Modern Vespa

Chandlerman and Whodatschrome, any further thoughts on the Vape kit? Hope to be getting one soon... I'm tired of Ducati CDI's dying on me (yes, poster X, I know yours is 27 years old and starts first kick every time but that doesn't help me!) and thought I should do something about it.

Regarding the tacho, SIP now say this in the description:
"By using the DC version with SIP Speedometer you required a Rev Signal Filter from KOSO. Instead the Rev Signal Filter you can also connect the brown Cable from the SIP Speedometer to the white CDI Cable of the SIP/VAPE CDI with an extra Cable!"

I'm still really happy with the kit. The bike runs strong, the lights just work, it's a first kick start under pretty much any conditions, including after sitting for several days and below freezing.

Definitely better than the Flytech, which I think I'd already had CDI issues with at this point.

I only have about 3 miles of riding with my Vape kit. I initially set the stator at about 27 degrees. The engine was blubbering like crazy and I couldn't get anywhere close to WOT when I would twist the throttle. Normally I just jet all of my stock P2 engines for my style of highway commuting and I'm good to go (24/24 carb with BE3/160/128, 55/160, a Sito+, and matching and flowing of the cylinder, cases, and carb). Apparently with a retarded system, you have to not be one when it comes to setting one up. After slowly lowering my main jet down a few points at a time (125 then to a 122), I finally gave up and called up my favorite scooter shop so that they could dial in the timing and jetting for me. I'm thinking it would have been easier for me to set up if it was on a tuned engine instead. Dialing in the Vespatronic on my T5 and one of those Lambatronics on my RT225 was fairly straight forward. Not too many people install an auto-retard system on a stock engine, so there's very little documentation.

Thanks guys. WDC, where did the timing end up after all that?

Might go a little off topic here, but I guess every little bit helps.

I'm running the new MHR177 57mm with worb5 flowed reed crank, SS Newline exhaust Dellorto 30phbh carb.
Squish is 0.8mm little risky but Malossi recommend 0.7mm

With the Vespower timing I've found that
static setting is perfect at 21degrees +-1
I've just recently been playing with reed stuffers and managed to shape and flow the stuffer to match the inlet manifold and reduce the gaps and edges in the inlet area.
A huge improvement on throttle response, light throttle transition and light throttle rev on.
In town riding is easier not having to keep the revs up and relying more on torque.
My jetting has come down from 125 to a 118 and everything is starting to feel more like an Aprilia RS125 I once had..
Sort of Factory.

Temperatures on the Freeway are consistent 118 degrees with 125 pushing it.
LOVE this kit.
When tuning I've found the most important things are squish, Timing and Jetting, then Timing and back to jetting. Back and fourth, haha. Yep it's an addiction!!

Eliminating all the hard edges, smoothing and flowing are the recipe for power...effortless power is how it feels in the end.
Hardly cracking the throttle but up on the back wheel flapping its wings.

Truly awesome. I've ridden it and Lo, It Was Good.

One thing that's probably worth mentioning is that if you don't have a variable timing light with a built-in tach, get one.

You're going to be wanting to verify the timing as specific RPM's, which is do-able with a static timing light, but much more difficult. With the variable light, it's no more difficult than setting static timing.

i don't know yet.

Hey Keaton85,

I just recently installed a DC SIP sport ignition on my tuned 2005 Stella 2T and couldn't get it working right with the SIP regulator. I'm using the stock wiring loom.

So I first wired it like Chandler's wiring diagram but was getting a massive voltage drop on the entire system. Then I took your suggestion and installed a relay activated by the violet wire sending power straight from the battery to the grey wire. Only problem; the headlight won't turn off. When you activate the ignition without the red wire from the battery to the relay, the relay turns on and off with the key. But as soon as I connect power to the relay it doesn't power down. The headlight stays on with the ignition off. If I remove the power to the relay, red wire, turn the key off and then hook the red wire back to the battery, the headlight stays off. Then when I turn on the ignition, the headlight comes on and then turn off the ignition- it stays on. The relay won't power off.

