First time kiitting - Pinasco 215 on 1980 P200e: advice plz

[KingBee]

Hi all,

I just got a the Pinasco 215 kit and have read plenty about replacing the standard 57mm crank with a 60mm one in order to get better squish and possibly to line up the exaust port better to the piston. Will I be able to simply bold on, upjet and set the timing back a couple degrees and see a big improvement over stock?

I have a timing light left over from owning old cars. Do I need a dial guage to know eactly TDC and then make a mark on the case? I've read of the drill method to turn the engine over to get the timing light to tell me where it's at.

Other things: what plug (temperature) should I use? I'm at 1,100 ft. above sea level and will be riding mostly on flat land, no mountains.
I have a SITO+ exhaust, stock gearing, ride 1-up 99% of the time. I haven't done the air filter drill trick but will. I want to keep the auto-lube system, preferably the 24/24 Del Orto. I've seen others with larger carbs but I think that only makes sense if you are doing port work and using a proper expansion pipe, correct?

Worb5 head or have a shop (in the U.S.) do the machine work?

Any advice to help is appreciated. Thanks!

[paddyfitz]

I've set up a few of those.
My experience is that they can be a bit of a gas hog & tricky to get jetted properly. :freak:
Sito plus was not finicky.
The best ones I've seen run the stroked crank you're talking about. I like the 24g carb that comes on a t5 - drt makes a larger aperture float needle for that carb, so fuel supply becomes a lesser issue. SIP also does their fast flow tap as well.
That kit was designed (from my understanding) to be a touring kit & to run the 60mm crank.
I like the air filter mod. I ran the timing pretty retarded to be on the safe side. If you can swing it, I really like the Vespatronics as a system.
Jetting is a dark art for sure, but as a starting point, I know I ran a couple at 160a, be3 or be4 atomizer, main of 135 & up on the be3 or 128 and up with the be4. Idle of 55/120 or richer. Not all bikes run the same, though.
Good luck.
:fb:

[KingBee]

Gas guzzler is right! I saw your main jet number and am a little surprised. Elsewhere online I was seeing numbers between 125 and 120 but those must be for default setups w/ no fancy stuff done other than slap the barrel on. Hopefully I'll maintain somewhere near 45 mpg <the crowd laughs>. I know I've read the extreme setups do like 35 mpg which is a long way from the aprx. 50 I get now.

Thanks for the stack numbers. I haven't looked at mine yet to compare.

I haven't seen that high flow tap on S.I.P.'s site. Every time I go there I just can't believe they haven't re-done the website for ease of use. They put out some amazing products though.

What I will likely do is change the crank to a 60mm this winter but will strongly consider a Worb5 head now to reduce squish. Any advice on minimizing squish with factory 57mm crank? Thanks!

ps. The Vespatronic system does look to be nice. I have often thought of creating my own ign. timing system using a piezo knock sensor in conjunction with throttle position and r.p.m. sensors (possibly an Arduino at the heart). Some day..some day..

[KingBee]

Okay, I made me a little wrist pin removal tool and got the old piston out (heat gun helped too). I test fit the barrel and noticed the top of the piston in relation to the bottom edge of the exhaust port. I've seen several people commenting on exhaust seeming too masked. I didn't think it looked like a big deal. I got pics from directly inside the exhaust stub and at an angle from the top of the barrel. I'll fret over them later.

I measured squish and got 2.65mm on the edge of the solder twist. Does that sound right for a factory piston and con rod? Still, about 1mm more than I want. Would slapping on a Worb5 get that to a more optimal squish? 1.4-1.6 seems to be a good range from what I've read across the Web.

I never read about people having the factory Pinasco head milled. Why? Isn't this much more cost effective? Can't I just tell the machinist what squish I'm aiming for and what I have currently and they they surface the bottom? Do they have to ream out the dome a bit to keep compression ratio sane?

What IS a good compression ratio? 10.5:1? 11:1? Of course there's a limit to where you don't want to retard the timing too much to take out pinging if compression is too high.

I know, lots of questions but There seems to be no good single guide on the whole Internet for just putting on a kit w/o lots of mods and NO definitive guide on porting for a 2-stroke kit. Top secrets don't seem to help anybody. If anything I blame Pinasco for horrible instructions. Their website is a steaming pile too.

[KingBee]

Well I got to carving on the factory gasket and got a bit overzealous and broke it. So now I'm using a soda can. I made my template w/ poster board last night by comparing the port on the barrel and the one on the case.

