Venom X22R 250 performance mods
 

I got all my parts in and getting ready to start the disassembling of the bike in the morning. I was going to start tonight but got some bad weather coming through right now. I'll video and document the whole process including the porting of the head. Hopefully I won't have to remove the engine which will make it much quicker. Here's a few picture of the surgery table. Lol

Awesome Jerry! I can’t wait to see your processes and learn from them so I can do my own build in the future!

I wanted to get started tonight but the sky fell out and wind is blowing . I wasn't getting stranded in my shed for the night. Lol. At least the weather is going to be nice and cool tomorrow. :D

Heck yeah. I like that paper shop manual too. That’s nice to have on hand.

My only purchase tonight was the matching set of Chase Harper saddle bags. I needed just a little more cargo capacity than just the other two bags.

I printed the manual out today. Lol I'm ready for sure. :tup: be sure to post pics of the saddle bags.

You let a storm stop you? This was your perfect chance to do a Frankenstein film parody.

:lmao: It would of been perfect with the lightening popping everywhere. It got pretty rough out there for a while. The neighbors old shed got knocked down to a pile of tin. Save him the trouble of having the tear it down himself. Lol

Jerryhawkenstein…(cue Beethoven music and lightning)

Nice, new pistons and cam, are they thinner gaskets too? I understand cam's and potentially increase compression with thin gaskets but how does a different piston make gains? Is it just in the combustion geometry? I'm a noob when it comes to engines.

High compression forged piston. 11:1 compression and a lighter and stronger piston.

Do you have a template for the porting or do you plan to just raise them a bit?

Oh so the piston is longer to further increase compression and recessed to prevent hitting all while made of lighter material? The compression rating on a piston is what it would alter the compression too from stock? I always thought it was compression rating the piston will reliably survive.

If you had completed the hop up during a terrible storm, when it started, your engine could have sang:

"I was born in a cross-fire hurricane
And I howled at the morning driving rain
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas"

Well I got her done. I did take pictures and video but won't be tonight. I have other things I need to take care of but will get then up as soon as I can. I couldn't remove the head and cylinder with the engine bolted to the frame. I unbolted the engine from the frame and let it sit on the bottom of the frame. I was able to tilt the engine to the side a little and removed the head and cylinder. I wasn't to bad. Better than unhooking all the wires and whatever else and removing the engine. The head was about like my hawk head. Exhaust side was restrictive and intake needed a good bit removed right where the intake bolted. Probably 27- 28 mm hole. I did some port matching on the intake side. Now it's a full 30mm. I used a full thickness stock head gasket so my compression ratio is about 10.5:1. I'll probably do a thin head gasket once the engine is broke in and rings are seated.
I got her all back together and she fired right up. Definitely has a thump to it now. I took it out for a short ride to break in the cam and seat the rings. No WOT runs but you can feel more power on the low end and a good bit more on the mid and upper rpm's.
I did have to go from a 110 main jet to a 120 and will probably have to go to a 125. I didn't get to install my AF gauge so once I install it I'll fine tune it. I'm happy with the results so far. I'm sure it will feel even better once broke in.:D

Wow. Finished it in a day. That’s awesome, Jerry!

You’re making me REALLY want to go ahead and pull the trigger on the rest of my mods.

Wow is right. That is quick. You must have got up at 3 am to start. You will always have employment skills as a motorcycle mechanic!

Oh I got it done but paying for it today. Now I'm laid up in bed because my backs out.:ohno: I can't even get out and enjoy the work I've done.
Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow and take her to work.

As a member of the bad back club, I understand. That is usually how I end up, which is why my projects can take a long time.

Been there with that few a times, amazing the pain that can be generated and how that can lay you up. Lucky for me not frequent. I did spend the day yesterday up and down working on a Hellcat. In the middle of the night, I got a huge cramp in the back of my thigh.

