Chief cylinders

Saw Chief cylinders on Ebay for about $600.Does anyone have info on these CHEAP priced items.Thanks.

Beware of the very low quality castings from India. A friend bought a set and after much fooling around with guide holes, cylinder base holes, etc. threw them in the scrap pile. Hopefully, our Hosts from S&S will have good quality cylinders available soon.

I haven't seen the items described but I would certainly agree that some of the castings and machined items I have seen from India don't appear to have any Quality Control of any description

I have heard good of these cylinders.

One has to check the guides and there was one set where casting core had moved so you could see the "line" in fins. That was just a cosmetic flaw.

Otherwise I heard that they wear nicely, ie they are not too soft.

Ask VI list this same question, or read their archive. You'll get more info. I believe you'll get alot of positive feedback.

Jack

is Virtual Indian still running? where can I find them?

is Virtual Indian still running? where can I find them?

http://virtualindian.org/index.htm

The VirtualIndian mailing list is very active:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/VirtualIndian/

Reports are that the castings have improved.
Our Host should be encouraged to keep in the race. The Indian market is very healthy.

....Cotten

found it, joined it... two vintage Indian sprinters and a Chout all in UK! Going to have a target for my 45 project, I can see that...

I just examined a pair of Chief cylinders sold by Eastern. Looked very good, the iron appears very hard, machined surfaces are clean, no mistakes or marks. Only bad area was flashing roughness inside the ports, easily cleaned up with a Dremel. About $600. pair with guides, retail.

I've put 24K kilometers on one of the early cylinder sets.
They had some visual and mechanical issues, but they have worked out very well!!
I'm not into museum show quality anyway.. I want something that works (nearly) regardless of where I'm riding.

I got a spare set later (2years ago) and this set didn't have the issues as the early set..
The cylinders still had the hone marks visible after 24K, and no noticable wear apart from the standard valve seat adjustments. The cylinders have very good metallurgy..harder than original and previous repro cylinders. But.. keeping consistent quality is maybe an issue with the bargain price parts (I pay $400 for a set).

I'm installing new totalseal rings now which I believe are slightly harder and off course seals better.. I hope this will last a long(er) time before piston blowby becomes a problem. I switched to soft mahle rings some years back, after several reported problems of hard rings and soft repro cylinders. But now I have much harder cylinder walls to cope with harder rings..

As long as it works for me in real life.. I don't care too much about theory...

I don't care too much about theory...


"Theory is the same as practice...in theory...but not in practice."

found it, joined it... two vintage Indian sprinters and a Chout all in UK! Going to have a target for my 45 project, I can see that...

You are not alone
There are 2 very active Indian Motocycles clubs in Great Britain :
http://www.indianmotocycle.co.uk
http://www.indianriders.co.uk