After Valve Adjustment!!!

IMHO, performance has noticeably improved. After I completed the adjust and rode down the street and back I said there was not much diff. BUT rode to get gas a few miles away and the performance WAS BETTER!! AND the exhaust is louder, changed nothing on the exhaust. Much happier with the bike!

rocmoc n AZ/Mexico

Valve lash properly set is essential to good performance, something you've demonstrated once again Rocmoc.

Back in the day when every engine's valves were mechanically adjustable and setting valve lash correctly was something mechanics learned early on, such adjustments were matter of course with any engine tune-up.

With modern automobile engines setting valve lash is something no one thinks about anymore. However old school machines, like our single cylinder 4 stroke bikes, require attention to such things, and adjusting valves for peak performance still applies as your experience illustrates.

Ride safely Rocmoc, and enjoy!

Except Honda. Would you believe Honda cars still have valves that require manual adjustments? Even with their fancy variable timing stuff, you still have to adjust the valves periodically.

Hydraulic valve lifters were a great invention.

Indeed.

The valve clearance settings on Ford Focus are bucket & shim, previous one was also. The only motor I've had in the last 40 years with hydraulic valves was a '96 Ford escort 1.8 petrol, proper rattly on start up until the oil got up.

Honda did a 750 with hydraulic valves iirc that was back in the 90's also.

My 2 Triumphs are shim under bucket, big job to reset gaps every 12k miles, they usually need a few changing.

Honda is a different animal! Hydraulic lifters have long been the norm in modern engines. Honda may get with the program one day - or not. For now a Honda mechanic has one more way to soak it to his customer!

The first firm to include hydraulic lifters in its design was the Cadillac V 16 engine (Model 452) first offered in 1930. The complete wiki on hydraulic lifters is HERE. An interesting read and explains why they aren't used in some engine designs.

Interesting article. My old CBR had shim-under-bucket valves. A fairly big job to adjust, but thankfully I never had to. They checked within limits (with very little change) over the 20k miles I rode it.

My XT hasn't needed an adjustment in 14k miles. I adjusted them the first time I checked them but they haven't needed it since.

Keep clean oil in them and don't beat them to death and they'll last a long time.

I had a Ford Courier that I had to adjust the valves every 10,000 miles.

My '83' Honda 650 Nighthawk had hydraulic lifters! They were tiny, and at the end of a floating rocker arm. Imagine the rocker arm with the valve at one end the lifter at the other and the cam in the middle. The lifter didn't move. I thought it was a strange setup, but it worked well. Sometimes I'd hear a little ticking on startup, but it would quiet down as oil pressure built.
Best part is NOT adjusting 16 valves!

The hydraulic lifters seems to be more of a Detroit trend than higher performance European engine design.

https://www.hotrod.com/articles/mopp-0312-solid-vs-hydraulic-lifters/