Modern Vespa

Got a flat tire.. while i am using the newer tyre its time to use the old timer tire again

Have a nice day to you all and cheer

Forgive me for laughing brother E...but that photo is just brilliant!

thats why i took the pics, i know it will make someone day brighter beside where else can i get a brick to jack my smallie beside on a ruins

have a nice weekend and cheer Brother C

just went back from riding with friends and yes my smallie can climb hills

koenig blues - your posts always make me smile

thank you! keep up the good work!

u know what.. seeing ur reply just make my smile even more so thanks to you too mate

have a nice sunday and enjoy life.. cheer

You are one cool dude Ebeth!

Though I'd prefer to see you in a helmet... looks like you're having a good time.

dont worry Brother M.. i do wear helmet when i do silly things

Have a nice night and cheer Brother M

Love seeing the adventures of ebeth on the little yellow beast ...... keep it up 😉

Got the Stella back on the road today. Buttoned up the cases yesterday after replacing the shattered cruciform, then leak-tested it this morning and all was well.

Replaced the clutch plate & plunger with one of the ball bearing ones from SIP, which feels pretty nice, but I still need to adjust the clutch to catch earlier.

Finally, I noticed a rubbing from the front wheel. It turned out the brake pads were worn out, so I replaced those.

Next up is going to be installing the Sip RoadXL once I get an exhaust bung welded on it, then migrating the Sip Road onto the VBB along with a DR cylinder to get something torque-ier than the Malossi.

And since it was cold and rainy pretty much all weekend, I don't even feel like I missed out on any riding this time.

Today I showered at work before stuffing some laundry into a bag which I carried home hanging from the curry hook as I do quite often. Arrived home after a lovely half hour ride in the sunshine, dismounted, opened the garage and returned to the scoot to find what used to be a pair of boxer shorts hanging from the flywheel fan cowling completely shredded and tangled in the fan. Absolutely gobsmacked I didn't feel anything, not even a stutter.

Today's lesson: zip up that bag.

I am moving to Austin, TX for work. Any NSM folks on here from there?

Pretty sure I shredded some boxers test driving me first t5 mk1 😂

after 2 day struggeling, i finally succes making a custom pipe using a junkyard pipe and a yamaha silencer 8) not a world class pipe but i finnaly can use my brand new osaka rear tyre

have a nice sunday everyone and cheer

Like the snail pipe ...... start them young 😉

thank you Brother Jim, hows ur weekend doing so far? hope ur in a great shape this May as its the start of the summer

have a great night and cheer Brother Jim

ps: my nephew said hi, and he like riding fast vespa just like you

Love your work E! Looks very impressive... hopefully it'll work well.

it does work i think i have 5-10% extra power everytime i shift up, but still dull a little evertyime i entering 3rd gear.. its not too loud but they will know i am comin

have a good night in Aussie and cheer Brother M

Today was setting up the carb on the Stella day.

I put a SIP Road XL on it as a bit of an impulse buy when ordering the new shift cross and related bits. Got it tuned in to a air:fuel mix of about 12:1, which should keep me safe from seizing even if it gives up a little power.

Now, the old SIP Road 2.0 goes on the VBB along with possibly a DR to replace the Malossi, which I've never really liked. I'll see how it behaves with just the exhaust swap unless I just get itchy for another project since the Stella should be stable for a while.

And I've got a never-ending list of little punch list items like adjusting the shifter cables so the shift tube matches the gearing.

Chandlerman have you got any info about this in one of your threads? What equipment you used etc?

I don't, really. I splurged a while back and bought a Koso Wideband Air/Fuel Ratio meter.

It runs off 12v DC and has a pretty strong draw. I had trouble with the voltage dropping out if I put my turn signals on before I went full DC, even wired to the battery.

I have bungs welded into my exhausts, then when I think the tuning is getting close by traditional methods, I put the meter on the bike and do final tuning.

It's a bit pricey, but I haven't blown a kit up since I bought it, so I'm probably money ahead at this point.

The most interesting thing about it is watching the ratio shoot up to 18-20:1 when I let off the throttle after hard acceleration. It's immediately apparent why a motor will seize at that point if it's been set up too lean to start with and being pushed hard.

This weekend, I'll be tackling re-tuning the VBB now that I put the old SIP Road on it. I also need to pull the FlyTech off that motor, because it's Behaving Badly again, so I'll be giving the Kytronic another shot at the same time. I'll have to get a spare battery for that, just need to make sure it fits through the glovebox door since that bike is lo-tech. Maybe I'll install the old Regulator/Rectifier off the Stella and get it some DC that way.