It acts as if there's a loop in the grey wire that's getting power from somewhere else. It's very strange. I've tried two different relays making sure that I've wired them up correctly using my multi meter.

So I ended up having to use the stock regulator and everything works as it should. I just don't have a full DC system though; which I do want. I'd like to hook up an LED headlight etc. And the stock regulator is only 96 watts so I'm not getting the full benefit of my new 110w system.

I've reached out to Chandler as he's a friend of mine and we can't seem to figure out what's going on..

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Daryl

Hey Chandler & whodatschrome, how is the system doing now?

We have a situation here in the east(Singapore and Malaysia) where a couple of guys using the system had issues where their piston melted or holed.

2 of the guys were idling during a traffic light stop and engine just died out. When they opened the engine block, they found the piston melted. We're quite baffled why this is happening as it's suppose to prevent all that.

I was thinking of putting on one myself but because of these incidents, were advised otherwise. Now looking at kheper v3 or the Vespatronic.

Other than the issues I had with low-quality wiring on one CDI, the SIP ignitions have been rock solid for me. I'm now running them on two different bikes.

If your friends holed a piston, I'm guessing that their timing was too advanced unless they were in a too-lean condition, possibly caused by an air leak.

Do you know what their timing was set at?

museic: Burning a hole in your piston with a variable ignition usually happens when you are riding at rpm where the ingition timing is still running too hot/lean. I had this problem 2 times before realizing the mistake. Check the timing curves provided with the ignition and find out at what rpm you are usually riding. Most likely it will be below the proper colder timing. That's why we came up with a static ignition as well. Most daily riders will never reach the rpm of a race engine for which the variable ignition timing was designed.

this may be an obvious answer, but I am wondering if someone could detail the steps to setting up timing for one of these variable ignitions. I am eventually going to install this on my stella, so I am looking it over. I have seen the ignition curve and see that it remains zero at around 2275 rpm with a fast dip before and a gradual dip after that zero mark.

When setting up the timing with this using your previous static timing as an estimate, do you choose an RPM mark that your current timing works best for, say 7000 RPM @16 deg and then back calculate the correct timing for the zero mark on the scale and set 2275 rpm to 22 degrees? or do you have to make more fine tuned adjustments based on the zero mark on the ignition curve? I'm assuming if I did it this way, and there was knocking present at 2275 rpm at 22 degrees, then I would have to adjust to fix that and let everything else land where it does.

Also a general question about this curve. Why does it retard timing so drastically below 2275 rpm? Does a very retarded timing make slower rpms more stable or does something happen to compression/heat at slower rpms?

EDIT: I just glanced at the numbers and only saw zero mark at 2275. Took a closer look and realized it peaks over zero between 2275 and 4579rpm. so it seems you'd really have to mess with it between those two rpms to make sure not to hole the piston if you have more retarded timing. Looks like in my example, I'd probably try to set 4579rpm to 16 deg. and double check that it doesn't get too hot in that range of rpm that increases over zero mark.

I would have thought the damage was done at higher rpm and not (only) while idling at the lights.

I've been reluctant to ride my P2 with the Vape kit. My P200 is all stock with a Sito+. I have absolutely no idea what the Vape ignition curve is. Sure, there's a drawing of the curve in the included instructions, but it looks like it was drawn by a 3rd grader with a Sharpi marker. SIP needs to provide actual numbers that says how much it will retard at any particular RPM. (I think I have my timing set at 20-21 degrees @ about 7800RPMs?) The only thing is I do most of my cruising at 55-60mph. It seems to have too much new found torque at that speed, so it makes me think that the timing needs to be retarded more. I have half a mind to remove the Vape variable CDI, and install their static CDI instead. That way I can set timing at about 21 degrees, and not worry about figuring out the variable timing is supposed to be at. Don't get me wrong, I think the variable timing is a good thing on a tuned engine, but maybe it's a bad thing on one that's stock?

