What damage did I do?

[grayracer513]

Oh god.....if that was my bike I would die

Did you have any filter oil at all in your air filter???????

if so, USE MORE NEXT TIME

not crap air filter oil either. use a good sticky one like bel ray and dont be stingy with it!!! it is IMPOSSIBLE to suck dirt like that with a properly oiled filter

No, it actually isn't at all impossible. Once the filter becomes obstructed enough by the dirt it has gathered, it will start to be pulled straight through the filter.

[Wiz636]

Oh god.....if that was my bike I would die

Did you have any filter oil at all in your air filter???????

if so, USE MORE NEXT TIME

not crap air filter oil either. use a good sticky one like bel ray and dont be stingy with it!!! it is IMPOSSIBLE to suck dirt like that with a properly oiled filter

The filter was oiled/installed properly. The same thing happened to several bikes of all makes and using different filters and oil. The common denominator was that they were all 450's, and mostly A class riders. Some of the A classes had close to a 50% DNF rate. The smart guys (not me) took the time to pit and change filters. Live and learn.

The filter had trapped so much silt that it was completely saturated and there was simply no more oil available for dirt to stick to. It probably weighed about two pounds. Up until that race I had never had so much as a trace of dirt/dust getting past a filter.

[Climber]

What about your lungs? Volcanic ash is mainly silica. You know about siliconosis???

Can you say "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

[grayracer513]

Can you say "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis"

Only with practice. I've always had trouble with the 18 syllable ones.

[Wiz636]

Since my valves tightened up I'm just going to assume that the coating on them is toast and replace them.

Would Kibblewhite valves be a suitable replacement or should I stick with the more expensive OEM Ti valves (even through TT oem store they are significantly more expensive)? Keep in mind that I am an offroader and not a motocrosser so I'm not overly concerned with tweaking every last little bit of HP out of the bike...I even race with the quiet insert and spark arrestor in.

[grayracer513]

When evaluating the cost of KW valves versus OEM Ti, be sure to include the required spring and retainer kit that is needed to compensate for the extra weight of the valves. You will find that this brings the cost much closer to OEM. An alternative that you might want to explore is Feria valves through Ron Hamp Cycles. I have no idea as to pricing.

Altogether, I would be tempted to go with SS valves if I were running a 250F, but given the phenomenal reliability of Yamaha OEM 450 valves in most circumstances, I don't see a compelling reason not to use them.

[Wiz636]

When evaluating the cost of KW valves versus OEM Ti, be sure to include the required spring and retainer kit that is needed to compensate for the extra weight of the valves. You will find that this brings the cost much closer to OEM. An alternative that you might want to explore is Feria valves through Ron Hamp Cycles. I have no idea as to pricing.

Altogether, I would be tempted to go with SS valves if I were running a 250F, but given the phenomenal reliability of Yamaha OEM 450 valves in most circumstances, I don't see a compelling reason not to use them.

Thanks Gray...was not aware that I would have to use their spring/retainer kit also. Taking that into consideration it makes more sense to stay oem.

[grayracer513]

Yes. Their spring kit is about $200 by itself. What's trick about it is that the retainers are titanium, so it makes up some of the weight increase, but that's still pricey.

The springs are a necessity because stainless steel weighs about 180% of what Ti does.

[Wiz636]

I just read that there are quite a few bikes already out of the ISDE in Chile because of this: http://www.berkyboy.smugmug.com/gallery/3821193#220972859-A-LB Apparently it's pretty sandy/silty.

That's what my filter looked like...both inside and out!

[albertaguy]

I'd be curious if the outerwear prefilter material would stop all that silt. Works great in sand and regular dirt. If you run them dry (the prefilter, not your air filter) the vibration of riding often shakes them clean while you ride. They seal up especially well on the 06,07 (and probably 08 as well) as the elastic edge fits over the raised plastic flange the air filter seals to. they don't tend to cake up because they're not oiled (unlike filterskins) and the material has extreemley fine pores, can't see anything getting through it yet they seem to breath very well. A very good $20 investment yet I hardly hear anyone talk about them. Even with very dirty rides your filter looks brand new underneath, great piece of mind. They don't advertise in the biking world much and only carry what they consider popular (mostly jap 450's and 250's). I called them to get one for my 08 KTM and they said if I send them a filter they would custom make it for me. The guy I talked to said biking was such a tiny fraction of their business they don't devote much time to it (mostly 4x4's and sand rail stuff). Anyway it's amazing material if you ever get a chance to try it out. P.S the engine pictures look a lot like mine after getting sand in the engine. Complete top end and half a crank (timing chain side) were needed. I ended up getting a brand new motor on ebay that came out of a hill climb machine instead of the full rebuild.

[Wiz636]

Do you have a link to that stuff?

[albertaguy]

Do you have a link to that stuff?

www.outerwearsracing.com

[grayracer513]

I'd be curious if the outerwear prefilter material would stop all that silt. Works great in sand and regular dirt.

They may help a little, but you need to understand that the mesh of the fabric really isn't that fine, for one thing, and real silt, like the kind we get around here, is unbelievably fine. Imagine dirt/sand ground into a powder finer than flour. Even a properly oiled, clean air filter is lucky to stop all of it, because it's so fine that it stays suspended in the air as it weaves through the filter instead of running afoul of the oiled media. It's impossible to feel the grit of it between your fingers, and you'd swear it couldn't be ground that fine.

Outerwear's biggest advantage is when used to keep sand out of the filter. If sand sits on top of a filter long enough, the heavier grains can wiggle through with the help of gravity. The outerwear screens will pretty much put a stop to that kind of thing.

[albertaguy]

It's impossible to feel the grit of it between your fingers, and you'd swear it couldn't be ground that fine.

I remember that volcanoe dust even in Alberta. I was a kid and I remember everything was coated with it. Even scraped some into a bottle off the trampolene for a keep sake. I would have thought all that was hard packed or conglomerated together by now but I guess not. If somethings going to get caked then it might as well be a very oiled filter skin that can be torn off and replaced faster than doing the whole filter. That's how I used to do mine before I found the outerwears.

[Wiz636]

I remember that volcanoe dust even in Alberta. I was a kid and I remember everything was coated with it. Even scraped some into a bottle off the trampolene for a keep sake. I would have thought all that was hard packed or conglomerated together by now but I guess not.

Normally that would be the case but the main factor here was that the race was held on leased CRP land so it was basically tilled farmland that had been laying fallow for a few years. Being old farmland it had been getting tilled, disked, plowed or whatever for years and never became naturally packed up so it chewed up right away once the race started.

The few sections of the course that crossed non-arable land held up great.