Holed piston!!

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Darrell Taylor
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Rich_T wrote:
Steve S2 wrote:In my case, there was no leaks the timing was spot on and on the dyno it was below 12s all the way through the revs, and I had covered over 2000 miles in the last 12 months with not a single problem.
And no tuning work was carried out on the dyno all we did was push them on and pushed them off.

I am not saying that all holed pistons are down to petrol. But why would 2 scooters hole the piston within 5 mins of each other, after filling up from the same with the same fuel.
Because they are two kitted scooters where, quite possibly, the overall engine configuration does not allow for the tolerance in fuel supply and ambient conditions to conspire. Fuel is produced to a standard and it will vary, as do the other factors.

My point is that if the piston gets holed this is a "real world" occurance, dyno's are a simulation of real world events where some basic elements have a degree monitoring. If it does not happen on the dyno then this only goes to underline that it isn't an accurate model and exactly the reason why I am very cautious of what dyno information to use and what not (time in the saddle is worth a lot more).

If it were soley fuel from that specific station there would be an ring of dead RS125's and all other manor of two strokes littered about in a radius of 6 miles. This does not mean that fuel was not the perverbial straw, it could have been. If no tuning was done on the dyno this is not a conclusively vindication that everything in the garden is rosey, and to be honest 2000 miles is not a huge distance to sign off on.

The fact of the matter (for road going scooters) is that you can not control the ambient conditions (weather) and you can not control the exact specification of the fuel you put in the tank (you buy it and get going-you don't stand there with test tubes, and a lab coat). The things we can control are how we build the engine, what compressions, ignition timings and jets we use. The logical process, to me, is to configure the settings we can control to counter balance the ones we can not. This builds in a certain amount of system redundancy and this is what should make a Lambretta engine reliable.

If the AF ratio is flat-ish between mid to full rpm on WOT then it would be no surprise to me that you have a lean AF ratio if you rolled off the throttle when you were up to speed (or exactly the wagon example DT mentions).

hi Rich
in your own personal scenario as a manufacturer of a cylinder kit how do you provide meaningful data for kit users and arrive at port specs/compression ratios suitable for road scoots ,i reckon there could be 30+ combinations of kit/bore/stroke/rod length options along with the various machining tolerances on cylinder decks and port widths and heights as cast x up to 20 pipes x up to 10 different ignitions with multiple cdi,s x 30 different carbs and 2 different inlets x multiple different air filters then theres build variables to consider
i see your building a carb settings database but how meaningful can that data be with so many variables in place
every engine is different so the way i see it all variables considered the only control to put in place after a good build to preset specifications is to dyno test to find good values as anything else is surely nothing more than assumptions,what would you reccomend a customer fitting a kit of yours to find a good baseline setting
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Muttley McLadd
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The clues that came with my GT kit were close enough that I just dropped the pilot down two and up the main a couple.
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Muttley McLadd wrote:Isn't this where the experience of the dyno operator comes into its own?
Havent you just covered like lots n lots of miles on your tour a week or so ago? What motors in yours?
mick1
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leaving Cleethorpes last year (back to York) i holed my piston in sight of the Humber Bridge, my mates 240 Monza siezed 5 miles after the Humber Bridge, another lambretta with us (TS1) siezed his crank 10 miles after that. We all filled up together but all had different problems...the main factor was (IMO) the heat. It was very hot that day, probably into the high 70's/80's. After i holed my piston the other 2 shot off and after the Bridge said they were averinging 85 for a good 5 miles (that's when the Monza siezed). The TS1 continued at a leisurly 70mph before his crank went..

On the way to Cleethorpes a 4th lambretta with us holed his piston just after the Bridge...we replaced his piston on the campsite the following day

The AA guy who took me home said i was the 12th lambretta he'd picked up that day...

6 lambrettas went and 4 had major problems i can only put that down to riding too fast for the conditions.
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Muttley McLadd
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soosh wrote: Havent you just covered like lots n lots of miles on your tour a week or so ago? What motors in yours?