Any variable electronic ignition will only work properly if it is adjusted to the usual riding habits. Otherwise, a static CDI is the better choice. Knowing the problems many customers have with proper setting of the ignition, we decided to offer a static CDI too. If you're mostly riding at 55-60mph, most likely your rpm will be close to 6000. According to our diagram provided with the ignition, that means you can add 3° to the ignition timing your cylinder usually needs. I will add the curve to this post for better illustration.

I think that a lot of people don't know how to set up their variable timing ignitions, period. I base that on the discussions I've seen & had on here, as well as in the real world.

But, then, I think that's the case with timing in general...

I've never holed a piston with a variable timing ignition, but I put a pretty good divot in one with static timing before I knew about timing and how to measure and set it properly.

It's also worth noting that I was able to easily set timing of my SIP variable ignitions using the chart that Martin posted above without issue.

Variable timing is not for everyone, and unlike most performance parts, the risk of getting it wrong is not just that your scooter doesn't go faster, but can easily destroy it in the process.

CM, do you work out your timing at a certain rpm first and work backwards from there?

For some reason, setting up the variable timing on both my tuned T5 and Lammy (both Vespatronic's), was very easy to get spot on. For some reason, it's not so easy on a stock engine for me. I don't think i need to retarded to 16 degrees at 8000k RPM on a stock engine. I normally set a stock 200 with static timing at about 21 degrees. According to SIP graph, I think doing the reverse math would bring my timing to about 26 degrees at 55mph. Surely that would hole a piston right quick! I'm thinking that the only way a variable timing would work well on a stock engine, is if the CDI unit didn't retart that much...maybe something like a total of only 4 degrees arcoss the whole RPM range? For instance, just above idle it could be set at about 24-25 degrees, then every couple thousand RPMs it would retard a degree?...then by the time you get to 8000RPMs, it could be at around 20 degrees?

^ The Kytronik will do this

Yep, but what mine doesn't do is work reliably

Yep, but what mine doesn't do is work at all

The CDI on my first SIP Ignition died this morning. It'd developed a tendency to just die at idle, but then would fire back up and be fine so long as I kept it rev'ed a little. I initially put it down to the idle being off, but this morning, it didn't want to spark at all.

After simple tests like disconnecting the kill switch wire and checking for spark with a plug held against the case, I swapped in the CDI off the Sprint's SIP Ignition. Kicked it and after a couple of sputters from being nearly flooded, it fired right up and ran like a clock.

I'll be ordering a new CDI, because I still think it's a quality product, but wanted to include that note for completeness of the thread.

Thanks for that update Chandlerman.

Well, pretty much every CDI will eventually die, so I look at them at a maintenance item. The only problem is that they don't die very often, so it's not a common part to carry with you...though the two times that i had CDI's die on me while I was on the road, I had spares with me for some reason. One was a Ducati unit on my P2, and it was a 2 minute fix on the side of the road. The other time was a Vespatronic CDI on my T5 while I was at the track, and I happened to have a spare in my toolbox. Of course I've had many other Ducati CDI's go bad, but they were in my shop at the time.

So I don't look at a CDI going bad as "poor quality", more like it was just time for it to die. At least they're fairly inexpensive, and super fast to swap out.

Finally purchased this variable DC kit for my stella. Going over your wiring diagram updates and post talking about it, I am slightly confused still. But I need to get hands on the actual wiring to see if it makes more sense. Any chance you can upload some photos of the actual wiring changes to detail how you changed the wiring to work? I always have trouble reading wiring diagrams, especially the stella ones which are such small digital images.

Also I am pretty positive, but want to confirm. You are no longer using auto start motor on these engines due to lack of flywheel autostart gearing correct? I think I saw in one of your photos what looks to still be the autostart motor still mounted, which makes me wonder if you somehow got it working on this kit?

Unless the Vape now comes with a ring gear pressed on the flywheel, there's not a way to keep the electric starter.

The kit is pretty simple to wire up. Most of the wires have connectors on them so you just click them together. The two ground wires that get grounded (duh). The green wire is the kill switch wire. As for the DC red wire, anything that you want to be powered up with 12VDC needs to be tied into that red DC wire...headlight, taillight, GPS charger, radar detector, 12v crock pot, ect. I haven't wired up a Stella, but with my PK, i had to switch over to a 12VDC turn signal relay. Chandler should probably know all of those details.

