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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 15:51:47 GMT -5
I don't flip them.... They are really too heavy and makes such a mess...
But I do like watching Gas Monkey Garage flip them.... One of my favorite shows lately...
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 14:13:05 GMT -5
I think you hit on the very core of the problem Gitsum.
a smaller engine needs to run harder and more rpms to produce the same power and speed that a bigger engine does at half the rpms...
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 13:26:56 GMT -5
I em referring mainly to just the engine,
As for the frame and welding , LOL well I'm a much better welder than the Chinese machines for sure, I have to give you that one. I don't work on scooters for a living, but i do help a person out when they need it... Fawkes is pretty well known among the scooter riders at work ( there quite a few, recently they doubled the size of the scooters / motorcycle parking area, and it's still full almost a 2 to 1 ratio of scooter to motorcycles ).. So when something is wrong with someone's scoot I'm often asked.. If I can help them I do. Often this mean turning a wrench in my off time to repair the damage... So I get to see plenty of failures.. Many often give Kymco's a free pass just because they are Taiwanese but that's not what I'm seeing in reality...
I see the same metal you described in a earlier post.. I see the same type of metal stretching, heat damage, and brittleness as I do in Chinese scoots.. The mileage is virtually the same as their Chinese counterparts... I guess one can consider metal composition as part of design limits. And with that argument a better quality metal would require less metal and take more punishment. But what I'm saying takes the chinese metal's weakness into consideration, if one is going to do a lot of wot sustained driving, then a bigger engine will take the punishment better than the smaller one...
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 12:43:16 GMT -5
Then explain why the Kymco's go down ? They are being driven the same as there Chinese counter parts.. The metal fatigue is the same. If the metal is so much better explain why they go down ? What i'm seeing most often is rod failure at the crank shaft..
I owned a Kz 550 for many years, rebuilt it three times over it's life time, turned over almost 400,000 miles on it. Owned it from 1983 to 2009, bought it new, It was three years old on the showroom floor when i bought it ( now it's probably part of the can of soda people drink ) It has been recycled.. The reason why I didn't have that many failures with it and i did have a few, was simply because I maintained it very well... And it was a bigger engine doing the work..
When I tried forcing a 50cc to do the work of a 550, I had failures because I was over stressing the engine... Simply put IMHO 50cc 4t engines are not designed for that kind of a sustained load on them.
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 12:24:53 GMT -5
A water cooled engine yes maybe, the water cooling provides more consistent cooling, and prevents thermal oil breakdown, These air cooled engines are designed for small trips to the corner store, not cross country every day at wot, dealing with the traffic demands of 55 to 80 + mph. If your going to be doing a lot of driving you should get a 150 or bigger Why bigger ? simply because the bigger engine will not have to work as hard as the smaller one to do the same job.. Air cooling works fine if the metal in the engine isn't a cheese alloy Ive seen plenty of Kymco's go down for exactly the same reason, over stressing the engine. Part of my job as an Industrial Mechanic is failure assessment, I'm trained in it, and I'm pretty good at it... And what iv'e seen is there is very little difference in the metals used.... However when I bulit the stroker I did by only Taiwanese products, the reason was not because the metal used was of higher quality necessarily... It was because as I wrote the build I didn't want the quality of the parts coming into question... If I had had a failure with a cheaper products, many on scootdawg had a raging debate as to the quality difference between Taiwan and Chinese metals, any failure would have been blamed on the products used in the build, not what I actually determined to be the reason for failure.. I effectively removed that debate from my build.. |
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 12:10:20 GMT -5
Why would you buy anything new and take the depreciation hit yourself? I only buy used, has worked well for me for 20+ years of motorized transporting... There are plenty of perfectly good bikes out there already. Why pay the Chinese to rape the earth a bit more for additional metals for a new scooter? While it is true, I did buy my scoot new, You don't see me buying another new scoot... What you do see me doing is rebuilding and repairing my current scoot... When I'm stupid and do something to require repair, I don't throw my scoot away like a bic lighter, I fix it and drive it some more.. |
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 12:04:20 GMT -5
What are the design limits? A bike should be able to be held wide open well most of the time. Especially a small one... A water cooled engine yes maybe, the water cooling provides more consistent cooling, and prevents thermal oil breakdown, These air cooled engines are designed for small trips to the corner store, not cross country every day at wot, dealing with the traffic demands of 55 to 80 + mph. If your going to be doing a lot of driving you should get a 150 or bigger Why bigger ? simply because the bigger engine will not have to work as hard as the smaller one to do the same job.. |
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 4, 2013 11:49:01 GMT -5
What I see a lot, is people tend to drive these little guys beyond their design limits, or not caring for them properly.. Missing oil changes, not changing filters, ect.. Then blame the machine when it fails.. Few are willing admit or perhaps understand when something they did or didn't do caused the failure..
