i’ve started pulling ciaociao apart to get it ready for the next polini race.
apparently i’ve been running around with a huge head leak and i had no idea. i guess i should have looked under my bike, the motor is covered in oil! the nuts holding the head on were like hand tight? no idea how that happened. oh wait! i just realized i bet it’s because my triple layer of base gaskets compressed! doi. that’s why you use metal to make thick base gaskets, kids.
everything’s looking good inside the motor. the 3rd mount on the case snapped off again. it broke right along the weld ray did for me. nate says he can do a better job, so hopefully it’ll be fine after that.
also, the aluminum spacer i was using to keep my fan rivets from dragging on my ktm50 coils wore itself out and i have some wear showing. it’s because, even when super tight, my fan will slip a tiny bit when i really get on the gas. the torque is just too much for it. rather than replacing the spacer with a steel one, i just took a big punch and hammered the back of all the rivets flat. it clears nicely. lucky for me, the rivets didn’t do any serious damage to the coils. just some grooves in the plastic.
you can see the flattened rivets there.
sorry for the dark photos, i’m at motomatic using their camera and the light is low.
tony will be around next week and he’s going to help me figure out the best plan of action for this kit and then i’ll get started cutting stuff up.
also, i’m going to try and get some forks on the way for the ciao before next race. i do want to eventually finish my mod to the stock forks and run those, but i don’t have the time right now.. i still gotta get magnomos back on the road by september 11th!
anyway, in the meantime, i plan to run the vespa ebrs. they are pretty stiff and should work well for the track, at least better than these pogo stick bravo forks i’ve been running.
that’s it for now. more posts and pictures soon to come! and maybe a video? who knows!
so this weekend was a total bust. none of the other hry kids could go racing, and it left me with no ride. it was a little too last minute for me to cobble something together, so i decided to have a drunk weekend at the shop in seattle hating atwater. it was a shitty weekend.
on top of not getting to go, i some how misplaced/dropped in the street my wallet, containing $300 cash, my id and both my debit cards.
but hey! this isn’t a blog about my life, it’s a blog about ciaociao! so enough of that shit!
poor ciaociao did not see the race track this weekend like it really wanted to. i did, however, take it for a few rides!
now, i haven’t really ridden ciaociao in the street since la rally, just on the track, and i was riding around with slow bikes rather than race bikes, so it’s really hard for me to judge what kind of performance gains i might have obtained with my exhaust porting. i was really hoping to get a feel for that on the track. ah well!
however, now that racing is done until september, i think it is time for me to pull that cylinder back off and finish up my porting. larger transfers, two new transfers, and more work on the exhaust. plus i still need to mill the other 1mm off the top of the cylinder and build the 2mm spacer to lift the whole thing up. and i really want to work the head, the pinasco head seems kinda crappy for how rad that kit can be.
so yeah! hopefully after i do all of this the thing will still run and will be competitive next atwater!
in the meantime, my actual race bike build is now underway, but that has nothing to do with anything here, so i’ll not talk about it much. you can catch pictures of it every now and again on my mopedsmofun tumblr photo blog if you’re interested!
oh boy, back to the dremmel!
well, firstly, the 2nd race went really well. i chopped two seconds off my lap time, and while i placed 6th in both races, i was faster and rode much better than the first race and i’m stoked on that!
if you want to read a better write up, check out the hry website. it’s still being worked on a lot, so it doesn’t really look all that great, but there’s rad photos and stuff over there.
on to ciaociao.
i decided to start playing with the porting in my pinasco. i haven’t really jumped into hacking at it just yet, but cuffs and i made a port map of it and did some measurements and i think i have a plan.
my map only shows one of the transfer ports because i’m going to focus on the exhaust port for now.
i’ve always known the exhaust port in this kit was pretty weak, so i’m going to be opening it up some and probably lifting the whole cylinder a bit and mill the difference off the top.
i’m still trying to work out what i’m going to do exactly, and the next race is coming up pretty quick so i gotta get on it. once the math is over and i start milling and hacking at it i’ll be sure to get a bunch of pictures for yous guys.
until then!
i have a frame on the way!
i have the motor back in my hands, all welded up and ready to go!
i have also broken the display on my digital camera! NOOO!
i am watching a few auctions on ebay of broken cameras that are the same as mine to use as parts, hopefully i’ll be able to pick one up cheap and fix mine.
