What are the pros and cons of cast iron vs. aluminium barrel

[grimspeed]

I'm going iron on my T5! Polini cylinder + Polaris 650 piston + P2 crank with a long Mito lambretta blade rod 115mm .
I also love the cheep Indian cast lined cylinders for playing with and they make great touring kits with jap pistons !
If they nip up a bit of emery cloth can normaly get you home. Both my Ts1's are lined and im now looking for a RB
that's knackerd to have iron lined !

[Monty]

I'm going iron on my T5! Polini cylinder + Polaris 650 piston + P2 crank with a long Mito lambretta blade rod 115mm .
I also love the cheep Indian cast lined cylinders for playing with and they make great touring kits with jap pistons !
If they nip up a bit of emery cloth can normaly get you home. Both my Ts1's are lined and im now looking for a RB
that's knackerd to have iron lined !

Some one we may know....
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lambretta-RB2 ... 43da20ac69

[eden]

is that ware around the exhaust port? if it is, iron don't ware like that

[Grumpy225]

is that ware around the exhaust port? of it is, iron don't ware like that

That looks like a ring snapped and took out some aluminium along with the plating

[Muppet]

mabee peg fell out ring spun round

[soosh]

I've never had an issue with running in an iron barrel and certainly don't do 100mls. It's how you run them in,not how long.

[eden]

I've never had an issue with running in an iron barrel and certainly don't do 100mls. It's how you run them in,not how long.

very true.

[Rich_T]

mabee peg fell out ring spun round

Yes, It looks like that to me.

Someone mentioned earlier about far east scooter having iron barrels and how could this be if it is cheaper to make a plated alloy barrel. The answer to this question has several angles. 1. Labour costs are hugely lower 2.floor space is not at a premium 3. The designs are all small enough and simple enough to run on continuous Disamatic foundry lines (these are the sort of lines that make plumbing parts) 4. the foundry is specialised in producing similar iron parts on automated lines (like air compressors etc). 5. They will not be paying energy prices anywhere close to European bills.

These 5 factors are massively different to what we have in European production and make all the difference. The biggest influencers are design complexity, energy and labour costs. If you have a simple, small design and you build it on automated mass production where the labour and power rates are the cheapest it will be a different story. Unfortunately that is not possible to do with a performance barrel.

[Yanker]

is that ware around the exhaust port? if it is, iron don't ware like that

Hum? Your ASSO or whatever piston drops a peg: it chumps it JUST LIKE THAT.

[eden]

is that ware around the exhaust port? if it is, iron don't ware like that

Hum? Your ASSO or whatever piston drops a peg: it chumps it JUST LIKE THAT.

nope, it just fucks the top and maybe the bottom of the port, the damage would be nowhere near as bad as in that pic and could be ground back out in 10 minutes.