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Just an update... the new rear gears are worn in, and I've put 8.5 grams of tungsten disulfide in the engine oil and 1.75 grams in the gear oil to reduce friction. I'm now running a Pulstar HE1HT9 spark plug which has completely cured the cold rough idle, and on the 12th of this month I installed a Wolverine 9.0 120 volt 125 watt 3" diameter block heater on the underside of the engine, along with a Westek TE06WHB 2 Outlet Digital Timer. The timer has battery backup so it doesn't lose the date and time even when not plugged in for months, and it's got 20 programmable timer events. I've got it set up to turn on an hour before I leave home to go to work, and an hour before I leave work to go home.

With the changes thus far, I've increased fuel efficiency from around 65 MPG (historical average over ~10,000 miles) to 91.172 MPG on the last fuel-up. I expect it'll get further fuel efficiency bumps with each additional modification I make... reaching 150 MPG might be easier than I expected, but I'm going to see how high I can push it.

I also found a guy who's invented an IVT that'd be perfect for scooters like ours... he's named Tom Troester, and his IVT is called the Telam IVT. It's small, light, low frictional loss, can handle loads of torque, and is a geared IVT so there's no slippage. I just have to convince him to custom-build one for me... that's what his company does, so hopefully he'll take on the project. I'll mount the IVT on the engine shaft, and transfer the power to the rear gears via a flat cogged belt so there's very little friction. The IVT gear ratio will be changed via a twist-grip on the left handlebar. I'm not sure how much Troester's IVT costs, I've put an inquiry in to his company and am waiting for a reply. Whatever it costs, me want, me get.

I've also bought a Pertronix FlameThrower HV 60,000 volt ignition coil and MagneCor R-100 CN 10 mm spark plug wire. I got the extra-thick spark plug wire for the additional insulation, since I'll be experimenting with even higher voltage plasma discharge ignition later on. I've shipped the coil, wire and a spark plug to my electronics guy, who is designing an isolator (what the industry calls an "ignitor") to isolate the coil's back-EMF from the ECU and tachometer, while still allowing the tachometer to work. The isolator will be something I'll eventually offer for sale, since it lets us run pretty much any coil we want without worrying about blowing out our ECU, and with certainty that our tachometers will continue working as they did with the stock coil.

And my electronics guy informs me the micro-controller for the electric coolant pumps is nearly complete. I should have a bike-installable version within a couple months for road testing. That's another thing I'll be offering for sale, since the only other company offering electric coolant pumps and controllers can't PWM-control pumps as small as our bikes take... their controller just turns the pumps on and off (and once it's off, how does it know when to turn it back on, if there's no coolant flow?!). My microcontroller will control up to two pumps (5 amps each) and two fans (10 amps each), has a fast pulsed-warmup mode (pulses the pumps so the water around the cylinder is warmer than the bulk coolant in the rest of the system), a "ride it like you stole it" mode (if the bike's not fully warmed up, and you jump on and ride, it'll exit pulsed-warmup mode and vary pump speed according to throttle position), operational ramp mode (after the bike is warmed up, it varies pump speed to keep coolant at the correct temperature), an emergency overheat mode (it monitors cylinder head, exhaust and coolant temperatures... if any of those reach their user-configurable limits, both pumps kick on 100% and both fans turn on until the condition is cleared), and an optional run-on mode (the system can run-on for a user-configurable time after the bike is shut down to prevent heat soak). The other controllers only have 6 temperature setpoints and don't monitor head or exhaust temps, whereas with mine the temperature setpoints can be changed in increments of 1 degree F. It's configurable by plugging the microcontroller into a computer via USB, and has a dashboard readout to tell you pump speed (I opted for a simple LED bar graph to show pump speed for this iteration, since when riding you don't have a lot of time to process numerical readouts, but it could have numerical readouts in later versions). My microcontroller can control 2-wire, 3-wire and 4-wire pump motors, monitors pump PWM feedback (on 3-wire and 4-wire motors), and bumps up PWM duty cycle if it senses the pump has stalled. If it still can't get the pump to run, it'll start the other pump... the pumps are usually in a lead / lag configuration, and the microcontroller keeps track of pump run time, switching which pump is lead and which is lag to even out run times between the pumps.

