Two nights ago I helped my buddy Taylor put a HPI mini on his Derbi Laguna! It's such a sweet bike, he's had it for 5 years and during that time it has never really ran for very long. Finally last year I convinced him to do some upgrades:
* Bottom end sent to Ed Exline for a super solid rebuild. 1977mopeds derbi crank was sent to Mr. Crankshaft for an inspection and it failed miserably (go figure). Vince rebuilt it and sent it to Ed and then the assembly commenced. New bearings, seals and roller bearings all around.
* 50cc Metrakit top end, lightly ported and modified piston.
* TJT variator
* Dynaflex belt
* Prototype stiffer contra spring
* 24t rear sprocket
* Weak-ends laguna pipe
* 19mm intake with 19mm PHBG carburetor
This bike absolutely rips now with the HPI. The stock ignition had some fucked up drunk gremlin in it, because in order to start it you had to use a drill and turn the flywheel the wrong way. After that it would pop and start and then the flywheel would REVERSE DIRECTION while it was running and start running the right way. SO WEIRD. Everything was intact, nothing was noticably messed up. I think the coils went bad or something... I even asked for help from a few people who I really respect their knowledge base and they couldn't even figure it out... so that's why he now has a HPI mini.
That night I rode home with Taylor and we parted ways both feeling very jubilant. Both of our bikes were running great and we had a great ride home... little did I know what my Lazer had in store for me the next morning.
The next morning:
I woke up and decided to try and tune my carb with a new needle for my TM24. Well, I put it in and could instantly tell one of my bearings was trashed. I decided to let it sit for the day and to ride it to the shop this morning to diagnose it.
This morning:
Rode it to the shop and it was making the gnarliest of gnar noises from the clutch cover. Guess what happened? Somehow my clutch bell circlip popped off of the crank and found its way into the main gear shaft bearing (yeah, I know right?!) and got itself all caught up in the bearings. Needless to say I decided to just split the case and rebuild it. I noticed that the circlip groove on this aftermarket full circle crank is in a different location... and when used with the hammer clutch it kind of presses up against the circlip? I'm not sure but I didn't have this problem with my half circle crank. I split an extra v1 I have laying around with a rebuilt half circle crank in it and slapped that in my gila bottom end. Instantly I noticed more RPMS and better off the line power. Rad. Also, I don't think the circlip will be setting itself free any time soon.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
What I did last night, and this morning... and tonight.
I had been waiting about two weeks for my custom motomatic destroyer and 24mm intake to arrive straight from the source and yesterday they finally arrived! I raced home from work, threw the pipe and intake in my backpack and jammed to the shop.
I already had the motor built (pics in previous post) so all I needed to do was take the current motor (80 mera/vm20/cali pipe) off and swap the gila/v1 on! Didn't take long but I did run into a few complications (of course). The intake can only be mounted if you cut a chunk of the front motor mount off (it doesn't affect the actual mounting of the motor!) because it hits the reed area on the cylinder otherwise. After that I had to mess with shimming my clutch bell, which took a little bit but I got it figured out. Then I proceeded to install the pipe and couldn't figure out how the hell the bracket mounted! One way had this weird dongle extraneous bracket in the way of the pedal crank which just didn't seem right, but I left it that way over night because I couldn't access my gmail on my phone to see the photo from motomatic. So yeah, I mounted it wrong and fixed it this morning. The right pedal arm barely clears the carb but that was because I specifically asked motomatic to make it shoot directly out on the right side instead of at a 45deg angle. I like straight lines, i'm weird. Anyway, it buries the needle on my 50mph speedo and keeps revving. It needs a little more tuning because at idle it is super shitty even with a 10 idle jet. The needle for sure needs to be leaned out, or it needs another needle in general to get rid of the rich load at 1/4-1/2. Temps are in the 360deg range at WOT, so i'm alright with that. In my experience the destroyer pipes tend to make bikes that were properly tuned before the destroyer, run a little hotter even after rejetting. Regardless, it's an awesome setup.
So far my tuning setup is as follows:
HPI timed @ 2mm BTDC
Hammer clutch with red springs
Needle bearing clutch bell (soon to be lightened)
Destroyer pipe
12x44 gearing
Exhaust widened and raised 1mm
Intake widened and brought back 1mm
I'm thinking i'll just snag a different needle if the problem doesn't go away when I lean the needle out.
