I recently received the newest and most promising mod from retailer Badazztoyz; the BAT-Head Kit. The kit was sent to me by Badazztoyz shop owner Chris while still in prototype stages to be installed and revised into a working production model. The data generated during this test was relayed back to Badazztoyz production shop and has resulted in the actual product that you can purchase for yourself today. Below is a complete review of the BAT-HK including some of the revisions that we made to the kit while testing it and the reasons and results of why we made them. This review will be in two parts; the first being an overall review and the second will be an installation “How-To”. Before we get started I would like to thank Chris, “Blah” and “Rohorn” for all the parts, help and info the provided during this testing and review.
The BAT-HK is available as close as can be to a “bolt-on” head kit. No kit will ever be a direct bolt-on due to tolerance variables in each individual bike such as rod length and conrod diameters. This kit is being produced within the maximum tolerance variables and will therefore require the installer to check and adjust the squish per their application. This is no different than any other available head kit on the market.
The BAT-HK doesn’t have the “Bling” factor that some of the kits on the market have today. Chris’s intentions with this kit are to “go fast”, and having “bling” does not fall within that criteria as far as we’re concerned. That’s not to say that this kit doesn’t look good. In fact I would say that it even looks menacing. But the real reason behind any of these head kits is to make your bike go fast. A head kit achieves this goal by two methods. The first being it increases compression. As you know if you increase compression, you increase the amount of power an engine will generate throughout it’s power band. The second and most important yet most overlooked method of increasing power with a head kit is adjusting your port timing and duration by raising the ports or cylinder a given dimension. This is achieved in this kit with a 2mm cylinder spacer (see pic #2) rather than grinding the roof of the ports higher. This is simply cheaper and more effective than grinding and allows for easy reproduction of the kit. We have calculated and tested with verified results that the stock cylinder head on a Cag engine has poor port timing and short port duration. It has been show that by raising the ports, a substantial increase in rpms can be achieved. Through testing we have found that an increase in the range of 3mm in height will produce a 3K-4K rpm increase over stock. Assuming your engine was in the range of 10,000 to 10,500 rpms stock, as mine was, then this kit will allow for rpms in the range of 13,000 to 14,000 rpms and possibly more depending on complimenting mods installed. Certain tests have show that between 16k-17k rpms can be achieved but with great sacrifices in reliability and engine life. Piston rings require replacement after and average of 2 hours use, excessive cylinder wear and etc. This is fine if you’re a truly competitive racer and maybe even sponsored but is out of the question for most riders who demand reliability and longevity. The Cag engine can safely and reliably run at 13k-14k rpms all day with proper maintenance and lubrication. I have noticed that a lot of the head kits available do not even address this issue. The BAT-HK however does address this problem and supplies a solution. The kit includes a 2mm aluminum cylinder spacer in conjunction with (2) .5mm cylinder gaskets for each side of the aluminum spacer that produces an overall spacer of 3mm.
Next is the cylinder. The cylinder that comes with the BAT-HK is precut for your convenience. The cut cylinder measures 57mm from the top of the cut cylinder to the bottom of it’s bolt flange. We have found that measuring to the bolt flange provides a more consistent measurement than when measuring to the cylinder skirt. 57mm is the dimension that was decided on after several squish tests using the 3mm base spacer (two .5mm cylinder gaskets and the 2mm alum spacer). Squish was tested several times using the solder method and the putty thickness method. As I stated earlier, due to variances in engine parts you may need to remove some material from the top of the cylinder to achieve a .5mm squish.
The Head is mounted to the cylinder via 4 metric threaded studs and nuts and one .5mm copper head gasket. The copper head gasket must be in place and the head must be torqued properly when performing your squish tests.
The head is made of light weight aluminum and has very large cooling fins with an offset sparkplug hole. The head is oversized as to promote heat dissipation. When used in conjunction with a .5mm squish the head produces a 13:1 compression ratio. The BAT-HK is designed for racing application. It produces dramatic power increases and attains very high rpms. Because of this it is intended to be used in conjunction with a high power band exhaust pipe such as the IP2 or Jetpro Hi-rev pipes. Use of the BAT-HK with either of these pipes should not require any modifications and will result in a very high performance bike. The kit can be used with other pipes such as the stock exhaust or the original Jetpro, however slight modification to the head will be required. This simply consists rotating the head 180 degrees so the spark plug will not interfere with the exhaust pipe. Then cutting off the two cooling fins that interfere with the coil and then slightly grinding the top of the two tiny cooling fins that just barely touch the exhaust pipe. These mods are very simple to do with a Dremel and a cut off wheel or any hacksaw and anyone can do them at home and the head will still work with the IP2 or Jetpro Hi-rev if you wish to upgrade in the future.
