Can you take piston cylinder off without messing with cam timing?

[Ariel Red Hunter]

Originally Posted by DualSport

Summary

• Brand new header gasket from amazon link in this thread(fits perfectly)
• Brand new NGK iridium plug around 0.7mm gap(my carcraft gauges only have 0.628 and 0.8 and it's in between; it's the factory gap of the plug)
• Brand new piston and rings; ring openings rotated 180 degrees of last ring opening and "IN" carb-side and rings are in the order of the stock piston
• Brand new head with factory rubber back-flow seal placed on stud with metal spacer where there is a drain cut in the nut-seat as was from factory. Head gasket has no marks or cracks
• Valves both 0.00285 on the compression stroke where plug hole pushes+both valves have slack+On T| line
• Carb mix screw 1.5 turns out, #110 needle jet and factory PZ30 pilot. Always ran with choke fully open and idle screw just a little out to get to idle on engine sticker when warm
• Factory battery properly leveled and float charged with 1.5A smart charger. It's been out in the cold and abused a little but the bike runs when kickstarted with it.. I use starter fluid so it's one-kick starts when cold and it cranks without once warm on one-kick

I've got this bike running and idling smoothly, but it still billows smoke. I let it idle a while with just the header on seeing if it was pooled oil in exhaust, but it never stopped smoking once exhaust was hot a while, and plug had some oil on it after but didn't foul. It ran find till I turned it off once warmed up with a couple of starts with starter fluid.

From what I see oil can only come from piston rings, head gasket or backflow seal, and valve seals. Rings and valve seals are new with rings "staggered", head gasket has no cracks or marks and is on correct, backflow seal is on with no stretching or cracks..

My question would be 'did you hone the cylinder before assembly?'. You can also take the rocker cover off and run the engine to make sure the oil is draining ok. I'd elevate the front of the bike to get the engine level first, though...ARH