Ghetto 68 valve mod ?????

[THA_RAT]

Hey,

I'm pretty much new to the AGD scene, so if someone could help me out. I bought this secondhand 68 automag. During my first time opening it, together with Tom kaye ( the video). If saw that the regular valve had only one hole in the. regulator body. As it should. Browsing the net, every 68 valve body had only one hole for the air to get through. In my regulator body there are 6 holes. They do not seem factory because they are not in a symetrical shape. Check out the pics

So is this a ghetto upgrade, or a useless upgrade, because you have to line up the original hole from the regulator body with the hole in the valve body. I donnu, any help.

THX, Joeri

Photo

URL : http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2.../DSC001412.jpg

[warpfeedmod]

its possible thats an after market valve. I have several of those myself rolling around my gear bag. I don't recall who made them offhand but I'd venture to guess they were some non-AGD company that tried to make accessories.

[spectre184]

Your fine.

It look like a ANS valve back. The extra holes were to improve recharge or flow or something like that. Some say it's works, more say it doesn't. You dont have to line up holes or anything. Mine the pin wuldn't line on rail and stuck out the side.

[THA_RAT]

Aftermarket in the sence, that a company bought the valves from AGD. Customized them to sell em.

Cause the number of the regulator and the valve match.

Or aftermarket in the sence that you would buy a new regulator body to put on the valve body.

THX

[athomas]

That is a modified valve. The modification was done to an existing valve. The funny part of these mods, is that they only needed 1 hole. It just had to be lined up with the hole in the front half of the valve. I did a similar mod to my own valve, but I only had to drill once. All the newer valves had holes that were matched at the factory.

[[NA]WARLORD]

That was an old mod done to mag valves to allow the C02 to recharge faster when the holes didnt line up correctly on 2 valve halves. There are several aftermarket companies that offered these in aluminum, ANS, Diamond Labs, etc, but yours is a stock valve that was modded. Most of them started as a 4 hole mod, then a 6 hole mod to eventually the 8 hole mod that is fairly common. If you run HPA, then it won't be a problem, as this was a mod back in the day for C02, before HPA was even used, however, it does void your AGD warranty. Here is an ad from Smart Parts, they purchased several A.I.R. valves from AGD and sold them as Smart Valves back in the day, with the 8 hole mod:



Disregard the Magic Box, it was a waste of metal and didn't work as it claimed.

[Spider-TW]

All the newer valves had holes that were matched at the factory.

When did they start that? (What series of valves?)

Was it the 'Classic' valves or somewhere in the middle of the 'A.I.R.' valves?

[athomas]

I don't know for sure when it was done, but I think it was somewhere before the Classic designation. I could be wrong though.

[Spider-TW]

Well, that would explain why there seems to be a performance difference in recharge between the older AIR valves and the Classics, but we can't say that the Classics are definitely better than all of the AIR valves. The difference probably wasn't appreciated at the time since anyone trying to get more than 10 - 13 bps was likely to have a modded valve already or willing to get it.

That little passage has been the root of a lot of experiments. It will be very interesting when someone can match the dynamic air flow model with a machining technique that can tune that passage and the valve body. The RT and X-valve have to be close, but I wonder what would happen if you could smooth out the corners and add some expansion and restriction areas to hit some harmonics in the air stream itself.

[[NA]WARLORD]

When did they start that? (What series of valves?)

Was it the 'Classic' valves or somewhere in the middle of the 'A.I.R.' valves?

It was done after AGD found out people were having issues with their valve halves not lining up correctly, meaning, when you screwed it back together, the letters didn't line up perfectly. To my understanding, they made the holes bigger, but I could be wrong. My valve actually says classic on the side, has 1 star and both serial #'s match, yet also has the Smart Mag laser engraving and " Custom Built for Smart Parts " laser engraved between it and the 68 Automag laser engraving. The serial # also says "SMO1371" meaning the Smart Mags must have had their own serial #'s and it has the 8 hole mod as well.

I bought a Min Mag from Smart Parts years ago, with the 8 hole mod done to it, but it was an AGD model, 100%, as it didn't have anything but Mini Mag lasered onto the valve. At the time, the 8 hole mod came highly recommended by a former member of Bad Company, who was using the Mags, before they got the Kingman sponsorship.

[athomas]

The biggest restriction in the AIR/Classic valve is the on-off not the air hole between the two halves.

The letters not lining up only depends on how tight you torque the halves together and/or the placement of the Z slot in the rail. The holes not lining up was a different issue related with the thread cutting techniques on the valves not allowing the threads to start in the same place each time. The hole in the back half was drilled before being matched to the front half of the valve. Once a technique was developed to have the threads of all the parts start in identical places, then they could always drill the hole in the proper location to line up with the front hole. The back half mods then became a non-issue.

[[NA]WARLORD]

The biggest restriction in the AIR/Classic valve is the on-off not the air hole between the two halves.

The Smart Mag also had a replacement on off top that helped recharge faster, but I had issues with mine from day one and replaced it with a stock one. But, up north, in the colder months, using c02, my Mag, with the 8 hole mod, was the only Mag that would perform in freezing weather and I attributed it to the 8 hole mod. It also had a whispering death x chamber and a 3 foot coiled ss hose, but it had that before the mod was done and my Mag would starve like everyone elses in the cold weather. Once I got the mod done, it worked flawlessly. So believe what you want, I am a firm believer in the 8 hole mod, regardless of what anyone else says.

[athomas]

CO2 could have affected the performance when the holes didn't line up. Freezing of the valve would cause additional restriction. I had an early 1993 69-automag that the holes didn't line up at all. Luckily, I never had a CO2 issue with mine running only an anti-siphon bottle and a coil of airline hose. Playing in Canada in cold weather didn't seem to affect me. I was one of the few guns at the field that could operate quite well in the cold. I drilled an additional hole in the back so that the holes lined up anyway.

[[NA]WARLORD]

Freezing of the valve would cause additional restriction.

Well, I my valve froze up, ice formed on the outside of it and it still shot fine up until I ran out of c02. I was playing a night game, it was in the low 30's around late January. Most of the guys had to switch back to their syphon tubed tippman pro ams, but my Mag kept shooting like it was normal, around the 260/270 fps (we lowered the fps due to safety reasons) and I had absolutely no issues with my Mag. Infact, the only time I had an issue, was when I refilled the bottle, I had to wait about 30 minutes for the tank to thaw before the Mag would shoot again. Oiled the Mag, due to the valve freezing and it played until the night game was over, that would be from 6 pm to about 1 am.

[athomas]

I've always had good luck with mine in cold. [NA]WARLORD, yours is another good example of how mags can perform in cold weather.