Ease of installation. The BAT-HK is fairly simple to install. If you have ever taken the cylinder off of your existing engine and successfully reassemble it and it ran then you can install this kit without a problem. You must no how to set the squish. As I stated before the stock squish setting will vary from engine to engine due to variances in engine components. If the squish is greater than .5mm then you will need to remove material from the cylinder. You can do this yourself or you can take it to any motorcycle engine shop or machine chop and they can do this for you. The kit will be very close to the required height and you could easily remove the material needed with a file or a belt or orbital sander and some 150grit sand paper as long as you go slow and evenly so you maintain a flat plane on top the cylinder.
Performance. I first installed this kit on my lucky 7 type Cag. I reinstalled all the stock parts including the stock exhaust but left my ported stock carb on. I started the bike up and heat cycled the engine twice with the bike on the stand and adjusted the main jet on the carb slightly. Then I took it for a ride. HOLY $HIT!!! The bike screamed from the second the clutch engaged all the way up till I ran out of road. I turned around and floored it again, same thing, instant power band! I got to about 8,000 rpms let off the gas then cracked it WOT real hard and wham the front wheel was in the air and I was hoping not to go over backwards onto the slippery wet road! When I stopped I check the speedo and it read 36mph. That was with stock gearing and I never even came close to reaching full speed or rpms before I ran out of road. Well next I went to the local parking lot I ride at, it’s the Columbus Crew’s soccer stadium parking lot and you can imagine how big of a lot that is, it‘s the size of a shopping mall. I started the bike up and let it warm up while I got my gear on then I took off. Same thing as before, insane power band all the way through the rpms. It seems to hit another power band at about 9,000 rpms, this is about where the stock pipe hits (most stock bikes can’t utilize the stock pipes power band effectively). The bike lunged forward again and just kept screaming. It sounded like the engine was about to explode, it just kept revving and revving with no end in sight. It finally reached a peak were I wasn’t gaining any speed and the bike sounded like one ****ed off GP bike gone mad. That’s when I noticed it didn’t sound like it used to. It didn’t sound like a chainsaw anymore. Instead it had a mean snarl when I revved it and it sounded reminiscent to that of an old 2-stroke GP bike screaming down the track. I went back to the truck and parked the bike. I checked the memory on the tach and it read 13,400rpms! I pulled the plug and checked it out, it was a perfect chocolate tan color. So I went put it back in and hopped back on to go have some more fun. It now wheelies without pulling up on the bars, just crack the throttle! It now has the power to pull through and exit turns like a real bike, you can’t hold the throttle WOT and cruise through the turns like you used to. It now takes some skill to back off and wait for the right moment to pull it WOT or else you’ll be on but wondering where you’re bikes going without you. I know I had a close call and that’s the first time I said to myself “I better look into a steering damper“. Well I decided to call it a day and head back home. Oh yeah did I mention it did all that with a .7mm squish setting!? The next day I was going to set the squish to .5mm and reinstall my 2-stage reeds, try out the modded stock pipe, the Jetpro pipe and the IP2 pipe and see what kind of results I could get. Well I spent the next day adjusting the squish to .5mm and installing some other parts and by the time I got done it was pouring rain. It rained for 3 says straight! On the night of third day it snowed and all the rain we had turned the roads and parking lots to ice so I waited a couple more days. Finally it warmed up enough that I could at least ride the bike down the street and see what happens. The road was really slippery and wet still and there’s about an inch of snow on the grass. Well the bike was even more crazy than before. The power was just nuts. I took one trip up the street and back and put the bike away. It just has too much power to be riding with slicks on a wet almost icy road. The temperature has been around 30 degrees here everyday and the local track is closed for the winter so I don’t know when I’ll be able to perform a final test. I’m hoping for a sunny 40-50 degree day sometime soon so I can go back to the Crew stadium lot and run there but forecast looks like snow for the next week so it looks like we’re all going to have to wait.
