polini reed modz
i’m sticking with the 2 petal for now for two reasons. to try and ride the mythical unicorn and hit 60+ on a 15 bing 2 petal and to see how it holds up on the track against the 4 petal dudebros. for the track i’ll probably mess around with getting my 18 mikuni hooked up to see how that does. in spirit of takin this little buddy to the limit i did some work on it.
before
after
i gave it the “push on this as hard as possible with your thumb” test and it didn’t break, so i’m calling it safe. i didn’t want to remove it entirely because i’ve heard of reeds snapping and getting sucked into the intake. NO THANKS.
derbi update: i’m getting my rear sprocket and some tires ordered this weekend. i’ve got a few tank and seat mounts to take care of, and i need to try and find some motorcycle clip-ons i like. real excited this bike is getting close to done.
Filed under: puch | 1 Comment
Tags: 2 petal, puch polini, race bike, reed modz
MOTOR MOUNT MADNESS
went over to nate’s garage last night. the wood stove was roastin, ryan nichols was drinking smirnoff ice and talking about spartafoxilover and we went through a spool of wire on the welder.
i got the motor mocked up with a jackstand and made sure to line everything up just right. with the derbi motor perfectly centered the front sprocket sits in nearly the exact same position the YZ80 did, MO-LUCK! we tacked it up, then nate taught me a real handy welding trick.
it’s a little blurry but there’s a bolt dropped into the end of the tube. it’s an easy way of capping off the end of an open tube so you can weld everything together solid. after that it was a lot of this…
and we ended up with this. BEEFY.
we’re going to weld a small cross brace between the two front motor mounts to stiffin it up some more. the rear mounts rest on part of the old cage mounts, easy peasy.
i hacked the seat down a bunch with this mini sawzall nate just got. it’s like a mix between a full size sawzall and turkey carving knife. super handy. seeing the bike with the motor fully supported and seat chopped got me really excited for how it’s starting to turn out.
next up is getting the custom rear sprocket ordered and tires figured out.
Filed under: derbi, racing | 7 Comments
Tags: derbi monster, laguna sport, nichols, race bike
derbi progress
the derbi monster has sadly been at a halt since before christmas. the main obstacle of the project, figuring out a rear sprocket/wheel situation, turned out to be some real trouble. here it is with the original YZ80 rear wheel.
there were two problems with that wheel. first, the 12″ wheel looked goofy and non-moped like. second, it took a 428 chain (motorcycle grade) and my derbi takes 418. the rear hub is also huge on that dirt bike wheel, so lacing a 17″ rim onto the hub and getting a custom 418 sprocket made to bolt onto it in a small enough size to keep a good gear ratio was out of the question. stock derbi gearing was 19×30. the smallest i could go on the rear was in the mid to upper 30’s and i didn’t have the room in the front to go much larger than a 20/21 without hitting the cases. here’s the dirt bike tire with the stock derbi front and rear sprockets.
another complication was the super thick axel on the yz80. i wanted to use it so i could keep the sweet chain tensioners and beefiness of rad motorcycle parts. i went through at least 4-5 different pitbike, motorcycle and moped wheels trying find a wheel that i could get bearings for to fit the inner diameter of the hub and the outer diameter of the axel. NO DICE. the sprocket and axel problem was getting frustrating. this weekend nate and i set off to a junkyard determined to find a solution. after some digging around i found a gnarly 18″ rear wheel from a 1974 kawasaki motorcycle that worked! it had a small enough hub that i’ll be able to get a custom 418 sprocket made that will bolt right up to the wheel. the only caveat is it comes super close to the front of the swingarm. i’m going to have to get some low profile racing slicks to make sure i have clearance. worse case scenario we’ll just weld aluminum to the back of the swingarm and extend the axel slots to make it work. i’m really excited to see it with a huge tire on the back.
i also scored that laguna sport tank (i freaked out when i saw it just sitting there, unfortunately there was no frame/motor/anything else to be found) and am going to use it instead of the trac tank on this bike.
i’m going to be welding up the engine, tank and seat mounts this week. then just need to get the rear sprocket made and a tire and this little buddy will be ready to go! quick question for derbi pros, what are my front sprocket options? do they share the same spline pattern as another bike? it’s a z-sprocket so i’m hoping that’s the case, but if not where can i find derbi front sprockets?
