blueprinting??

[syler]

keep hearing this... engine blueprinting...... ok so what is it and whas it do?? is it only practical on racebike or usefulon road bikes too

ta

sy

[jayRC3045]

engine machined to tighter tolenances than standard factory build tolances ,blueprinting gives better performance and more reliable than stock engine

[Devon]

heres a few explanation of what it is on some various websites, i no good and explaining so i will let them do it for me: wikipedia's explanation #2

[David W]

It's basically matching all the components to their blueprinted specification, which is how the designer designed it to be, rather than how the production line threw it together in the factory!

[DocJohn]

^This

Benefits are pretty miniscule on modern engines though, particularly given the costs involved.

Worth doing if you're having a motor rebuilt or tuned, but no point if it's a new stock engine.

The TAS K5/6 superstock bikes that won the TT weren't bluerpinted for example, and they went pretty well...

-John

[cagimaha]

As above. It can range from trimming gaskets so that they match the two surfaces they are sealing and provide minimum disruption to passing water or air right up to spending hours with a burette measuring combustion chamber volumes and making sure they are all equal. Although this is a bit of a wide sweeping generalisation but it makes more of a difference on a two stroke than a four stroke. It is possible to get quite a lot more power (proportionally) from, for example a 350LC by matching all the ports and checking squish settings and such like than you would get out of a modern four stroke. I think this has more to do with improved tolerances in manufacture than the properties of the engines themselves.

As for wether it is more biased towards race or track use than road use I would say that it isn't. That is my opinion though. Unlike other forms of tuning (porting, uprated cams, bigger carbs, uprated injectors etc) blueprinting will not have an adverse affect on the power at any part of the rev range or reduce the engines tractability. Wheras the other tuning methods can cause the bike to have a rough idle or flat spots through the rev range blueprinting will only increase the performance. There is a downside though. Blueprinting is often overlooked because it is very costly to do mainly due to the time it takes and also to the sometimes specialised equipment needed. For the cost of a professional blueprint on an engine you could probably buy some better carbs/injectors, some cams and still have change for a setup session on a dyno. Its horses for courses really. Hope that has helped not confused you more!

Beaten to it! Damn my slow typing.