rings. And I will change the valve guide seals while I am in there for good measure.

Good thing I worked on alot of Honda CTs back in the day. The teardown should be a cinch.

 

Glad to hear yours looks to be okay. Mine had the first one fail at around 10 hours. The second one went nearly twice as long as the first did. They both failed the same, with the exhaust seat dropping out of the head. I am hoping third time is a charm for me.

Shawn

 

It appears that the compression is good but I may replace the rings since it will be apart anyway.

After observing it running while my kids ride it behaves like valve guide seals. It smokes a little constantly (almost invisible) but smokes more after a drop-throttle then accelerate. Like it is sucking a little oil past the intake guide.

In any case it doesn't seem severe so I'll watch it closely until colder weather sets in then do the service.

Does Raceway carry those types of engine parts ?

-Mike in AZ

 

Yes we do.