El Cheapo Variator Report  By  rcq92130 (Read 9,675 times)

Check out how clean the inside is , yes its only been 30 miles , but the koso and dlh would have had the coating already wearing out with black stuff everywhere.

Well , on my last run I installed the 14 gram weights and , still too light . my rpms did come down slightly , but I was still running up hills at 7000 rpms. It took slightly longer to get up to nearly 8000 rpms I didn't get to a straight run so I'm not sure about the mph. I hit nearly 8000,rpms on a small short downhill . I'm at the point where I may not have 15 gram rollers. So i may need to order some 15 and 16 gram roller weights , and pray they will work. Now that my scoot needs some new plastic " hit a deer on my last run " , headlights , front brake lever and fan shroud it will probably be out of commission for a little while. Hopefully I can order new parts next week.

It looks like you have a little room up at the outside of the variator. If heavier weights don't get your RPMs down then I think you might consider shortening your boss a little. You could use a heavier clutch main spring to resist the climb, but if your belt wont go to the top of the variator, I see no way for your RPMs to come down at top speed other than to close the gap between the variator pulleys one way or another.

I'd find the biggest weights I could get and if they don't slow down your top speed RPMs then you know you have to do something to close the gap.

This shows us there is a market for different diameter rollers. It would be super if you could just buy rollers that are slightly larger in diameter. That being said, you could try sliders. They seem to increase the range of the variator over what a roller can do. I know some people say they "flip" but that would indicate that there was some point in their running when the variator was not being held tight against the sliders, allowing them room to jiggle themselves into a new position. That would also point to the need for a tighter main clutch spring.

What really matters for top end speed is how high the rollers can actually go. I found on my scoot that light weights opened the variator just as much as heavy ones. They were all heavy enough to fully open the variator. Changing the weights just changed my acceleration RPM and the RPM required to hold the variator open, but didn't change my top speed.

You can cut the boss 1mm for every 2mm radius you have left until you hit the highest point you want your belt to ride. It's actually closer to 1.75, but 2 is a good round number, so if you have 2mm radius to climb then you can cut 1mm off of the boss.

Chances are that if you cut the boss you can keep your weights low. That will allow you to tune your acceleration and cruising RPM with the weights, while the boss length will determine your RPMs at top speed by allowing your belt to go to the maximum height you want, thus taking maximum power from the engine.

As you know, if the belt goes too high, the engine may not be able to pull it, and you end up with a situation like I had, where even the lightest weights I could find would not allow me to rev high enough to get my top speed because my variator was too fat. I was going to shim it but I tried some sliders and they let the variator open a little more.

What would be ideal is if you could cut the boss to make the belt go all the way up, then have some 1/10th mm shims handy to bring it back down if you needed to. If you had a lathe you could just chop the boss off 1/10th of a mm at a time until you were happy with the performance. This is a fine balance between the HP of each motor and the variator dimensions. There's nothing wrong with shims. They are just another tool in our toolbox, like weights and springs, that we can use to tune our variators to match our engines and gearing. That reminds me of yet another option. You could up your gears. And another option, adjusting the variator face angle. At any rate, adjusting the boss is easier, cheaper, and more tune-able.

Me, I'd try the heaviest weights I could find, and if the RPMs were still too high, I'd shorten the boss by the calculation above, and if I went too short, shim the boss until I liked the overall RPM curve. It's cheap and highly tune-able that way. With a shorter boss and 1/10th mm to 1 mm shims you could try dozens of configurations for just a few dollars and it should work to your satisfaction. You'll get the max speed via the boss length, and the acceleration and cruising RPMs you want via the weights.

(I just saw your post about up gearing. I look forward to seeing how it comes out!)

I think I'm going to order some 15 and 16 gram roller weights so I can see how my rpms are at that point. If at some point I have full belt travel and I'm still redlining on a straight run , I'll def need to up gear. I haven checked the variator since the crash , so there is a chance I already have full travel but I'm not sure. I was thinking maybe my clutch was slipping but I can tell when it locks in and I highly doubt its slipping at 7000 + rpms but not at 4000 rpms.

Lol , so am I . I could understand if the belt wasn't rising on the variator but it is. I was trying to think of a way to tell for sure if my clutch wasn't slipping. I think I might have figured it out. If my clutch was slipping and I had 10.5 gram weights in , when I hit 8000 rpms the belt would have climbed pretty far up the variator but it only rose a little over half way up the face. So what this tells me is that the weights are just too light to push the belt up the face. When I had the 10.5 gram weights in , I barely got down the rd and I ended up hitting 8000 rpms way too easy . I was even hitting those rpms up hill. The 12.5 gram weights def rose the belt higher on the variator " pretty much matched the koso's highest belt travel " but the rpms didn't change much. The 14 grams lowered the rpms but I was still hitting 8000 rpms on a straight run and the rpms would have rose higher if I had a longer run to test it on. Even up hill I was over 7000 rpms then I met Bambi's fat cousin. I'll check the belt climb sometime today to see how much higher the belt rose. Problem is It wasn't on a long straight run , so I hope the belt had a chance to rise to its fullest . I have an old stock clutch I might try , just to verify its not slipping. If I find out the clutch is fine , I'm going to have a winner. Yes this kind of sucks that I have to buy heavier rollers , but if I can get full climb out of the variator , between 7 and 8k rpms , and still be able to reach 8k+ rpms , then I'm in the market for taller gears and we all know what that means. To be able to reach full climb and at least 7500 rpms on a straight run with , let's say 17:36 gears , that would be impressive. Especially with the taller 13inch tires I have.

I'll be working on the plastic 2moro . I might even try to fix the fan shroud , so I may be up and running Tuesday. My headlights should be able to be repaired pretty easy actually. The lens is broke in half right between both sides , so the epoxy should fix that up pretty quick . the two bottom holes for the bolts are broke , but I can drill holes and run zip ties through the bottom of the headlight case and then secure them in the bolt holes on the scoot. The top two bolt holes on the headlights are in tact so thats a plus. I have some silicone I can use to make a bead before I reinstall the lens to the light assembly. Little bit of work on the black headlight covet and the right floor board and I'm in business.

Did the acrylic glue arrive yet?  If not, suggest you try to do a temp repair that will not muck up the edges, and do a real repair when the glue arrives.  Then once done it will really be done - forever.

Or at least until you attack another little doe-eyed doe.