Filed under: derbi, racing | 2 Comments
Tags: derbi, derbi laguna, derbi monster, laguna sport, race bike
JUNKYARD SCORE
Filed under: derbi, racing | 1 Comment
Tags: derbi, derbi laguna, derbi monster, laguna sport
polini porting part 2
yesterday i finally got the dremel collets i needed to hook up my dremel flex shaft. i was holding off porting my polini exhaust until then so i could get all the angles i wanted inside the exhaust port, making it a lot easier. a pros only porting tip i picked up from peter is to make sure you’re always comfortable the way you hold both the dremel and cylinder. it helps give you a steady hand to avoid having the bit skip around and reduces fatigue (i spent 2.5 hours porting this). having good lighting is also something not to overlook. i have a tendency to get excited and jump right into things, but taking your time and getting set up properly is key to get the porting results you want. *note that i’m pretty anal about this stuff. it might be overkill to some people, but i like to know i’m doing everything i can to ensure good results.
as an extra precaution i put masking tape on the cylinder walls incase the bit skipped (a tip from markryan). no errant bit moves happened, but it took 2 minutes and doesn’t hurt.
then i measured out what i wanted with my micrometer and marked the cylinder with a sharpie. if you want to get really intense/accurate, graham from the cranks has a sweet blog post on creating portmaps and laying them out in the cylinder.
time to grind! slow and steady is the way to go. i started at the cylinder wall and then worked my way down to the bottom of the exhaust port.
the widening and raising extends all the way to the flange
after some re-chamfering and exhaust port polishing, this little duder is ready to race.
Filed under: puch, racing | 2 Comments
Tags: polini, polini porting, porting, puch polini, race bike
this weekend we (bandits and tbs) stayed at a rad cabin in the appalachian mountains. a few miles into the 30 mile ride i was coming to the top of a long hill when my motor started getting noisy. polini’s are loud kits and i’ve heard some weird noises out of mine with nothing wrong, so i kept pushing up the hill. then the noise started getting louder. just as i was about to back off…ZINK, ERRRRRRRRR…shit. i pulled the head and pleasantly found a tiny bit of aluminum transfered, no gouging and good compression. so i started it back up and that devil noise was immediately there, coming from my bottom end. i didn’t want to risk the kit, so i decided against trying to run it back. i got back last night and tore into to try and figure out the issue.
thankfully none of the seize spots put any gouges or scuffs in the nikasil and the piston is ship shape.
clutch bell has seen some REVVIN
i haven’t gotten the clutch or flywheel off yet, so i haven’t ruled anything out. the dmp unstuffed crank (what i initially thought it was) has a little side to side play, but nothing front to back and both roller bearings look great. still need to do some investigating to find out what caused this.
i haven’t taken this bottom end apart since i put it together 3k miles ago, and this was pretty good timing because i was going to rebuild it before racing anyway. the metra 80 i bought from vic came with a brand new treats aluminum stuffed crank. that’ll be going in it plus a fresh set of bearings and seals. i’m also going to switch cdi boxes from the all in one treats box to 77 which has a separate cdi box and coil. i’ve heard rumors the 77 box allows for slightly higher revs, we’ll find out.
while the cylinder was off i did some more (i took the intake back 2.5mm when i built it) porting work to it. i started with taking the intake ports, manifold side, back another 2.5mm.
all the work is done without touching the cylinder wall. it’s super easy porting that can increase your intake flow. i’m also going to be widening my exhaust and modding the stock 2 petal reedcage for more flow. that, some experimental puch clutch mods and possibly an 18 mikuni will have this motor race ready.
BONUS ENTERTAINMENT. when i broke down nate pushed me all the way back to our cabin with his fa50, this was capped off by pulling my maxi and i up a hill i made it only halfway up earlier that day with a 40mph running start.