I already had the motor built (pics in previous post) so all I needed to do was take the current motor (80 mera/vm20/cali pipe) off and swap the gila/v1 on! Didn't take long but I did run into a few complications (of course). The intake can only be mounted if you cut a chunk of the front motor mount off (it doesn't affect the actual mounting of the motor!) because it hits the reed area on the cylinder otherwise. After that I had to mess with shimming my clutch bell, which took a little bit but I got it figured out. Then I proceeded to install the pipe and couldn't figure out how the hell the bracket mounted! One way had this weird dongle extraneous bracket in the way of the pedal crank which just didn't seem right, but I left it that way over night because I couldn't access my gmail on my phone to see the photo from motomatic. So yeah, I mounted it wrong and fixed it this morning. The right pedal arm barely clears the carb but that was because I specifically asked motomatic to make it shoot directly out on the right side instead of at a 45deg angle. I like straight lines, i'm weird. Anyway, it buries the needle on my 50mph speedo and keeps revving. It needs a little more tuning because at idle it is super shitty even with a 10 idle jet. The needle for sure needs to be leaned out, or it needs another needle in general to get rid of the rich load at 1/4-1/2. Temps are in the 360deg range at WOT, so i'm alright with that. In my experience the destroyer pipes tend to make bikes that were properly tuned before the destroyer, run a little hotter even after rejetting. Regardless, it's an awesome setup.
So far my tuning setup is as follows:
HPI timed @ 2mm BTDC
Hammer clutch with red springs
Needle bearing clutch bell (soon to be lightened)
Destroyer pipe
12x44 gearing
Exhaust widened and raised 1mm
Intake widened and brought back 1mm
I'm thinking i'll just snag a different needle if the problem doesn't go away when I lean the needle out.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Michael Thomas was right...
Well, apparently you can put a v1 back together MY WAY (using heat) or do it the Mike Thomas way (no heat). Guess what method I prefer now? No heat. All this time i've been using heat, and it's completely unnecessary. God damnit.
love you mike thomas.
here's the most recent v1 I rebuilt, two days ago for Nikolas Sanow of The Puddle Cutters (Portland, OR).
love you too nik.
specs:
new FAG bearings
new seals
case matched (lightly) to the ported polini kit that I sold him
1977mopeds minarelli v1 "race" crank
hammer clutch
12t sprocket
I'd like to touch on the 1977mopeds v1 crank for a second. The quality is pretty bad, sorry to say. I've had two of these cranks in my hands and both had a pretty unnerving rough spot in the big end bearing. I had one taken apart and it was 0.03mm out of round. It should be no more than 0.01mm. Consider stock cranks i've had rebuilt that were 30 years old and were <0.01mm. So, yeah. What exactly makes this a race crank besides the fact that it's new? If you ask me... i'd just find a stock roller bearing crank with good threads and have it rebuilt by Vince at http://www.mrcrankshaft.com. I mean, the crank is for sure usable but I would not abuse the hell out of it on a kit with close to stock gearing. The big end bearing is for sure low quality. The upper needle bearing isn't even the right size as it's too wide to fit in the piston, so you'll have to get an actual, correct size upper needle bearing for it --- which I would do anyway, because the one it comes with looks like a childs toy. You will need to re-shim your clutch bell as well with a thinner shim. Don't get me wrong here, i'm very glad that they had this crank made but I feel like the quality could be much better. I would use it on a stock bike in a heart beat.
love you mike thomas.
here's the most recent v1 I rebuilt, two days ago for Nikolas Sanow of The Puddle Cutters (Portland, OR).
love you too nik.
specs:
new FAG bearings
new seals
case matched (lightly) to the ported polini kit that I sold him
1977mopeds minarelli v1 "race" crank
hammer clutch
12t sprocket
I'd like to touch on the 1977mopeds v1 crank for a second. The quality is pretty bad, sorry to say. I've had two of these cranks in my hands and both had a pretty unnerving rough spot in the big end bearing. I had one taken apart and it was 0.03mm out of round. It should be no more than 0.01mm. Consider stock cranks i've had rebuilt that were 30 years old and were <0.01mm. So, yeah. What exactly makes this a race crank besides the fact that it's new? If you ask me... i'd just find a stock roller bearing crank with good threads and have it rebuilt by Vince at http://www.mrcrankshaft.com. I mean, the crank is for sure usable but I would not abuse the hell out of it on a kit with close to stock gearing. The big end bearing is for sure low quality. The upper needle bearing isn't even the right size as it's too wide to fit in the piston, so you'll have to get an actual, correct size upper needle bearing for it --- which I would do anyway, because the one it comes with looks like a childs toy. You will need to re-shim your clutch bell as well with a thinner shim. Don't get me wrong here, i'm very glad that they had this crank made but I feel like the quality could be much better. I would use it on a stock bike in a heart beat.
Monday, November 4, 2013
v1 gila motor assembled!
My crank arrived today from Mr. Crankshaft and what did I do when I got home from work? Took it straight to the shop and assembled my case! I had some frustrating issues mainly my damn case would NOT close up beyond a certain point. It took a ton of heat and fucking with the output shaft and pedal shaft for the gears to line up. The transmission was binding up wayyyyyy more than it usually does when I go to assemble. Pretty frustrating but I got it assembled and now I just have to wait on my destroyer pipe and intake!
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