Tonight I anticipate getting it running. I have a 125 main jet but should I have started with a 130? I've read rich to lean is the way to dial it in and agree.

Speaking of ports, what are the two ports on each side of the case for? There's nothing at all for them on the cyl. barrel bottom to match up.

[KingBee]

Okay actual squish apears to be 3.67mm. I twisted up a bigger snake of solder. I plan on having the factory head milled after the rallys this year so I'm at about 1.5mm, maybe a hair more. Depends on what compression ratio will be. I'll have to read more detail on calculating head volume w/ oil/ syringe technique. Nobody has told me why I should get a Worb5 over having the factory head milled locally.

So I officially have the barrel on with my pop can gasket. I didn't realize what a pain getting the circlips in the groove would be. I'll probably get an ulcer over worrying if I really got the scoot side one in. I took a bunch of pictures of it with my dig. camera and reviewed them zoomed in. Looks fine but if one of them gives out it's all over, baby.

Oh ya, I gotta bitch again about those stupid instructions that came with the kit. I had to look all over the 'Net to see which ring goes where and how the 'L' shaped ring goes on. I now realize the best way to find something like that is to google images . I found a nice pic on SIP's site that shows the top ring is really close to the top of the piston and therefore can only go on one way to look like that.

In other news, just turning over the motor by hand w/ flywheel has me excited. Feels like more compression than before. I hope to have the carb on tomorrow night and then I still have to set the timing.

I got a dial guage and printed out a copy of a timing disc. Still have to mount that paper on some posterboard so it'll be useful. I'm just going to move the setting in between the marks like I've seen on several sites and hit it with the dial guage later when I start advancing/retarding timing and setting the jets.

More later when I get it back together and fire it up.

[KingBee]

Nothing really to report here. Got the carb and all associated carb bits on. Got motor bolted to shock. Essentially I could fire it up and off I go but haven't set timing. Throttle is sticky under the headset so that will be part of pre-flight prep tomorrow. After lubing up that junk, setting timing, slapping the shrouds and tire on, putting a little 2T oil in the tank (aprx 1% mix in there) I'll be ready to fire it up.

As per what I read somewhere I'll just let it idle for 5 min. I'll let it cool a bit and have a peek at the plug along the way just to make sure nothing looks horribly wrong. If it's not gray or white I'll take it for a granny spin around the block and be careful not to blip the throttle. Hopefully by Saturday I'll have about two hours of gentle riding on it and can open it up some just to get an idea of what sort of real changes I'm going to see in acceleration.

I'm gonna have to post a few montage pics here when it's running. Eventually I'm going to build up a guide and .pdf it for anybody who's interested. Stay tuned!

[KingBee]

Running. Started in 2nd kick. Hope it stays that way! I only let it run for about a minute or less since I didn't add any oil to the gas and had my doubts about how primed the oil pump was.

I'm happy it didn't blow up. I'm gonna be gentle on her for a while. I have to get a bunch of pics off my camera and post a couple that aren't too boring.

I did write the jet numbers down but they are still in the garage. I'll post those later on a different post as I'm sorting them. Hell, maybe they'll be perfect with the bigger main. I already set up the bike for the Sito+. Feels great to be nearly done and ready to ride again.

[KingBee]

Maiden voyage went perfect. I mixed 1% ratio in the tank along w/ autolube. Should be 3% total which I thought was Pinasco's recommended. More power for sure. Where I clacked the gears from 1st to 3rd directly it didn't bog nearly as bad as the factory jug and piston. I avoided cracking the throttle hard but pulling out of a few corners felt nice.

Started in one kick! hewwl yaaa

The most amazing thing is it seems quite a bit louder with a slightly higher pitch than before. Can't really describe it well but the pressure on your ears is higher (as in earplugs might be a decent idea now!). I attribute that to better flow or maybe there's a certain resonance. Now I just have to put a few hundred miles on it and it's off to Kansas City next month (aprx. 150 miles)!

[KingBee]

Should have started with a 130 main jet. Running a bit lean (pale plug, not white). 125 with the rest of them is just not enough. I took an older jet and got medieval on the bottom hole and bored it out too much. Was dumping in so much gas I could only max out at about 42 Mph! So fun but at least I shouldn't hole the piston.

I put the 125 back in for now. Will be getting a 130 and probably the next size larger. Will also consider the jet set (no pun) as a whole as there's a wee bit of a flat spot down low then mid-range throttle causes nice pull. The fatter jet bogged it out but there was a sweet spot that I atribute to the other jet bits. More research needed on that.