Filed under: bandits, puch, racing | 7 Comments
Tags: bourbon bandits, e50, e50 rebuild, FA50, nate bandit, polini porting, polini seize, puch polini, ZINK
hobbit conversion
with the handy help of hobbit blaster master peter mcderfer i converted my PA50I bottom end to a PA50II last night. he’s got a great blog post detailing everything you need to do complete with some pro tips.
there’s a few steps. first up was grinding down the little nubber in the cases that keep you from running PA50II cylinders and kits.
before, ok almost before. i got a little excited and ground some away before taking a picture.
after
next up, to be able to use a PA50II ramp plate you need to grind away a bit of the insides so it’ll slide onto a PA50I crank.
you can see the part that’s catching on the PA50I crank (PA50I cranks have one flat spot, and PA50II’s have two). that little red bit has GOT TO GO.
easy peasy
there’s some reedcage and intake bidnass you need to take care of too. that’s all covered in peter’s post.
i also modded my variator to get some xtreme variatin’. by cutting the variator walls you allow the weights to swing out further, giving you higher top speed. here’s the area i marked out to remove.
after you cut that material away you’ll have some rough walls of aluminum. now bust out your high speed aluminum cutting bits and grind everything down to be silky smooth. it’s really important to continue the variator ramps into the wall. you want your weights to have a smooth, uninterrupted rolling surface. precision and patience are you best friends with this. when you get done it should look like this.
i also made some huge progress yesterday on the derbi monster. post to come about that.
Filed under: hobbit | 1 Comment
Tags: hobbit, peter, variator mod
metra 80 and a new shop
I’ve wanted a big kit to play around with for a while now, and just before christmas I snagged Vic’s up. I bought it with an initial purpose of having some fun with it on the derbi down the road, but it also came with a complete e50 and some other puch performance goodies, so I decided in the mean time that I’d build up another maxi and have some top speed gas guzzling fun. i dug in with some deep case matching. nate has an aluminum welder, so i have the luxury of not need to worry about bustin through. i’ve got to get a few holes welded up, then i’ll do a bit more case matching and smooth everything out.
the eventual setup will be something around..
• large port metra 80
• 3 shoe with paz springs
• cheapy e50 cdi
• treats aluminum stuffed crank
• 24 flatslide mikuni
• some type of yet to be decided custom motion left pipe
markryan and i also recently moved into a rad new place that came with the super rad extra bonus of being directly behind jason wadowski. wads was kind enough to give us half the space in his dungeon moped workshop lair. so for the first time ever i have a legitmate shop next to my house with all my tools and parts. productivity x 1000!
Filed under: puch | 6 Comments
Tags: metra 80, puch, shop, wads
merry christmas mom
my mom has always been kind of into mopeds. during ghost ride this year i had them show up on saturday after we got done with the ride and see all the bikes parked downtown. then i sunday i led a 20 mile ride to my parents house for swimming and good times. ever since seeing all the different bikes that weekend she’s been hooked. so around thanksgiving when a complete pinto 2 showed up on indianapolis craigslist i quickly convinced my brothers and sisters to chip in and i picked it up on my way back to louisville. it was a barn stored bike, but was covered in a nasty dust/grease mixture and had a rusty tank. i cleaned it up a bit, then jammed it in my car and headed on my east coast/midwest journey. i wound up in grand rapids and unloaded the bike at peter’s garage where it got some love.
car wash BLASTIN
before
after
i did a quick vinegar/salt/water/pennies flush on the tank a few times, rinsed it with wd40 and after a couple of flushes of gas it looked awesome. points were adjusted, it was re-jetted (it came with a stock 70 jet for a 12/12 bing = RICH CITY), wiring was cleaned up, all the chrome was polished and some other general maintenance was done. this was the first bike i really spent time on making look nice, and it was surprisingly very satisfying.
christmas came, and she was completely surprised and ecstatic. over the next couple days i taught her the inner workings of a torn apart e50 i have, how to do some general maintenance and start her bike, and she understands the basics of how a 2-stroke works. next step, RIPPIN!
Filed under: uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: mom, RIPPIN
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