Then they come on here and other forums complaining of the failure and only give a one sided explanation of the failure.. You know bad news travels fast, good news slow... This being a help forum we mostly only hear of the ones having troubles, we don't hear much from those not having trouble.. So again the image presented is a little one sided..
Now when I got Fawkes, I was very new to this engine, there was a learning curve, there were problems, most by me and my inexperience with this engine design, some also by my lack of knowledge of what the 50cc's design limits are.. I freely admit it, and I say it because it's the truth, and I wish to give an honest accounting...
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discounts?
by: larry001964 - Jul 3, 2013 11:43:00 GMT -5
Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 11:43:00 GMT -5
With out taller gears I think 50 mph is pushing it, the size of the variator, the number of rpm's the engine can do, the size of your rear tire are only going to give you so much.. 8000 rpms is the redline and i don't like exceeding it.. So without taller gears I don't see doing 50 mph being a good idea.. At least for Fawkes, but he still has that 10 tire on the back, when I get the bigger tire that may be a game changer... We will see
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discounts?
by: larry001964 - Jul 3, 2013 10:26:45 GMT -5
Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 10:26:45 GMT -5
Can you "bore "the hole a little, maybe with a small sanding drum or something? Maybe been thinking about how to bore it, can use a flat gasket to seal it instead of the little o ring.. I know Millsc is running 50/16 gears, he has to be getting the power to push them somewhere.. This is the only thing I'm really seeing much different between the builds.. I'm running the stock gearing, 17/49 was just too much without the stroker.. |
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discounts?
by: larry001964 - Jul 3, 2013 10:06:49 GMT -5
Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 10:06:49 GMT -5
:Dglad to hear it.Already have the BBK & carb. I,m getting a High performance variator, some sliders,jets, an a9 cam, some 50/16 gears, and a high perf coil, then i'll do the engine swap. There is an idea I'm playing with in my head, I read Millsc did it.. Ive been wondering about leaving out the carb spacer, I'm seeing it's hole as a restriction compared to the rest of the intake and carb... Carb is 20mm the head intake is 22 mm, and that spacer is small compared to the other two.. Ill wait for a day off to try it... hoping the carb bowl will not hit the engine without it.. |
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discounts?
by: larry001964 - Jul 3, 2013 9:21:06 GMT -5
Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 9:21:06 GMT -5
Hey Jack
Fawkes is doing well, starting fast, as i fine tune him and he breaks in he gets a little faster.. I'm getting 40 to 45 running 7 grand on the tach... His launch is really good... I was really spoiled when he was a stroker.. But as he gets better I'm getting happier with him, I'm thinking I'm almost at his torque limit...
He is now accelerating up scooter killer hill, not losing any speed.. He's not pulling away like when he was a stroker, but he's is accelerating to about 40 mph on that hill...
Over all he's performing pretty good..
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discounts?
by: larry001964 - Jul 3, 2013 9:11:43 GMT -5
Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 9:11:43 GMT -5
Hi Jack
I have not seen scrappy give any discounts... But many members buy from his online store on ebay, they report better prices...
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 3, 2013 7:42:22 GMT -5
I currently don't own a bike but I will soon enough. As for owning a Japanese bike, will never happen  So you don't even own one, yet post a bias derogatory statement with no personal experience ? How is that fair ? As for your neighbors bike I know I could get it running.. |
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Post by larry001964 on Jul 2, 2013 11:59:50 GMT -5
Already told you how he drives it. One parameter out of hundreds of variables... |
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