Back is much better this morning so i took the bike to work. So far i'm impressed with the extra umph! she got. :D I'll get the video up sometime before the end of the day. I got just over 2 hours of video i need to edit. It may end up being a long video because i don't want to cut too much detail out of it. I rather have everything covered and have the viewer skip through it rather than remove parts that some will want to watch.

Where did you get the hotcam from? I can’t find one or don’t know what to search for.

I found them on ebay. I got mine for $147. Search Hot Cams 1059-1. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...0&_odkw=1059-1

I bet that exhaust note perked up quite a bit too. I sure wish my flywheel puller would get here so I could install my Hawk's cam.

How did your jetting end up?

Video uploaded. Hope it came out okay. Was kind of in a rush to get it out and it's been crazy here at work with all the jobs that were put on hold are starting up again. I was able to get ver 2 hours of video down to about 30 minutes.
Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0E0Iya_4HRE&t=11s

Yes it did. Nice pop when you hit the start button but doesn't seem to have put any extra load on the starter.
I have a 120 main in it right now. I didn't install the AFR gauge yet. I ran out of wire for my mig and was in too much pain Sunday to do anything. That will be next so i can fine tune.

That lack of extra load is likely due to the dynamic compression not being much diffeeent thanks to the cam.

Great video! Love that cam sound, da dat da da dat.

Awesome video Jerry! Thanks a lot for taking the time to make it! I can’t wait to try these mods as well.

Well on my way to work this morning i caught the last red light on the last stretch before the office. I couldn't resist. I dumped the clutch and revved her out through the gears. I hit 60 mph in third a whole lot quicker than she ever did before i had to turn off. :D I love it. I can't wait to get her out on the interstate and see how it does at highway speeds.

Please video. It is nice to see the bike in perspective following all your hard work :tup:

nice.... sounds a lot like my cammed pocket bike did....LOL its really just a baby version of your x22... LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TU9qiSyII

Yes it does sound bad azz. :) I'm also thinking of installing a offset flywheel key to increase the timing. either a 2 or 4 degree.

I have read that the Hotcam is a drop in and requires no mods to the engine. What kind of performance gains could you expect by only swapping cams and not doing the port/polish and piston swap?

With out increasing the compression ratio and opening up the ports you will loose low end power. The higher compression makes up for that.

Any update on how that 18 tooth front sprocket is doing? Is it hitting the case at all? I wouldn’t mind buying one if it manages to clear the cover.

I wouldn't bother with a cam install without at least doing some work to the exhaust port. These heads, both CB and CG 2 valve engines, have pretty terrible exhaust ports. Putting a more aggressive cam without doing at least some port work would be like running a marathon race but only breathing through a straw while doing it.

Honestly, even if I weren't installing a cam, or raising compression on any engine these bikes run, I would still open up the exhaust port, as well as port match and smooth out the intake a little.

If you don't believe you are capable of doing your own head porting there is actually a shop in Missouri that will do pretty damn good port work for a pretty good price (Around $150-200). This is their facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/LFRPowersport/

You can see some of their porting examples. Corey Lansdown is who I talked to and he is a knowledgeable guy that does good work. Get in touch with them and see what they tell you.

As far as increasing the compression goes. Given the specs of the cam in question, I would want no less than a 9.5:1 static compression ratio to avoid losing low end power. Mid range and top end would perform just fine. It might not be quite the fire breather that Jerry is making, but it will have most of the benefits of the cam while also running cooler.

I am not 100% sure what the X22R CB engine has stock, but usually the OHC motors are around 9:1 compression. So, at the very least you could have the head decked 2 thousands (.002 inches, or .5mm) to bump it up to about where you would want it.

Never installed an 18 tooth. Even though an 18 tooth might fit, it will pass too close to the case for me. If you get too much slack in the chain and it decides to jump tooth you can plan on buying a new case.

The stock gaskets on the engines have a triple layer head gasket. Like the CRF230F guys you can separate the gasket and use one layer which will give you a .5 increase in compression ratio.

Doh, wrong thread!

That's what i figured. lol