Valve Guides, Seals and Tappets

KPMI® Bronze Valve Guides:
We choose to use the copper based C63000 nickel-aluminum bronze as a material to make our bronze valve guides because of its ideal characteristics for the application. The 5% nickel content provides superior resistance to wear, and the approximately 80 percent copper content delivers outstanding heat conductivity. KPMI® guide profiles are designed to have minimal effect on the airstream while maintaining critical cross sectional thickness in high temperature areas, which promotes high performance and endurance.

KMPI® Red Viton Seals:

KPMI® solid Viton® valve stem seals are designed to have optimum fitment, allow for maximum lift, and to give maximum life. KPMI® Red valve stem seals are resistant to high temperatures, petroleum products and the corrosive gasses that are the by-products of combustion. These seals retain their ability to seal in situations where other materials could harden and allow oil to enter the combustion chamber causing detonation, carbon build up and a loss of power. The Red Ones are truly the racer’s choice.

KPMI® Tappets:

KPMI® engineers design our tappets using advanced finite element analysis (FEA) software. This software allows our engineers to lighten the tappets without sacrificing strength, which creates the strongest and lightest tappets possible. The tappets are then machined from billet aircraft quality steel. After machining the tappets undergo a proprietary heat treatment process that creates a hard surface and a non-brittle core. These materials and processes maximize toughness and wear resistance. To finish the tappets they are OD ground and then the contact area is lapped and polished to create a very flat and smooth surface for the cam to run against.

KPMI® tappets are run in high performance automotive and motorcycle racing applications including Motocross, Flat Track Racing, Road Racing, Drag Racing, and Land Speed Racing.

DLC Coated Tappets: Our coated tappets undergo a low temperature PVD process to deposit a DLC film, which is extremely hard and has a very low coefficient of friction. These properties help the tappet to maintain its durability in extreme duty situations. Although KPMI® never recommends running a camshaft off the edge of the tappet, this coating may help increase durability in these applications.

FOOTNOTE: § = Use OEM Valve Stem Seals

FOOTNOTE: ** = These tappets must be used with KPMI® spring kit or a Turbo spring kit to convert to a 9.5mm shim adjustment system.