GS450 Rebuild

[pete]

Nice work Sam, and yeah these are fun little bikes to throw around!

Looks like a pretty good end result you've got there. What was the end result of what you had to do for base and head gaskets etc. with the 500 cylinder swap? Was it literally just 500 pistons and cylinder with stock 450 gaskets or was there more to it?

[sam000lee]

Thanks, Pete!

For the cylinder swap, it was super straight forward. I used the GS500 cylinder head gasket and the GS450 base gasket and O-rings. I made a separate thread for the engine mods in order to consolidate all the info for anybody else who wants to do it and should update it after I get a few more miles on the bike. I still have a good set of GS500 cams I was thinking of using (I know you did that mod ) but figured I should do one thing at a time.

https://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?252902-My-GS450-gt-GS500-Cylinder-and-Piston-Swap

[pete]

Ah yes, thanks Sam, I had actually replied in that thread too but forgot all about it... good idea doing one thing at a time too!

[sam000lee]

It's been a while since I've been on GSR but still riding the bike and it rips:

[pete]

Nice Sam, these are fun little bikes for sure so glad to see you're still enjoying it! Giving mine a refresh has certainly helped get it back on the fun meter for me, a whole different world of fun to the Kat but fun all the same!

[sam000lee]

Pete I'm curious - My GS450 engine makes a slight ticking noise when cold ever since I did the 500cc swap. It goes away after a minute or two and isn't anything alarming. Did you notice anything like yours?

[pete]

Hey Sam, I've not done the swap myself, mine's still all 450.

There's two possibilities I can think of... one is the good old cam float where the camshafts move ever so slightly left/right, this is a known thing and isn't an issue.

The other is what I have... occasional ticking type sounds at idle which has happened ever since I decided to run my valves on the higher end of clearance. I read on the GS Twins website in a number of different threads that running the valve clearance at the higher end tends to stop a lot of valve seat wear and extends significantly the time between having to adjust the shims. So far that's proven true for me (clearance hasn't change measurably since I first did that three or four services ago) but at idle I get that occasional noise.