Advice on ally 225 porting needed

[coaster]

Hi,

I’m after some advice for an Indian ally 225 barrel which I recently bought from a lad in Wigan. The barrel has been slightly fettled and had been run with an LTH reed block (it didn’t come with the kit). The piston which the seller threw in for free has had 3mm cut off the inlet side and has 2 holes cut in the skirt also on the inlet side
I’m looking for a tune that will give me reliable 60 MPH (up hill/ head wind/camping gear) cruising and I’m not too bothered about top speed.
I took some measurements with the barrel fitted to the engine with a 58mm 110mm rodded crank and a 3mm packer fitted to the bottom of the barrel:
With the supplied piston
Exhaust – 170
Inlet – 170 to bottom of skirt (360 with the holes in skirt taken into consideration)
Transfers – 115

With a standard Asso piston
Inlet – 161
Exhaust – 170
Transfers – 115

The exhaust port is currently 45mm wide and 25mm high, inlet 37mm x 25mm and transfers about 32mm x 12mm.

Any thoughts on the porting? I would be quite interested in using a reed block so thoughts timings for that configuration would be appreciated too :wtf:

Other parts to complete the spec are JL3 and either a 28 or 30 PHBH and an Augusto 6000.
Gearing is currently LIS 125 with 47 x 18 sprockets but I would like this to pull either a 19 or even 20 tooth sprocket if possible

Cheers in advance

colin

[fred]

i'd not do much to exhaust port timing 172-176,not much point going higher than this if using jl3,as it's not a revvy pipe.
transfer timing a bit low, maybe 124-130
best way to achieve this,if you've not got porting tools for transfers,and gain extra torque is fit 60 stroke crank.
does piston line up with bottom of transfers,and exhast at bdc?

[coaster]

i'd not do much to exhaust port timing 172-176,not much point going higher than this if using jl3,as it's not a revvy pipe.
transfer timing a bit low, maybe 124-130
best way to achieve this,if you've not got porting tools for transfers,and gain extra torque is fit 60 stroke crank.
does piston line up with bottom of transfers,and exhast at bdc?

I'll check that Fred but I think the piston stands above the bottom of the ex port by 2-3mm

[coaster]

An update if anyone is interested. I bought one of the new MB 'short' reed manifolds with 6 petal reed block. Having read and studdied up a bit I descided to have a go with the dremel.

First I opened up the transfer feeds and raised the transfer ports from 115 to 125 and widened them a bit at the same time.



Then I matched the inlet to the manifold

Fins cut away to clear MB manifold.


Finally I cut a boost port running up from the top of the inlet to a point level with the top of the transfers which I understand should help counter some of the losses caused by the reads? Also, I left the exhaust at 170 and not very wide (45mm round circumference, approx 60%).I might play with that later.


This is the piston that came with the kit, already drilled and skirt shortened by 3mm by the previous owner, if it runs ok I will replace it with something better.


Having dived in and raised the transfers I was alarmed to hear that it's not a good idea to interfere with the top edge due to the ctitical shape and the high probability of screwing up the loop scavenging process. The advised way for an ameture is to use a packer and cut the corresponding ammount off the top of the barrel. Bell and Jennings both state that but I managed to miss it All porting done with a dremel, one carbide cutter and various grinding stones and sanding drums. I couldn't find much information about boost ports so just went with one central port about 15mm wideand maybe 10mm deep. I THINK I can widen it in the future if the top end is lacking?

Anyway, I decided to put it together and see what happened but I wasn't expecting very much, in fact I'd already picked up another cheap 225 barrel of ebay and left the cowlings off with expectation of stripping it all down again . Engine in, fuel on, choke on, 3rd kick and it started and setteld into a fast idle straight away using the same setup on the 30 PHBH as I had run on the previous 225 barrel. Slight tweak of the idle and mixture screws and off for a tentative blat round the lanes. I was very pleasantly suprised, very clean running, absolutelu NO spitback. I let it coast down to 15mph in top and then opened the throttle all the way expecting it to bog down, but it didn't it just slowly bulit up speed without any hesitation right up to about 50mph when the power kicked in quite hard. I think it might be a little weak yet and I didn't want to overdo it until I'd got some miles on it but all in all I'm well pleased and a little bit amazed

Comments and suggestions very welcome

[tarmac tickler]

Brill i love it!! theres alot of smoke and mirrors about when it comes to tuning, its not really black magic just common sense good on you for having a go, if the kit does what you wanted to acheive you got a cheap set up,, add up what it cost you!! not very much i bet,, cheap replacement pistons readilly available, overbores about 25 quid, you know it makes sense ,,everyone will be at it

[jason frost]

Heres afew pictures of one Ive just done with the MB reed

[J1MS]

Well done on tackling this task on your own. Thought I would throw my little bit of advice when porting transfers in the bore.
Once you have decided how high they need to go by degrees or in millimetres carefully mark by scribing, you can use a marker to make this scribed line easier to see.
Then carefully remove the metal keeping a port profile that closely matched the original but now higher up the barrel.
To check the two transfer ports are aligned use a piston in the barrel and see if they break at the same time. I use a light box, this is just a bulb in a box with a sheet of Perspex, the barrel placed onto the perspex and other lights dimmed show much easier how the ports break if one opens sooner
the light will show here first.
To see how the ports flow I've used
Any improvised ways but the best was a Hoover sucking air out of the upipe while salt was fed in through the crank case if the ports are even you will see the streams meet evenly over the crown of the piston as you lower the piston or raise it you can see this stream change but it should remain even.
Iv also done it by pressurising the case bu putting the Hoover in reverse while feeding salt into the air stream.
Done thisany other ways with less success including smoke hard to see what's going where cleanly.
You can use a hose pipe and water but it's still harder to see. A paragon parts washer wit two feeds one in each transfer gives an idea of how it's flowing.
But if you alter transfers it's a good idea to check they flow evenly and break at the same time and at equal angles.

Coaster If this is one of your first barrels, I expect you will do more and learn fast.

All the best. Mark...

[coaster]

Well done on tackling this task on your own.
Coaster If this is one of your first barrels, I expect you will do more and learn fast.

All the best. Mark...

Cheers for that Mark, I did have a good think about simulating the flow but ended up just running water from the tap down through the transfer feeds one at a time and comparing results with my Mick Abbey Barrel and an old Indian 150. By comparison, mine seemed to flow across the piston as well as hitting the rear wall near the top of the barrel. Best of both worlds Also, it's difficult to tell what effect the boost port will have.

Yes, it's the first barrel I have had a go at, i've matched casings before but never tackled ports, I didn't know what I was doing before and don't know much now but I'm quite encouraged so far and there's nothing better than experimenting to clarify the theory written in books8-)

[coaster]

[quote="jason frost"]Heres afew pictures of one Ive just done with the MB reed quote]

Thanks for posting those Jason, your work puts mine in the shade It looks like I was a bit conservative with the size of the inlet, I guess being open for 360 degrees it doesn't matter how big it is within reason?

Like the work on the piston, what make is that? It looks as if it's been smoothed on the inside and blasted/peeded?

Cheers

Colin

[coaster]

add up what it cost you!! not very much i bet,, cheap replacement pistons readilly available, overbores about 25 quid, you know it makes sense ,,everyone will be at it

Yup, the barrel in question cost £50 from the for sale adds on here and came with an AF Rayspeed head and the very nice chap even threw in the piston for free I have just bought another off ebay for £32 including a usable piston. The reed manifold wasn't cheep mind, £150 with the 6 petal reed block and postage added.....but IF it works and is reliable it'll be worth it