New Motorcycle Issues

[Steve G.]

  I've got pics of the engine issue today. A section of the steel cylinder liner along the top has broken off, perhaps 3-4mm x 40mm , and has tangled around the cylinder causing inconsistent damage around the cylinder walls. Leakdown tests showed no problem,,,,yet. Warranty replacement new piston, rings, cylinder, valves, seals,,,,,,I would think any component that had to deal with errant metal bits tumbling around the combustion chamber.

  Crazy. Never seen anything like it.

[rz5mark]

That is a weird one...?

[hardrockminer]

They will likely replace the liner and rings.  Possibly the piston if it has any damage.  It certainly is a strange one.  Was the head part of the combustion chamber damaged?  Valves were OK?

[Steve G.]

  Had a chat with Shawn, he recognized it right away as Chrome plated cylinder walls, as Moto Guzzi did decades ago. I’ve done some digging and yes, RE uses chromium plated cylinders. Works well if plating is done correctly, but flakes off when done incorrectly.
   Mystery solved.

[Steve G.]

  My assumption that RE uses chrome plating on
The 441 cc single may be inaccurate, consensus at Wednesday coffee is that the missing chunk of metal is too thick to be plating.  Defective  steel liner is the word. Either way, it’s clearly a warranty covered defective part.

[Steve G.]

  Stopped by the RE dealer Friday. They brought the faulty cylinder out  for me to Look at and take pictures of (which I spent 2 hrs unsuccessfully trying to put on this format). The compromised steel liner is well above the uppermost ring travel. And  almost the entire  sleeve appears to be peeling away from the aluminium cylinder. It’s at least 1mm thick, and goes from 2-6 mm deep into the cylinder and averages 40mm in one section up to 100mm (3.5”)  along one stretch.  There’s clear evidence that you can feel with a fingernail of the errant metal entering the combustion chamber during operation, and causing damage to the cylinder walls . I’m slightly concerned about what this may do to the catalytic converter, not its effectiveness, but whether it will cause errant messages to the EFI computer via the sensor on the exhaust header.
   It is a complete manufacturing failure. They’ve not seen anything like it, but they’ve only been  a dealer for a year or so. Shail has never seen anything like it during his 23 yrs as a dealer.
  They are ordering a long list of new parts  at this point.

[Twisted_Twin]

It will only show an issue if it has a post-cat 02 sensor (meaning there would be two sensors in the system).

The sensor before the cat is used by the ECU to monitor and adjust fueling.

The sensor after the cat tells the ECU if the cat is working or not, it doesn't do anything else.

Everyone calls it a computer but it's really more of a calculator. All it does is look for a set of given values and if it doesn't see what it's supposed to a certain number of times, it lights the light. As advanced as EFI is, it's still a pretty dumb system.

The post-cat 02 sensor can be fooled just by removing it from the pipe and letting it see clean air. That's how all guys with a Subaru WRX that shot flames and sounded like a lawnmower managed to pass Aircare testing.