Who knows, some day I may even get around to fixing the speedo on the VBB, but I've got some parts questions that I'll probably start a thread for.

Nice! I did try a mate's system, but I don't feel like I had enough time to really get the most out of it. And yes I fitted my bung in a worse spot where the stand would bend the cable every time.
Must be nice to see proof that your cylinder is protected.

At this point, I find that I'm usually running too rich, but I'm no longer afraid to lean it out a little bit more, plus the ability to confirm that I have nice, consistent mixture across all throttle positions.

This, combined with a solid pressure test on all my builds (something I only started taking seriously in the past year ), has definitely taken my tuning game up a notch.

roll out my vbb to have a 5 years inspection on the local dmv, try to kick it but it didnt alive, suddenly my nephew said it leak.. when i look the exhaust yup its leaking alright.. open the carb and check the fuel needle float and realize the rubber were snap change it and it start strong as it always be 8)

hit the dmv and the bike pass the exam and became a good citizen by paying tax

have a nice day to you all and cheer

I took a sound recording on my way to work this morning and fed it into the GSF Dyno tool.

It took a little tweaking and, eventually, the horror of actually reading the instructions, but I finally got a clean read off my recording.

I used 2nd gear, which meant I was going 52mph in a 25mph zone when I hit max RPM's, but luckily all I got was some dirty looks from pedestrians.

I saw the 10,400 RPM's on my tach when I made the recording and that thoroughly surprised me. That's a direct effect of going to the SIP RoadXL. On the old SIP Road 2.0, it only rev'ed to about 8,500.

I need to figure out the power dip from 6-7k RPM's and maybe take a look at shifting the timing a degree or two since the SIP ignition doesn't fix its advance at 7,000 RPM's like the FlyTech did.

I think the overall output readings are a little low. I have hit 75 MPH, which by my gearing calc, is 20 HP, and stll had plenty of power, it was just getting too light on the wheels for my taste so I shut it back down.

Still, 20HP is still nothing to sneer at.

Looks good! I could never get a repeatable result and gave up.
Do you think if you were doing this in third the results would be much different?

Also what is the app called? Can't seem to find it in the play store.

It's the GSF Dyno App, which is for desktop/laptop computers.

I used my phone to record the run, then sync'ed it to my computer and generated the graphs from there. It can also capture input as line-in from wheel sensors or the ignition directly if you want to have a little wiring fun.

I might see if I can rig up something to read the pulse off the spark plug wire, which is what my tach uses, but that's not a high priority item for me.

Much more usable than than the SIP Dyno app, which is derived from it, but has enough irritating bugs (at least on Android), like inability to properly save configs, that I've pretty much given up trying to use it.

Definitely read the tutorial on how to clean up which curve it reads, though. That was the part that I messed up. Also, you can save out versions of the .wav file at each step in the selection process, but it will overwrite it by default, so be aware of that and rename the sound file if you want to retain each step.

I'll probably try some 3rd gear runs, but that won't happen until the weekend just because I'll need to get to somewhere I can do highway speeds, like an actual highway

Mostly, I want to look at why I have the dip at 6,500 RPM's. Soft spot transitioning from the needle to the main jet, I'm guessing.

Aha. That's the only one I could find. I had seen it some time ago but all the stuff about digital recording devices and voltage dividers put it into the later basket.
So where did you put the phone, and did it give you a clean recording? Does you phone record to .wav or did you convert it?

The one I used a while back was Micro Dyno... the sound selection and trimming will be handy training for the GSF dyno, but that's about as useful as it gets I think.
I saw that "That Scooter Thing" guy (the one that makes Youtube videos and posts in the projects section but never here) has used it a bit and I've asked him if he could make a video on the process. He always says yes every time I've asked him over the last eighteen months...

The tutorial is almost overkill.

I installed a sound recorder app, then stuck my phone in my back pocket and it gave a good curve after I cropped & cleaned it up. It recorded natively to .wav.

The .wav editing was a little confusing until I RTFM'ed the tutorial, but once I did, it made perfect sense.

play with it a little and I think you'll find it makes pretty good sense.

Thanks, I will.

If it's not obvious after you have another go at it, let me know and we can Skype this weekend. It has screen sharing and we can go through it together.

Cheers Chandlerman, that's very good of you! I have to work this Saturday but may be able to record something on Sunday... will let you know if I get into trouble with it.