I’ve had so many people asking about the progress that I thought I would post this to tide everyone over. Sorry it was so long. I’m trying to provide as much info as possible so that everyone can benefit from it. These bikes are capable of a lot more than any of us expected we just needed to get the ball rolling in the right direction. I’ll try to get the step by step “How-To” up soon with pics included. In case you were wondering I painted the head bright red just to make it look that much more trick but my crappy camera made it look orange, but trust me it‘s red.
Thanks,
Dan Ritchey
Last edited by Ritchey79 : 12-16-2004 at 08:25 PM.
Quite honestly, the best review I have seen on PBP hands down. Good job Ritchey.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritchey79
Review of the new Badazztoyz Head Kit BAT-HK
I recently received the newest and most promising mod from retailer Badazztoyz; the BAT-Head Kit. The kit was sent to me by Badazztoyz shop owner Chris while still in prototype stages to be installed and revised into a working production model. The data generated during this test was relayed back to Badazztoyz production shop and has resulted in the actual product that you can purchase for yourself today. Below is a complete review of the BAT-HK including some of the revisions that we made to the kit while testing it and the reasons and results of why we made them. This review will be in two parts; the first being an overall review and the second will be an installation “How-To”. Before we get started I would like to thank Chris, “Blah” and “Rohorn” for all the parts, help and info the provided during this testing and review.
The BAT-HK is available as close as can be to a “bolt-on” head kit. No kit will ever be a direct bolt-on due to tolerance variables in each individual bike such as rod length and conrod diameters. This kit is being produced within the maximum tolerance variables and will therefore require the installer to check and adjust the squish per their application. This is no different than any other available head kit on the market.
The BAT-HK doesn’t have the “Bling” factor that some of the kits on the market have today. Chris’s intentions with this kit are to “go fast”, and having “bling” does not fall within that criteria as far as we’re concerned. That’s not to say that this kit doesn’t look good. In fact I would say that it even looks menacing. But the real reason behind any of these head kits is to make your bike go fast. A head kit achieves this goal by two methods. The first being it increases compression. As you know if you increase compression, you increase the amount of power an engine will generate throughout it’s power band. The second and most important yet most overlooked method of increasing power with a head kit is adjusting your port timing and duration by raising the ports or cylinder a given dimension. This is achieved in this kit with a 2mm cylinder spacer (see pic #2) rather than grinding the roof of the ports higher. This is simply cheaper and more effective than grinding and allows for easy reproduction of the kit. We have calculated and tested with verified results that the stock cylinder head on a Cag engine has poor port timing and short port duration. It has been show that by raising the ports, a substantial increase in rpms can be achieved. Through testing we have found that an increase in the range of 3mm in height will produce a 3K-4K rpm increase over stock. Assuming your engine was in the range of 10,000 to 10,500 rpms stock, as mine was, then this kit will allow for rpms in the range of 13,000 to 14,000 rpms and possibly more depending on complimenting mods installed. Certain tests have show that between 16k-17k rpms can be achieved but with great sacrifices in reliability and engine life. Piston rings require replacement after and average of 2 hours use, excessive cylinder wear and etc. This is fine if you’re a truly competitive racer and maybe even sponsored but is out of the question for most riders who demand reliability and longevity. The Cag engine can safely and reliably run at 13k-14k rpms all day with proper maintenance and lubrication. I have noticed that a lot of the head kits available do not even address this issue. The BAT-HK however does address this problem and supplies a solution. The kit includes a 2mm aluminum cylinder spacer in conjunction with (2) .5mm cylinder gaskets for each side of the aluminum spacer that produces an overall spacer of 3mm.
Next is the cylinder. The cylinder that comes with the BAT-HK is precut for your convenience. The cut cylinder measures 57mm from the top of the cut cylinder to the bottom of it’s bolt flange. We have found that measuring to the bolt flange provides a more consistent measurement than when measuring to the cylinder skirt. 57mm is the dimension that was decided on after several squish tests using the 3mm base spacer (two .5mm cylinder gaskets and the 2mm alum spacer). Squish was tested several times using the solder method and the putty thickness method. As I stated earlier, due to variances in engine parts you may need to remove some material from the top of the cylinder to achieve a .5mm squish.
The Head is mounted to the cylinder via 4 metric threaded studs and nuts and one .5mm copper head gasket. The copper head gasket must be in place and the head must be torqued properly when performing your squish tests.
