I chose the Airsal due to aluminum construction and the 3x thermal conductivity compared to iron (live in florida).
Will machining the top of the Airsal cylinder ruin it? The ports looked like they were where they need to be @BDC.
[/quote]Yes. The cylinder is plated, so milling from the top of the cylinder will have a high chance of chipping the plating and ruining it.
If I machine the head down then machine the combustion chamber edges back in, wouldn't that put me right back where I started as far as the squish gap is concerned? I know I would gain compression from this.[/quote]
This is also correct, yes. Which is why I would machine from the base of the cylinder.
This will lower your ports though, and can in many cases lower them so they are not opened properly at BDC. It might work out okay to machine the deck on a plated cylinder, but I haven't tried it and it seems risky to me.
Some Airsal cylinders have really high port timings anyway. If you've got some 196 degrees ex and 140something tx you are way more than safe to machine the cylinder down. I'm going to go back and look at your pictures though, because I seem to remember that the piston did line up well at BDC. Mine did not:
This is my cylinder at BDC before turning the base down. Yours might be spot on.
Have you considered changing the Next-R for the RSII? You will notice a good improvement. I would switch exhausts (honestly) before paying a machine shop to do all that work.
Thanks to all of you for the information, this is insanely helpful. scooterinvasion.com is also amazing in terms of information.
I'm glad you like Scooter Invasion.
It's a lot more work than some people think to keep something going like that without advertisements, banners, etc.
Best!
~Josh