One of the really cool things that can be done with my microcontroller is to vary coolant temperature based upon engine speed... if you're just putting around town at low RPMs, it jacks up coolant temperature by a user-configurable amount to make the engine more efficient. If you really get on the throttle, it'll lower the coolant temperature setpoint to prevent pre-ignition. Because it's got two pumps and two fans, and because the bulk coolant exiting the radiator(s) will always be cooler than the temperature setpoint for the coolant exiting the engine, it will be able to nearly instantly drop the temperature of the coolant around the cylinder by kicking the pumps on high.

Ok, drop in a new plug, and turn your mixture screw out a bit... if it's running when you're squirting gas down the intake, that means it's running lean. The black on the plug may have been from before the new big bore kit. Put a new plug in so you can get a better take on how the bike's running with the new setup.

Also... and this'll sound like a dumb question, but... you did put rings on the new piston, right?

I'm assuming you're saying you've installed the 80 cc big bore kit, just the piston and cylinder (ie: no new crank), and now it won't turn over... that's likely because your starter motor isn't up to the task of kicking that larger motor over.

As for holding your finger over the puke tube, there won't be (shouldn't be) much pressure on that tube... in fact, the lower the better, as that means you have less ring blow-by. Under perfect conditions, it'd suck and blow a bit as the piston went up and down, but we'll never get a perfect seal on the rings. You'll always have from 3 to 5% blow-by.

My 2010 Kymco Yager GT 200i (174.5 cc fuel-injected liquid-cooled) bike just hit a new top speed of 86 MPH the other day. I was getting a lot of looks from people as I buzzed past them on the freeway.

Hybrid ceramic bearings that were micro-polished and tungsten disulfide (WS2) coated in the wheels and rear gears, new taller rear gears (15% taller, spur gears... sounds like an RC car on crack) and a Pulstar HE1HT9 spark plug. And the "secret weapon" of LiquiMoly Ceratec to improve ring seal and give better compression. My engine started revving to the rev-limiter way too easily about 1000 miles into the Ceratec treatment. That's why I had to gear up... I got tired of modulating the throttle to stay away from the rev limiter when I knew the bike had more in it.

Once I get the new aerodynamic body finished and mounted, and get an infinitely variable transmission fitted to it, it should top out around 108 MPH... just once... riding a 12" rear tire / 13" front tire scooter at that speed will probably be about 30 MPH faster than I'm comfortable with. I'm not really looking for top-end speed, but for maximum fuel efficiency.

Yup, that's the video that taught me how to take the clutch apart. Now I take it apart and put it back together that way... after you've done it a few times, you'll get a feel for how many whacks it takes to get the nut tight enough.

Gloves? Gloves are just an indication that you need to toughen up your hands.

Ok, an update. When the rear gearcase is cold, the gears are 'shrunk' a bit and the oil is still thick (ie: the first couple of miles of riding), the new rear gears are pretty much silent, just the slightest background spur gear whine.

As the miles pile on and things heat up, gears expand and oil thins out (especially at MPH), and the gears get noisier. You can't hear the "cogging", just the spur gear whine. The only time you can hear the "cogging" is when the rear gears are completely unloaded (ie: the clutch has disengaged and you're coasting), you can hear a slight rattle-like sound that, as you slow down, becomes apparent is the gear teeth clashing a bit.

So as you're decelerating, you hear the spur gear whine, then the clutch disengages and you hear this "crick-crick-crick-crick" noise that sounds somewhat like the rear fender rubbing on the tire.

But, it's much quieter now than it was, and when the bike's up on the main stand and I rotate the rear tire, I can only feel one tooth now "cogging", although I can still slightly hear the other two teeth if I spin the rear wheel... so it's getting worn in.

I'm changing the gear oil every week. The drained oil has a fair amount of very, very tiny metal shavings... can't think of an analogy... metal powder? It's extremely small stuff.

I bought a pound of 0.6 micron tungsten disulfide (WS2) from lowerfriction.com. After the cogging is done, I'll add it to the rear gears at 1.75 grams of WS2 to 200 ml of gear oil. That should not only reduce friction, it'll damp the spur gear whine somewhat.

I'm going to add it to the engine oil on my next days off, since it's due for an oil change. I'll add it at 8.50 grams of WS2 to 1000 ml of engine oil.