The head is made of light weight aluminum and has very large cooling fins with an offset sparkplug hole. The head is oversized as to promote heat dissipation. When used in conjunction with a .5mm squish the head produces a 13:1 compression ratio. The BAT-HK is designed for racing application. It produces dramatic power increases and attains very high rpms. Because of this it is intended to be used in conjunction with a high power band exhaust pipe such as the IP2 or Jetpro Hi-rev pipes. Use of the BAT-HK with either of these pipes should not require any modifications and will result in a very high performance bike. The kit can be used with other pipes such as the stock exhaust or the original Jetpro, however slight modification to the head will be required. This simply consists rotating the head 180 degrees so the spark plug will not interfere with the exhaust pipe. Then cutting off the two cooling fins that interfere with the coil and then slightly grinding the top of the two tiny cooling fins that just barely touch the exhaust pipe. These mods are very simple to do with a Dremel and a cut off wheel or any hacksaw and anyone can do them at home and the head will still work with the IP2 or Jetpro Hi-rev if you wish to upgrade in the future.
Ease of installation. The BAT-HK is fairly simple to install. If you have ever taken the cylinder off of your existing engine and successfully reassemble it and it ran then you can install this kit without a problem. You must no how to set the squish. As I stated before the stock squish setting will vary from engine to engine due to variances in engine components. If the squish is greater than .5mm then you will need to remove material from the cylinder. You can do this yourself or you can take it to any motorcycle engine shop or machine chop and they can do this for you. The kit will be very close to the required height and you could easily remove the material needed with a file or a belt or orbital sander and some 150grit sand paper as long as you go slow and evenly so you maintain a flat plane on top the cylinder.
Performance. I first installed this kit on my lucky 7 type Cag. I reinstalled all the stock parts including the stock exhaust but left my ported stock carb on. I started the bike up and heat cycled the engine twice with the bike on the stand and adjusted the main jet on the carb slightly. Then I took it for a ride. HOLY $HIT!!! The bike screamed from the second the clutch engaged all the way up till I ran out of road. I turned around and floored it again, same thing, instant power band! I got to about 8,000 rpms let off the gas then cracked it WOT real hard and wham the front wheel was in the air and I was hoping not to go over backwards onto the slippery wet road! When I stopped I check the speedo and it read 36mph. That was with stock gearing and I never even came close to reaching full speed or rpms before I ran out of road. Well next I went to the local parking lot I ride at, it’s the Columbus Crew’s soccer stadium parking lot and you can imagine how big of a lot that is, it‘s the size of a shopping mall. I started the bike up and let it warm up while I got my gear on then I took off. Same thing as before, insane power band all the way through the rpms. It seems to hit another power band at about 9,000 rpms, this is about where the stock pipe hits (most stock bikes can’t utilize the stock pipes power band effectively). The bike lunged forward again and just kept screaming. It sounded like the engine was about to explode, it just kept revving and revving with no end in sight. It finally reached a peak were I wasn’t gaining any speed and the bike sounded like one ****ed off GP bike gone mad. That’s when I noticed it didn’t sound like it used to. It didn’t sound like a chainsaw anymore. Instead it had a mean snarl when I revved it and it sounded reminiscent to that of an old 2-stroke GP bike screaming down the track. I went back to the truck and parked the bike. I checked the memory on the tach and it read 13,400rpms! I pulled the plug and checked it out, it was a perfect chocolate tan color. So I went put it back in and hopped back on to go have some more fun. It now wheelies without pulling up on the bars, just crack the throttle! It now has the power to pull through and exit turns like a real bike, you can’t hold the throttle WOT and cruise through the turns like you used to. It now takes some skill to back off and wait for the right moment to pull it WOT or else you’ll be on but wondering where you’re bikes going without you. I know I had a close call and that’s the first time I said to myself “I better look into a steering damper“. Well I decided to call it a day and head back home. Oh yeah did I mention it did all that with a .7mm squish setting!? The next day I was going to set the squish to .5mm and reinstall my 2-stage reeds, try out the modded stock pipe, the Jetpro pipe and the IP2 pipe and see what kind of results I could get. Well I spent the next day adjusting the squish to .5mm and installing some other parts and by the time I got done it was pouring rain. It rained for 3 says straight! On the night of third day it snowed and all the rain we had turned the roads and parking lots to ice so I waited a couple more days. Finally it warmed up enough that I could at least ride the bike down the street and see what happens. The road was really slippery and wet still and there’s about an inch of snow on the grass. Well the bike was even more crazy than before. The power was just nuts. I took one trip up the street and back and put the bike away. It just has too much power to be riding with slicks on a wet almost icy road. The temperature has been around 30 degrees here everyday and the local track is closed for the winter so I don’t know when I’ll be able to perform a final test. I’m hoping for a sunny 40-50 degree day sometime soon so I can go back to the Crew stadium lot and run there but forecast looks like snow for the next week so it looks like we’re all going to have to wait.
