Well my 05 valves are out of spec (not many hours on it), the left intake and right exhaust. How hard is it to shim them, looks pretty easy. How do I figure out what shim size I need? Any little tricks I need to know?

Its relativly easy. I wouldnt recommend doing it without the service manual though. I have the page with the formula to determine which shim is needed, if you need it give me your fax # and ill send it to you....

Well I have it all apart, very easy. Now time to go buy some shims.

Motox178

my right exhast is border line 17.8 and my left intake is 9.5 mil. Out of curiosity, what was your shim sizes? and what sizes are you going to?

My right exhaust is .152, and my left intake is .076. I don't know how to tell shim sizes, my exhaust shim looks like it has a 1 0 on it and my intake 9 8. Not sure if that is sizes. I have no clue what sizes I am going to. This week I am gonig to visit family and while im there I will stop by a shop for the shims. I'll let you know what they give me. I think I am also gonna have the cams welded like suggested just to be safe.

i'm a little hesitant of welding the cams. i'm a welder by trade. and the cams are high carbon steel and case hardened. The sprocket may even be a cast. Before a weld is place on the steel it must be warmed up for the weld to hold. If not the weld will crack and break. after the cam is welded it will cool and the hardened temper will be taken out if cooled incorrectly. I'm going to talk to a few people in my industry before doing this. I myself really don't think there is enough proof to justify the cam being welded, i think more damage will be done than good.

rexbond007 said:

I have had an intake cam spin the sproket. I was wondering if you had talked to anyone else about this. I would like to weld my new cam. I am just hesitant to do it for the same reasons that you are. I would hate to ruin a brand new cam and possible damage the cam journel as well. Just wondering if you had found out anything else??

i'm wondering could your misforntune happend because the cam chain tensioner was put in incorrectly?
there is a proceedure in installing it?

rexbond007 said:

Not unless it was installed incorrectly at the factory!! It had never been taken out. It is a 2005 rmz250 with about 30 to 35 hours on it between racing and practice. The intake cam actually siezed in the cam journal. Still not sure why. Oil and filter was changed every 3 to 4 hrs of riding. The valves were on the verge of needing to be adjusted but were still within tolerences. I talked to suzuki and the said it might be the filters inside the cases were pluged. So I split the cases and the filters looked brand new. Not clogged at all. I blew out all the oil galleys and they were not plugged either. Not sure what happened really. I now have a new head and cams. I am waiting for a spring compressor so I can finish rebuilding the head. I am going to send the old head to Eric Gorr and have it fixed and have all kimbblewhite goodies put into it. Hopefully I will not have any more problems.... I really love this bike, its the best handling bike I have ever owned.

Damm that will choke a guy up.

rexbond007 said:

That is no kidding!!!!! It sure choked me up!!

I have seen a bunch of cams seize. The problem is the size of the cam journal and the clearence to the cam. Even on new heads the cams can be too tight when torqued to 8 foot pounds. Plus the factory didn't put an oiling groove on the intake side. The exhaust side has one and I can't see any reason why they didn't put one on the intake side. If you machine the journal to the corecct size for your cam and cut the oil groove you will eliminate the seizures. There is no chance of oil pressure problems when cutting the groove, it simply allows a little oil to spread out on the cam.