Whaaaatt??? I will lose my E-start using one of these? Why is that not mentioned anywhere on the SIP description? Anyone able to confirm/deny this?

The starter motor is in the Vape wiring diagram...

Yes that was my point. In looking at it, I realized there was no starter ring gear pressed onto the flywheel. But looking at his initial photo of the cdi wiring mounted to his engine, I think you can clearly see his electric start motor mounted to the engine in the image. This is what confused me.

And I do not see anywhere in the SIP Vape Wiring diagram any reference to electric start motors.

I installed the VAPE on a LML motor that has the mount for a starter motor. There's not a ring on the flywheel, but it looks like you could press one on if you wanted to.

I gave up on starter motors for two reasons. First, the compression on that motor is high enough that the motor would struggle to turn it over. Second, it gets a one-kick start 99% of the time, so it's just not a big deal, and I feel a little bit of pride every time .

Going back to the electrical, I posted up my modified wiring diagram for the DC conversion a ways back up in the thread. I have a couple wires rubbing right now, so I'll probably be back in the electrical on that bike this weekend sorting that out.

Over the years i think everyones' come to realize that SIP will forgo mentioning many important details about lots of the parts they sell. And yes, it's very frustrating. Normally i'd say that it's just lost in translation, but somehow SIP goes well above and beyond with their lack of descriptions (i need more details than "tuning to the max!" or "pure optics!"). Other than that, i like most all of their stuff.

If you do some wiring work take pictures of your mods! I won't get to the wiring stage of mine for a few weeks earliest. When I do, I'll post photos here of my attempts to modify the Stella wiring for it.

There's not really much to see, to be honest, because I re-use the wires that pass through the frame, just terminate them differently than the stock regulator. The modified diagram is the best resource.

Also, I have the relay wiring for my light bar in the mix, which makes it look even more confusing in picures.

I agree that SIP's product descriptions are frequently less-than-useful. Fortunately, the list of bikes their parts fit is generally accurate, although their definition of "fits" can be much looser than you might really like in some cases.

Right there...

Ahh ffs. So another job to the list. Feeling pretty annoyed by this "first-class-repair" solution now.

Well now... First class repair doesn't mean you get everything you want. It is first class repair because it's high quality parts, not for feature set. One would could also say it is first class because if you install the variable ignition, you are improving the performance of your bike. Just happens to be at the expense of what some feel is an unnecessary feature.

I personally like electric start and primarily used it on my Stella. Alas, no more when I install this kit.

My last holdout on this bike is to keep auto lube for now. I'm sure eventually I will be giving up on that for a phbh carb as well.

Btw I noticed this in sips YouTube video installation of this kit and see it mentions it in description. Mount the stator plate using accurate timing marks, then find tdc using mounted ignition disc and use the tdc Mark on the flywheel drum to confirm timing offset. So it seems you can set this easily without the variable ignition gun, just using a mounted ignition disc wheel, but I'm sure it definitely helps to absolutely confirm it is set correctly with one at each rpm range.

So I believe a correct variable timing set up using hypotheticals here would be Target 16 degrees at highway cruising of 5000 rpm means that I set the timing to 16 degrees at 1500rpm idle and when cruising City driving mid rpm it runs between about 16-18 degrees between idle and 5000rpm them progressively lower to 8 degrees at 9000rpm.

So whatever rpm you cruise at most is where you target your timing... As long as the over advanced timings between idle and 5000 don't lead to pre ignition danger.

I've wired the starter to the motogadget and made a custom switch. Not turning back on this now. So guess I have to figure how to press said whatever onto the new flywheel. Haven't even removed the old one (like ever) so have no idea if the starter part is removable from the original? Need to finish the fork and headset first cause bits everywhere. Guess I'll figure this out next. I'll make a new thread for help I guess.

And yeah, I do get the gist of first class repair. But to be caught out on the fine print at the bottom? Can't say that ain't rough. Not that I will complain to SIP tho - CBF wasting time on that. Well played yah scoundrels.