Modern Vespa

I have been gradually increasing the distance from my house riding the T5 as my confidence in the little scoot grows. The other day, along with my buddy Mike on his GT200, I put the scoot through its paces up and down the east foothills of Silicon Valley and had a great time without a single glitch from the bike. Since then, the T5 has been the scooter of choice when running errends and just riding around. It doesn't leak any fluids, the brakes are good, the gear change is slick and the clutch is now well mannered. What I'm disappointed in, though is it's somewhat lacklustre performance. Considering it's a T5 with a Malossi 172 kit, an SI24/24G carb jetted with a 124 main, BE4 mixer tube and a 50/100 slow running jet, which give me good plug readings and a Sito exhaust system, I would imagine it to have pretty good performance. The problem is that although it revs cleanly from idle to wide open, on anything other than a level road, it bogs down in 4th and has to be down shifted. If the hill gets steeper, then it's down to second where it revs it's little heart out until I change back to third where it soon bogs down again. The fact that it is fitted with a Malossi? 23/64 tooth upgear must have something to do with this I'm sure, but what seems strange to me is that the top speed in 2nd is 27mph, and 3rd is 45mph, slower than I would have imagined with taller gearing.
What am I missing here? I'm not looking for high performance mods, I just would like to get the best out of what I already have, and I don't think I have that yet.
Apologies for the long ramble, but I could use some sound advice and possibly some comparison figures at his point.

Cheers,

Bob

I'll start by saying I know nothing in general about the T5 except that I know they like to rev high, so your experience doesn't sound all that wonky. That said, 45 in 3rd is pretty solid... that's P200E kinda gearing there. I suspect your gearing isn't as wide as the P200E (which was subsequently tightened back down on the PX200 because it was too long in 4th), so 45 in 3rd doesn't sound bad at all to my T5-inexperienced ears.

I look forward to what the pros throw in on this.

stock, the T5 gearing is low. the cyl makes power up top so it needs the lower gearing to get the revs going.

by going to the upgear you've moved that sweet spot so now you've got to rev it's nuts off to make any power.

more than likely you really need an expansion to get the motor revving enuff to make power to pull the gears.

personally i'd switch it back to stock gearing with a 21T clutch
or even a 64T P2 primary...

best,
-greasy

Thanks for the quick replies, guys! Greasy, the gearing was in the bike when I bought it. I thought that it was too high, but needed to hear it from a pro!

Cheers,

Bob

i agree get standard gearing in and 21tooth and itll pull an easy 50 in 3rd

Thanks, bitsa, that's good news! I guess I'll be pulling things apart soon!

Cheers,

Bob

where i used to work till the other week ... there was a quite steep hill and i could come out the top at 55 in third before getting upto 70 in fourth .... then i had to slow for lights

I could live with that!

Cheers,

Bob