i did manage to get some photos of the case that my friend ray welded up for me!
here it was before, broken in the frame.
here it is after ray was done with it.
he did a great job! i’ll bet that chunk is stronger now than it was before i broke it!
anyway, the frame should show up soon. expect things to pick up around here once it does!
sorry for the dead air.. i thought i had a new ciao frame lined up, but i haven’t heard anything in a while. lame.
i did get a friend to weld the broken mount on the case back on, i should have the motor back in my hands in the next few days. i’ll have pictures up as soon as i get it.
i don’t think i have 100 miles on this poor thing yet.. jeez.
soon, though. i just need to locate a frame.
Filed under: carb, cdi, clutch, electronics, fail!, intake, motor, performance, variator, video
so early last week we had a 90+ deg. day here in seattle, which means it probably got up to 3000+ deg. in my bed room. my computer melted down. 
i haven’t had a chance to assess the damage, i’m hoping it was only the video card.
this has made it difficult for me to keep you guys up to date. sorry!
ciaociao’s first start! sorry so dark, austin took that at 3am last thursday, the first day of the rally.
it made the first day! i was stoked.
however, i was plagued with problems. haha
about half way through the ride the clutch bell was billowing smoke. i have yet to tear into it to figure out why. my guess is that one of those malossi springs broke and i was dragging a pad the whole time.
also, i noticed the fan was ungluing itself from the spacer mikemike and i made for it.
the fan was just kind of pressed onto the spacer, and then glued.
the concept was perfect, just the execution was a little off. it fit perfectly.
and it worked great! but the glue was failing, so it’s time for something new. i think we will build another spacer like this one, but give it teeth around the out side, heat it up and press it into the fan. THEN i’ll go over it with some epoxy.
the plastic fan with the tiny rotor reaaaally made this thing rip.
you can kind of tell in the video above that the throttle response is amazing. with no weight on the crank, it would speed up and slow down super fast.. and the whole thing was super simple! well, again, the concept was simple, actually making it happen took some work.
first we made the stator plate and got the coil and everything bolted up. we used a timing light to time it.
then the fan/spacer combo slides down the shaft and rests on the rotor.
then the fan shroud gets bolted on and it’s ready to be put in the frame.
once in the frame, the variator is installed and the big nut smashes everything together.
also, as you can see, the carb fit right in there! it took some manipulation of the frame, and a razor blade to shave down a plastic phbg bowl in just the right spots, but it fits perfect.
so anyway, riding it. i had it jetted waaay too rich. anything past quarter throttle sounded like i was riding under water, it was four stroking so bad.
but it was fast.
man, when i found the sweet spot at 1/4 throttle, the fork would unload and off it went.. it was a little scary. i can’t wait to see what full throttle is like.. oh man.
after the smoky clutch and fan coming apart on me, i decided to put it away for the rest of the rally and to ride a less intense bike.
creature rally is in a month and a half. i was hoping to have this thing painted and finished by then, but i have some serious tuning to do before then, so we’ll see.
i need to jet it proper, need to drill out or find new weights for the variator (it was variating before the clutch would grab, yet would ride wheelies on command), make sure this clutch doesn’t blow up on me and get the fan issue tamed.
and hopefully get the fork finished and loose the heavy bravo forks.
and get the frame braced and welded up.
yay, mopeds are fun again!
well, it’s crunch time again. i decided it was time to prioritize what i had left to do for ciaocioa to finish her. i decided the most important, at the top of the list thing that needs to happen, is to get the electronic system and the intake finished. these are things that absolutely need to happen before she’s on the road.
last sunday i went down to mikemike’s and did some work on the mill to make the stator plate we are using fit. all i really had to do was drill some holes in it, and mill it down to be half as thick as it was. then we had to turn the inner hole out a bit larger to clear the bearing seal and it was golden.
here it is sitting in the motor.
notice all the extra holes everywhere. this plate originally went to something else, we used it because it took little to make it fit proper. we’ll only be using the three holes that bolt the plate to the motor, the rest will go unused.
here it is with the rotor and coil set on it something like it will be when it’s all mounted up proper.
you can see how small the rotor is. the little holes in it will be drilled out a bit more and tapped for the alum fan adapter plate to bolt on, which will allow use of the plastic fan i stole from a parted out kinetic.
