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Welcome to the "Joe Dirt" R1

First I would like you to know who Jason Stevens is. Jason a good friend and a self made man, he commissioned and funded the Joe Dirt bike. Thank you Jason for your trust in my abilities and inabilities. Jason is the original Joe Dirt and "hell" even looks like him.

The Joe Dirt Bike was unmatched on the streets of Houston. It walked away from anything and everything like it was looking for parking. At the time 2002 The Busas and GSXR 1000 were like shooting fish in a barrel. But more on that later.

The engine was so powerful that one time while racing a stockish R1 and a GSXR1000 after leaving them so far behind, a plume of white smoke bellowed from the exhaust. I was informed with no worry as he had dusted off the opposition by so far it didn't matter. Close inspection of the motor revealed the #4 cylinder was leaking 70%. What that means is, Joe had dusted the fellas with one cylinder failing miserably.

I knew then that "Dirt" was a contender. And Up went the power again. But unlike the other tuners who will tell you about all their glory, there is a side few ever see. When things go wrong in an engine that stressed to the limit, well, parts go flying. Here is what happened to Joe Dirt's engine.

The damaged piston.	The old and the new pistons.
Ferrea valve inserted into piston.	Intake port debris.
Damaged head.	Head damage (close-up)

Top left. Failure number 2 . A Dale Walker solenoid shift kit missed a flat out shift to 4th gear. As the tranny was disengaged from the engine, inertia spun the engine way over 20000 rpm. What you see is the Yamaha Valve poking through the piston.

Top Mid, What a piston should look like.

The bottom of the piston, Valve poking out.

Please note the complexity of this engine. With the parts in hand it takes about 60 hrs to assemble the engine. Why does it take so long to assemble my buddy's engine? Let me give you an example.

The Titanium rod bolts have to be stretched to measure the torque upon final reassembly. This can only be achieved after the bolt is in place. Once done, you have to tape up the inside of the engine and file down the side of the bolt so it will clear the case. Each file stroke is followed by cleaning the file and vacuuming the shaving out. That takes a lot of time, but is a necessary procedure. Short cuts will only lead to a short engine life.

Now I decided to use Ferrea valves made from stainless, for one reason, it doesn't prevent an over rev from grenading the motor. The valve head will NOT break off. Therefore minimizing the damage. Well YES and NO.

A Titanium rod made by Crower decided to let the small end loose of the # 3 cylinder. At 12500 RPM the rod simply opened up at the small end and let the piston go. Unfortunately I sent the rod to Crower and NEVER got it back. HMMM wonder why. There response was. "never seen that before"

The force was so strong, that it cut the cases open like knife and spat the starter motor out the back of the bike.

The bottom row of pics above shows the head. And just as Ferrea had predicted the valves didn't break off.

All that survived was the Crankshaft.

Rod Bolt with filed bolt (FYI that rod bolt is $60)

This is a Titanium rod, it costs $2000. It's attached to a J&E piston 76mm from 74mm at 12.1 compression

The NEW Dirt will run Wiseco 13.5./1 at 75mm.

The heart of the "Dirt" although the picture does not do it justice. This is a knife edged, balanced, stroked crank. (I'll keep the specs to myself for now) Cost $5000.00.

I wish I could explain the detail that goes into this project. The head alone takes painful hours of porting and seat preparation. And a brief miss shift or a part you trusted let's go. And it's gone. Hey that's racing.

The main reason for this page is to prepare the come back of the Joe Dirt.

Slowly but surely the pieces are coming together. I now own Joe Dirt, so this time it is little slower going --customer work comes first, you know. Also I have learned a lot. A $2700.00 auto shift kit is useless without a brand new set of gears in the tranny. The shift is so fast that the slightest wear on the gear dogs may cause $10,000 of damage. Overkill on all the stressed parts.

And some times just trusting the good reputation of a product and paying it's worth, may pay off. I'm referring to Carrillo Rods.

We resume our story. I received the rods some time ago. I had so much going on that I just put them aside. The block also had been ready. I dreaded digging through boxes of parts stored for years. Tons of R1 bits and pieces every where. But I was careful storing them and the process was less painfull than I thought. All the case grinding and rod bolt mods to be done. I thought, to hell with it Just Do It.

Now the bottom end is ready.

I have to pull the trigger on the head.

The plan was titanium valves on Copper based seats , Running lighter valve springs and a lightened flywheel. Well that plan was cancelled after the $3000.00 in valves. So back to good old Ferrea valves (besides I really loves stainless valves). Still not cheap. But I have no choice.

This page will continue with the the head and then some other stuff I plan and then... the finished bike. Dyno info and all!

Thanks for reading my articles. Hope you enjoyed it.

Please let me know what you think of my website. andy@metricmotorcycles.com

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