I’ve had so many people asking about the progress that I thought I would post this to tide everyone over. Sorry it was so long. I’m trying to provide as much info as possible so that everyone can benefit from it. These bikes are capable of a lot more than any of us expected we just needed to get the ball rolling in the right direction. I’ll try to get the step by step “How-To” up soon with pics included. In case you were wondering I painted the head bright red just to make it look that much more trick but my crappy camera made it look orange, but trust me it‘s red.
nice review richey you will more than likely get flamed for the 13400 rpm claim because some people on here think it is impossible to hit those numbers but it will all day long! since it is a 40mm piston a nice boost port,lighter piston and psws reed box will get ya another 1000 i bet! good luck and have fun
The BAT-4 Petal Reed Cage is in prototype stages now and I wil have a review of it on a stock bike and this bike in a few days! Stay tuned! And yeah 14k all day no BS! Only Engineering baby!
Thanks ritchey, ill send you the 4 petal as soon as were done. We will have the complete head precut with boost port and exhaust ported by end of next week. Ill also drop the price of the head dome to 29 dollars shipped up until xmas
13,400 rpms with a load. Don't know what speed b/c it reset the speedo at 36mph, but probably not much more than that due to weight, friction and drag. I borrowed a kart tach from a friend so that's verified rpms not guess.
Last edited by Ritchey79 : 12-16-2004 at 09:56 PM.
Wow, that's awesome. 13,400 with a load. That'll beat a polini 4.2. How was the acceleration getting up to 13.4k?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritchey79
13,400 rpms with a load. Don't know what speed b/c it reset the speedo at 36mph, but probably not much more than that due to weight, friction and drag. I borrowed a kart tach from a friend so that's verified rpms not guess.
****...amazing. It might be good to tell everyone what mods were done to your bike before you put the head kit on. It'll give them a better idea on what to expect with similar mods. Unless you did that already and I just cant read lol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritchey79
it got to 13.4k faster than the bike got to 10k stock.....
13,400 rpms with a load. Don't know what speed b/c it reset the speedo at 36mph, but probably not much more than that due to weight, friction and drag. I borrowed a kart tach from a friend so that's verified rpms not guess.
13,400 sounds good to me.. i might have to pick one up this christmas
ya give us a list of mods. Also, what rpms where you turning before the kit?
Alright when I installed the BAT-HK I stripped the bike of all its performance mods except the the ported stock carb. So the very first test of the BAT-HK had a stock bike, stock reeds, stock pipe, stock ported carb with adj main and tapered needle. That was the setup for the first run infront of my house without the tach.
I was reading through my notebook last night that I made during installation and testing of the kit and I forgot to mention in the review that I swapped the stock reeds for my homemade 2-stage reeds at the time I installed the kart tach b/c I was getting lots of reed flutter from the stock reeds on the initial run. So for the run at the stadium were the tach recorded the 13,400rpms the bike setup was the BAT-HK set at .7mm squish, my homemade 2-stage reeds, ported stock carb with adj main and tapered needle, stock pipe without a silencer.
The bike was turning around 10,000-10,500 rpms stock, not verified with a tach.
The bike with all my mods before the BAT-HK was turning 12,500rpms, verified with a kart tach. The mods on that bike were a specially ported 40mm cylinder with boost port done by me, all port matched gaskets, custom made 6mm reed block spacer, my custom 2-stage reeds, ported phenolic spacer and specially ported carb done by me with adj main and tapered needle, custom made air filter without a v-stack, custom mods to the clutch(secret), choice of modded stock pipe, stock pipe, standard Jetpro or borrow friends IP2, VP110 racing fuel/spectro gold 2T oil mixed 32:1.
The bike has since had the BAT-HK squish changed to .5mm(standard on all BAT-HKs now for sale). The 6mm reed spacer has been reinstalled as well as the modded stock pipe. It hasn't been track tested at this setup yet just the brief ride in front of my house. There will soon be a BAT-4 petal reed cage installed as well as a IP2 v2 pipe. All results will be updated in this post as they are received.
