Small block upgrade

[hendy]

Thanks for the feedback so far, anyone have personal experience of the cheap Indian Ali kits, that they'd like to share??


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Yes, i went through 3 of them and never managed to get one that had decent ports. They were all over the place. If they'd simply been 'too small' I could have opened them up, but they really were bad. There's a thread on here called 'exhaust port timings'. It isn't really about port timings but when I started the thread I thought it was!

Anyway, suffice to say I spent months running around, trying to get it sorted but in the end I gave up and bought a gt186. I really like the gt186 but it's out of the budget you quote.

Only upside was that I learnt quite a bit about lambretta port timings etc.

[Adam_Winstone]

Hi Tom,

I didn't have anything to offer until you mentioned these cheap ali kits...

Seem like great value but the liners are all too often very soft, meaning that they often wear out as soon as they are run in! The combo of soft liner and chrome edged rings can mean that any work to the exhaust port causes the ring to become a very effective cutting tool and quickly work the top edge of the port from radiused to square, allowing the ring to catch and break.

The frustration is that there is the occasional 'good one' but there are probably at least 20 crap ones for every good one. That said, if you plan on doing no porting work and only want to put 100 miles on it per year, mainly on max 45 mph local club rideouts, then they are a very cost effective way of putting a bike on the road.

Adam

PS - Please do listen from others that may have had decent experiences, I simply want to let you know that clubmates' experience of them has been very poor.

[Rich_T]

My advice would be that if you are in anyway going to take the engine to a professional builder then in no way should you scrimp on the cylinder.

The reason for this is that the difference in price between a cheap alloy kit and a reliable performance kit is significantly less than the labour of stripping and building and engine properly. If the cheap solution does not live up to expectation you're faced with the who thing all over again. Some say "buy cheap buy twice", the real addage is "Buy cheap and you'll keep on buying until you've either 1. run out of money 2. learnt an expensive lesson (options 1 & 2 are not mutually exclusive)"

[lozmondo]

Cheap, reliable, Fast...choose any 2 lol

[shocky]

Hi Tom,

I didn't have anything to offer until you mentioned these cheap ali kits...

Seem like great value but the liners are all too often very soft, meaning that they often wear out as soon as they are run in! The combo of soft liner and chrome edged rings can mean that any work to the exhaust port causes the ring to become a very effective cutting tool and quickly work the top edge of the port from radiused to square, allowing the ring to catch and break.

The frustration is that there is the occasional 'good one' but there are probably at least 20 crap ones for every good one. That said, if you plan on doing no porting work and only want to put 100 miles on it per year, mainly on max 45 mph local club rideouts, then they are a very cost effective way of putting a bike on the road.

Adam


would a different ring option stop some of this ?

PS - Please do listen from others that may have had decent experiences, I simply want to let you know that clubmates' experience of them has been very poor.

[Adam_Winstone]

"would a different ring option stop some of this ?"

I've wondered this myself but don't have an answer for you.

Adam

[storkfoot]

Several years back I ran an SR barrel (from Scooter Restorations, not ebay). I ran it as a 185 with a Deanspeed piston. The piston ring gap was all checked when it was set up. The bore wore out ridiculously fast, probably no more than a couple of thousand miles.

Subsequently, I changed piston to an MB Racetour and did not have this problem again.

[Lambretta Sash]

Convert to Tv 175 if you can, most reliable set up you will ever have and it pulls 4.8 gearing better than sx200.

Those cheap Ali cylinders are just trouble tbh, I've seen a m8 with Stg 4 AD kit that just keeps eating pistons and heating up on exh side recently. Altho i dont think the exh port shape being un symmetrical helps either.