i hope this weekend to go in and bust out the intake for it. i’ll be using the dellorto si carb to start with.
it uses crazy car-carb-like press-in jets, but they are readily available at pretty much any serious scooter shop. i can also order up what ever i need at the shop, so that’s good.
these carbs are found stock on the old, bigger vespa scooters, so there’s a bit of novelty using it on my vespa ciao.
i chose it for a few reasons; flat slide, down draft (makes building an intake much easier), novelty, availability of jets and parts, and best of all, it was free! thanks jeb!
ok, so those are the things i am going to focus on until they are done.
however, a running engine is no good if you don’t have a bike to put it in..
since my time at mikemike’s shop is reserved for those two bits for now, i’m going to put off the fork swing arms until i get them done.
even if i had the swing arms done, i’d still have to lathe out the stem adapter before i could use that for.. so for now i am going to just use the heavier bravo forks that i was rocking on the orange ciao for so long. i’m also using orange ciao’s handle bars, controls and grips.
tonight i bolted the fork on and threw a too-small axle in the front wheel just to put everything together to see how it looked, and it’s going to be awesome. i forgot my camera here today, so no pictures. i’ll get some tomorrow.
so, as promised, i spent some time in mikemike’s shop milling up the brake plate to work with the stock ciao fork. after milling the squeezed out quicksteel, i had a nice flat surface to work with.
i marked the centerline for the new brake stop slot, chocked the plate up in the mill, and went to town.
the finished product came out nicely, and fit in the fork perfectly!
so the front wheel is ready to go for now. i still need to source out some dampeners for the front fork and build brackets for those, but that should be pretty straight forward.
while i was milling the brake plate, mikemike had the flywheel on the lathe, cutting the taper for my crankshaft. it was a pretty simple operation, and everything is fitting up nicely.
you’ll notice there’s no stator plate for the coils yet, mikemike’s waiting on a new blade for the ban saw, so that’s something for later.
there’s a ciao frame with a rusted through tank sitting at the shop, so once we were done turning and milling, we stuck my motor in that frame to start brainstorming on the intake. we’ve got a couple ideas, and will probably make a couple intakes to see what will work best. i’m hoping to get back in there this weekend if mike has the time, or at least taking a trip down to the metal store next monday.
there are still a few things i need to source out (i found another set of bars, but i’m not really that happy with them), but i am excited that its coming together!
Filed under: cosmetic, crank, intake, kit, lighting, malossi, motor, new parts!, paint, pinasco
so after installing the bearings on the crank, i had mike mike take the big case half to his shop and press the crank in.
tonight i pressed the other half on, but i don’t think the crank is completely seated proper.. we’re going to take it to his shop again and make sure it’s pressed in completely. you can see the bit of gap that worries me here;
it should go the rest pretty easily.
i bolted the 13mm intake on (a custom 19mm one is in the works) to keep the reed block from getting messed up kicking around my room, and so that i wouldn’t loose the bolts or anything.
besides, it looks cool!
now i need to finish filing the ports out on the pinasco, polish up the exhaust shoot and bolt the rest together!
it’s coming together! once i have the motor all bolted together in one piece, i can stick it in the frame and figure out the clearance i’ll have for the custom intake. and mike mike can machine the parts for the sweet cdi, and i can order the carb and pipe, the motor will be ready to go!
also, i ordered the stem, bar ends and pedals the other day, and tonight i ordered the bars and the headlight.
the cdi will not have a lighting coil, so i’m going battery powered.
i was lucky to find a niterider minewt.x2 set up for way cheaper than i should have! this is rad, because it’s small, way brighter than your moped’s headlight, and i can transfer it over to my road bikes super quick style when i get unlazy and seattle gets uncrappy out!
ok, that’s it for this update! i have decided to go with paint rather than powder coating the frame and wheels. powder coating would have been tricky with the paint scheme, and it’s probably going to cost a lot less to paint, even if i go pro, but i might just do it in my garage.
it should look rad when it’s done.
sneak peek!
i was planning on a large update with lots of pics tonight, but i don’t have time to do it just yet. that’ll have to hold you over!
in other news, bought a .net for this blog. i plan to expand the domain and turn it into a place for all of my projects, but for now it belongs to ciaociao.
spacemanicecream.net! i know, right? you’ll see!