Roger that. Your Sunday morning is my Saturday night, and I'll be left home alone Saturday night, so we can do it then if you want

Happy to help!

Sunday morning is a breakfast for a little scooter group here, so I'll be out most of the day. Let me have a go at feeding it in myself and then we can have a chat. Would look forward to it!

I've been sick... can't do anything without nose dripping... needed so much fluids I decided it was easier to tie a cup to my head to catch said drips, then I can have fluids on an hourly basis... but I'm finding it difficult to wear a full face helmet with that setup, PLUS we all know (or will find out one day. Teeheehee) what it's like to sneeze in a full helmet... well, try adding a dripping nose!
Bugger this... I'm off to munch on a bunch o pills, then off to try to sleep yet again.

BTW: there may be a few irrelevant posts on behalf of said pills & blocked brain.

I'm without adult supervision most of the weekend on account of my wife and daughter going to the Taylor Swift concert tonight, so I'm pretty flexible.

Only other goals for the weekend are to cut the yard, then swap the FlyTech for P200 ignition on the VBB and tune the carb.

For ALL NEWBIES (& others... All of you, including me...) considering fixing a Vespa Motor,.. or ANYTHING to do with a Geared Vespa...
Please ohh please use the "SEARCH" function, over & over again!
I personally am sick of seeing the same questions being asked over & over & over again! If it's something that has happened to your scoot, then it's likely that it's happened to someone else's scoot some time in the past 10 or so years that ModernVespa has been running...
Yip, I'm happy to give advice, as are the other experienced ones here & we all seem to have "specialist fields of knowledge" you can tap into... BUT please help us out by carrying out a simple search before asking what oil mix you need in your PX, or what the little DOT between the mysterious "1"&"2" on the handlebar mean etc.
We will greatly appreciate it.
Cheers.



Here is a starter...
10 easy steps for D.I.Y. Repairs for newbies...
"HOW TO DO STUFF TO THE MOTOR"

Note: "SEARCH " will assist with procedures, & a squirty tomato sauce bottle (or similar) works well for filling cases... you will learn th thing about centre stands & milk crates by then!

1.
Use the "SEARCH" function a LOT. So you can learn what & how to do it

2.
Get a Haynes (or whatever is recommended by "SEARCH"

3.
Look at LOTS of pretty pictures of Vespa motor internals (so you can identify them later)

4.
Pull motor out, all th while cursing, searching & looking at pretty pictures & manuals

5.
Remove 11 or so bolts ("SEARCH" knows the correct answer)

6.
Split cases

7.
Identity what has gone wrong

8.
Buy th coolest bits you can afford.
(You already know what you want due to "SEARCH"& MANUALS)

9.
Fit shiny new bits reverse procedure (the bits you remember & the only bits you took photos of before you took them apart)...
Ride into the sunset.

10. Curse while standing on the side of the road a new grinding noise, then total loss of power & in the dark (as it's now AFTER sunset)...

REPEAT...
Note: it's way more fun, quicker , easier & more successful the 3rd time around.
Note: once you are well past the 20th time I bet ya scoot is pretty damn quick fun yet daunting/scary/insane to ride & you are stoked that you kept it when something common went wrong way back when

11. (The bonus step...)
Whenever "SEARCH" is not giving up the answers... or ANY time that something cool happens, you succeed in something new, when stuff gets stuck or actually goes back together, or ANYTIME you need; help, assistance, guidance then post here & keep us informed & updated, we are here to help, but if you want to know how to take a tyre off while looking into the headlight & your only tool is the ice block stick you are about to suck clean plus the problem having something to do with the green wire you saw hanging out, so you cut it off... well in those instances... you should be buying a twistie & learning how to put petrol in it... otherwise stop paying others to undo 4 bolts ("SEARCH" said : 3x to take off clutch cover 1x differing style centre clutch nut ), rather, get a half cupcake decent toolbox of main stuff, PLUS 7mm & 11mm things (22mm & 24mm are handy, & other special bits (which "SEARCH " will let know which size flywheel puller fits), get commonly changed/failed bits & pieces.... then give it a crack & remember, we are here.

Hahaha ^

Got a tach on the smallie, finally.

Lookin' good in red! I didn't know Trailtech made colors other than "80's electronics fake metal silver."

How'd you mount it?

I noticed some slack in my throttle yesterday, checked it and realized that the fine adjuster had worked its way all the way in and I was only running at 3/4 throttle.

I fixed that, but now I need to re-check my main because I'm pretty sure it's too rich.

Every fix creates another problem to fix...