Modern Vespa

Hello there, I had a 1979 P200E back in the late 1980s which I used to ride hard, about 60 miles per day to and from college and work. One day, it just lost power then died completely. I had a buddy haul it to his garage, it wouldn't start, he took it apart (we never had a decent dealer in this part of the U.S.) and he found a hole burned in the head of the piston about the size of a pencil. Luckily, he somehow order a replacement piston from DASMI and replaced it, and thing ran fine again. My question is......how did I burn a hole in the piston? It was the stock piston, and although I rode the bike hard, at full throttle for maybe 20-30 rural miles per day, I don't think I was abusing it......

Too lean a fuel mixture does that.

It could've possibly developed an air leak and ran lean... just one of many possibilities.

I would have gone with timing set too far back. It'll run forever like that so long as you don't do extended WOT work, but once you do, you'll eventually hole the piston.

did you get it fixed or was this a 'flashback' from too many quaaludes causing the sudden interest or is this the longest repair assessment ever?