Casserollers...

Oh hey by the way, the gangs got a new name, "The Casserollers" and a new logo! Its on the right there, and if you click the image, it magically takes you to the sight. Hop on over for upcoming rides and other minneapolis related crap. But its winter so not much going on. That is all.

"You're doing it wrong!"

Hey folks, it's been a while since I posted last, I'm new at this and occasionally forget that I started this thing. And the holidays were alot going on. But I did get a milwaukee angle grinder, and a propane torch! I love getting tools as gifts so that was cool. Anyways, big news is that I split cases, drilled intake, and drilled my carburetor to match. bad news is that my phone died in the garage and didn't get a pic of the beautiful dremel work that I did on the intake. Oh well, I still have pictures of everything else.  Believe it or not, this is the stock intake on the kinetic engine. Pretty big compared to the stock vespa I would say, but it could go bigger. I drilled 18mm in with a 1/2 inch drill bit, as per the wiki on MA, then smoothed out and widened the intake to about 2mm to the edge of the window. The cool part about the kinetic cases (maybe vespa too, I'm not sure) is that there is alot of material around the spigot mount part of the intake and the wall of the case, which meant alot of ramping from the spigot into the windows, so everything is as smooth as can be. I also got rid of the square corners to reduce eddy currents and to make the fuel move as fast as possible through the window. I did not cut my crank as of yet, but that will be the next step in the process. On to the carb:

  This is after drilling through with that same 1/2 inch drill bit to match the intake. So I borrowed a drill press for the cases, and decided to forget my carb when I went. Oops, so with my drill at home only having a 3/8 inch chuck, I had to improvise. This was the result:

I know "You're doing it wrong" ha ha. vice grips, bench vise and some downward pressure let me drill straight and true with little to no issues. I think it looks damn good myself. The best part about spaco carbs (the knockoff dellortos that come on kinetics) besides having a mixture screw, as opposed to dellorto sha NOT having one, is the atomizer.

As you can see in the picture, the atomizer tube does not go all the way up. If you have ever tried to remove this type of atomizer from a real dellorto, it is a bitch to do. Check it out in the wiki on MA if you don't know what I'm talking about. It involves heating up the carb and using a watchmakers screwdriver to push it out while its still hot and expanded. These ones are easy peasy, just a flathead on top and some force and it pops right out. Super cool design. So after reassembly and some rejetting, I'm hitting a strong 37 mph with awesome low end. This thing just keeps getting faster and faster. The next step after cutting the crank, will be to get this:

 Thats the athena 50cc kit with outrageous transfers. It should be a pretty rocking kit, and I'm pretty set on seeing how far I can take this bike with just 50cc's of raw power. I may end up getting an aftermarket crank to keep up with the rpms without exploding. I'm still not sure how much I trust those metallurgists in india. Well thats all for now, I'll leave you with a picture of my intramotor gloria blanco. V1 with 75cc polini kit, ev racing exhaust, 19mm carb. Rips hard all day with more low end power than almost everyone else I ride with.

Side gapping adventures!

So not a very exciting update, for most of you that are familiar with sidegapping, but its still something cool. Basically the standard sparkplug looks like this, with the electrode covering the tip. This causes the explosion to push out around the sides, but with a sidegapped plug, the tip isn't covered by the electrode, so that means we can create an arched shape explosion, from the two closest points to the two furthest points of the electrode. I am not sure I explained that real well, but just follow the steps, and maybe do some research as well.







 Start by getting yourself a dremel and some cutting discs. the ones I use come in a little plastic container with about 30 in there and they look like this:

Another thing about dremels, I highly recommend a flex shaft attachment for everything, as it is easier to hold, gets into small spaces, they're sweet. Anyways, sidegapping a plug is just as easy as it looks, just cut the electrode arm off so the edge that is cut off is just to the edge of the tip like this:
And thats about it. just lightly take of the burs from cutting off of the edges, but leave the edges sharp. Also with a high speed cutting tool it is very easy to go too fast, so take your time and start out too slow if you have to, avoid grind into the tip at all costs. Now that its sidegapped, we can effectively gap the plug at half the distance of the specified gap that we had before due to the arching shape doubling the explosion. This will create an easier sparking plug, with a better explosion!  Like I said, do your own research, I am no expert. But high compression ratios demand a better plug design to run cooler temperatures. Well, thats all for now! 

1st post... 1st blog..

Hello folks! I'm not quite sure if anyone is, or will be reading any of this, but hello anyways. Winter is upon us Minnesotans, and as such, I will be spending alot more time inside. So instead of buying mw3 and being a total jackass sitting inside all winter playing vids, I thought I would be a total jackass sitting inside all winter on the internet. Seems to be a healthy alternative, so I decided to start (yet another) moped blog, as if there's not enough out there already I'll be documenting the stuff I'll be building this winter, so without anymore rambling...

This is the furthest along build, so why not start with that. right? Vespa Bravo frame and subframe with welded crossbar for the tank, which is an old plastic can am dirtbike gas tank, and a handmade sheet metal cafe seat. The engine is a kinetic (i know, i know) engine, stock intake size, 12/10 carb. transfer ports are opened moderately (which will be the subject for another time) and exhaust port is opened up to match the exhaust. Other than that stock cylinder, and a high comp malossi head with no decomp.

The pipe is a NOS sito cobra circuit pipe, pretty small, but perfect for this setup. other less exciting things are kinetic rear wheel, non variated, but look at the size of that hub! And clipons. Its coming along nicely and is getting just over the 35 mph mark so far, with quite a bit more low end than it started with. Things to be done are: gas tank and seat mounted, headlight finished and wired up, paint, and some minor cosmetic things. So far I have heard nothing but trash talked about these kinetic clone engines, but with a cdi, 12v lights, and no rebuild necessary (2003 engine!) Its really growing on me. The bravo frame came with no engine and I had the kinetic just sitting in my garage as a parts bike, so why not. Well thats where I'm at with this build for now, but this'll be a mostly mopeds blog with quite a bit of motorcycle stuff thrown in for good measure. I have much more to share, but my dog is whining at the door, so thats all for now.