1986 VF500F blown engine for parts

I have a 1986 VF500F engine that is blown up and good for parts. Has 56k miles on it. Looks like an exhaust valve dropped in the #2 cyl. and got stuck, which broke the rods to the #1 and #2 cylinders and destroyed the #2 piston and pretty much everything inside that area. There are two holes where the rod pierced through the case, one under the left side sprocket cover, and the other under the left coolant supply line. See pictures.

Anyways, the rear head and jugs are probably still good, as are the clutch and transmission. The cams and some valves and other parts in the front head are probably still good as well. The electrical system worked flawlessly as well.

I'm not looking for any money from this engine. If someone lives in the Southern California area (I'm near Huntington Beach) and wants to pick it up, it's yours. I will not ship.

If someone out there really needs a part and it's not too much of a pain for me to pull it off and they pay for shipping, I might do that as well.

PM me and we can work something out I just figured someone on here might have a use for it, as I do not anymore.

 

Commiserations on your expired engine. I suppose 56K miles isn't too bad. I collect pictures of bust VF500 engines (I is weird). Yours wouldn't be untypical. No pattern to the failures, other than it's always an exhaust valve that drops. All model years affected too, so whatever Honda tried for the 86 didn't work. I have two spare engines in preparation for this event on my bike..

 

Would you sell the 4 plug wires and rear fairing ?

 

I don't have those parts. Sold the bike after I put a back up motor in that I had in case of this incident.

I'm kinda glad to hear it's a common occurrence in these engines because I was beginning to feel like i was mistreating it even though I always serviced her and checked valve lash. Sh*t happens I guess

 

My newly rebuilt 84 engine with "only" about 15k on it just dropped a rear intake and ruined that cylinder. I had an 86 spare engine in which I just installed all new valves (for the VTR250) that I'm running now... until... it happens again.

Question for you MYKARZ, did you typically take the rpms over 9k??? It's easy and fun but seems to be the death sentence too.
Although at 52k, you and that engine were already living on borrowed time. Noticed you had no adjuster screw on one of the valves did you take that off? and a broken rocker arm - broken rocker arm is pretty common when the valve stem can't go down.

 

when you rebuilt the '84, were the heads touched at all. that is were those the original valves, springs, retainer, keepers?

 

I did as much as I could to make them last. I had a slightly leaky head gasket so I replaced both and bought and installed all new inner and outer springs (from CMS NL) even though my original springs were well within specs and I made sure all the valves were perfect. I used all new retainers and cotters. Since the engine had only 13,500 at the time, all the guides and seats were still in really good shape with just a little hand lapping. One valve was pretty mushroomed and two others had slight marks on the tip from normal use. I replaced those with new ones. The rear intake valve that broke was one of my original still new looking valves. They were all perfect looking but obviously something was wrong with that valve. The bike was running perfectly, not overheating at all, everything was good, no strange noises. I was riding it to work 2 or 3 days a week and BOOM on my way home one day. This was only after about 1,500 miles after the rebuild. Daaammmnnnnn.

 

That is really odd. Intake valves have a much easier time than exhaust. Yours is the first I have seen with a failed intake. More evidence on just how marginal that valve gear is.
I bet you know this but there is a converted belt driven VF500 with 98,000 miles in it....
One wonders how that was even possible.

 

Naw, I knew about the valve floating problem and always babied this engine knowing too well that one day it would grenade and I wanted to lengthen that time as much as possible. I took the adjuster screw off to replace a mushroomed one on the replacement engine. And yea the broken rocker was from the stuck valve for sure. I have since dismantled the engine and the insides are pretty knackered, haha

 

Yes, I remember seeing the "belt-o-ceptor" but was that with only one engine with no rebuilds? I don't remember.

The intake valve just breaking right at the cotter groove does seem unusual. This wasn't the more typical hammered tip that loses the cotters/locks and goes flying into the combustion chamber. The locks and the perfect, undamaged tip were still in the retainer when I pulled the head apart. It was probably just fatigue despite the low miles and the added tension of the new springs probably didn't help much. I guess I was just thinking "it won't happen to me" with joining the dropped valve gang but it sure as heck did.
I did rev it all the way to 11k on occasion thinking I'd be safe for a while at least with the new springs. The engine was spinning right around 9k when the valve gave out.

 

wow, that is some serious destruction. the worse I've seen in one of these, did the engine run for a good while before you had a chance to stop it or did all happen instantly and it just locked up on you? Moot point/dumb question I guess, it ran long enough to completely self destruct obviously.

 

I have heard of valves breaking at the cotter groove before alright. Jamie Daugherty who races (raced!?) these said that was the failure mode he often saw. The belt o ceptor was the original engine with no head work AFAIK.
THere was a short lived (I wonder why) racing series in the UK with VF500s. There must have been loads of failures... I have never been able to find much out about this though.