Yup. It's a small block that Ralph built. Since then, it's had a GT top end bolted on. Nothing flash.. Indion flywheel (2kg) and a BGM stator. 30 mil PHBH and a RS44 exhaust. It'll pull 4.6 gearing. 4.8 would be better for twisties.
As far as I'm aware, all the scooters on the ride (that have been set up on a dyno) have been done by the same bloke. There weren't any seizes.
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jonashford
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mick1 wrote:leaving Cleethorpes last year (back to York) i holed my piston in sight of the Humber Bridge, my mates 240 Monza siezed 5 miles after the Humber Bridge, another lambretta with us (TS1) siezed his crank 10 miles after that. We all filled up together but all had different problems...the main factor was (IMO) the heat. It was very hot that day, probably into the high 70's/80's. After i holed my piston the other 2 shot off and after the Bridge said they were averinging 85 for a good 5 miles (that's when the Monza siezed). The TS1 continued at a leisurly 70mph before his crank went..

On the way to Cleethorpes a 4th lambretta with us holed his piston just after the Bridge...we replaced his piston on the campsite the following day

The AA guy who took me home said i was the 12th lambretta he'd picked up that day...

6 lambrettas went and 4 had major problems i can only put that down to riding too fast for the conditions.
Probably the curse of the A15! We try to avoid that road and go thru Barton instead!
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I think a carb database/starting point is a good idea to help people set things up at home.
The problem is, is when people take these settings as gospel rather than a starting point as each motor is different unless you know of a motor running the same ignition, port timings, carb and exhaust, compression, crank etc as yours (which is very unlikely).

I think Darrell is absolutely right when he mentions about rich main jets being compensated for on the needle and pilot area because if you test on the road most scoots will run on a rich main jet without giving any other symptoms than just not revving out completely, no splutter, no caked black plug etc.
For example my monza will run ok on a 138 main jet without splutter etc but my egt at full throttle will read 500 degrees and my mid range will get up to 650 degrees when rolling off to the mid, yet the scoot does not splutter at full throttle and runs ok.
If i take the main down to 130 this enables me to richen the needle a bit and my egt at full throttle goes to 570 degrees when being thrashed but when i roll off down to the mid range to cruise the egt reads 600 degrees. Hence where power jets start to come into their own.

I have to say that i agree with Muttley in respect of what he is trying to say about who you put your trust in when setting up your scoot, as dyno or no dyno the knowledge and experience of that person is most important.
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The plot thickens: this is a bit like scooter Cluedo, who made that big hole and killed the piston how and what with? was it the petrol pump attendant with the petrol in the garage: was it the inertia dyno operator in the shop on the dyno; was it the mechanic in the shed with the spanners; or could it be the rider on the scooter on the road; or was it ported by al quaeda's "middle eastern tuning emporium" designed with explosive destructive forces in mind :baddevil: ; who; what; how; YOU DECIDE,

muppet, :bald:
C’est la vie
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drunkmunkey6969
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It was the Janitor.....
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Darrell Taylor
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i called it C.S.I Lambretta a few months back (crime scene investigation)

make a good seperate topic where a list of failure areas can be shown

cause symptoms diagnosis cure is the way to look at it

recently had an rs125 racing customer with a seized top end,we stripped and rebuilt the top end with a new piston and cleaned up bore ,the owner was concerned he,d jetted too lean or forgot to add oil but upon starting up on the dyno i did various checks and found the barrell was hot and radiator cold so bled the system and pumped the hoses and still the same ,decided he had a water pump problem so stripped the clutch casing off to find the water pump gear had failed but that had failed because the 2 plastic balance shaft gears had broke, so with these all replaced i rebuilt and started it up bled the system and all was well until i looked to get it up to temperature to be told by the owner that his temperature gauge packed in a few months ago ,so if his temp gauge had worked he could have monitored the rising temp and saved the seize !
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