Let us "B-gin!"

So the last major hoop to jump through was repairing/replacing the exhaust flange on the Polini cylinder, and fabricating a new header to fit the enlarged exhaust flange. The old & standard exhaust flange dimensions are 22mm outer and 17.3mm inner diameter. The new flange is 23mm ID & 25mm OD. I used pieces of a random exhaust for the new flange and a stock Sachs exhaust to fab up the new header. To accurately recreate the standard Vespa geometry and location, I built a cardboard jig, and used that to accurately sculpt the new flange to fit the old cut marks. Immediately after this was complete, I thought of a faster and more efficient way of doing this. I required a no-bake cookie to console myself.

I then chopped up the Sachs pipe to fit the new flange, which was kinda complicated. When I suspected I was finished, I took my cobbled bits over to Phil's place, where he proceeded to 'turn hellfire into horsepower'©. The flange welding was a piece of cake, but the header geometry I developed was flawed. I took it apart for another go, then back to Phil's where I welded it myself and am ashamed to say, did some Gawd-awful welding. -And to think of the many hours I welded away in CCAD's nearly vacant metal shop. whatevs. So then I rented an enormous angle grinder and fixed all my sloppy blacksmithing on the roof of my building where I undoubtedly made all the babies in the neighborhood wake-up and cry. In your face, infants!

That night I bothered to actually read the section in Graham Bell's book on exhaust headers and through no planning on my own part, the header looks pretty good on paper. It seems like there is tons of power hiding in the nuances of header design. In warfare, military commanders use the expression: "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics" I think the application here would be: "Amateurs study porting, professionals study headers".

Thrice returning to RJ's weld-o-rama, Phil expertly welded the improved header to the Simonini pipe. Thanks Phil! I'm still waiting on various parts to arrive, and it looks like my flywheel will be fat and heavy for the race. But the bike should be together lickitty split and none too soon. I take back any fence-sitting or half-heartedness towards the paint job, it is f**king magnificent and indeed, Louder than God.

In totally unrelated news, Liz & I have been going to Quiz Night at a bar and kicking so much ASS! we've won the MF'er two weeks in a row now, usurping the reigning champs after several weeks of less than glorious performance. BOOM!

Stealth Pics: (cardboard seat is a mock-up, I assure you)
Bonus Round: I'm looking at this blog, while taking pictures to be used on the blog.

Updates 9/9/09

So, both bikes are still unfit for racing, despite some last minute scrambling. I missed the last round of racing at Atwater, but I am determined to make the season finale in October. Here are some nuggets of the progress. Tite bladez = wheel stripes add around 2-3 mph on the top end. Also a image of the Plan B engine's fuel system. There's a few hoops to jump through, but the last major obstacle I'm facing is the lack of an exhaust flange on the cylinder. Once that's complete and the exhaust has been similarly adapted. I can start building the bike. The paint job overall is somewheres in the sundered veil between amazing and asinine.















Last night I learned about Short Gamma Ray bursts and Magnetar Stars. I realize this is way off topic.

Highway to the Dangerzone

Here at Team Nerdspeed, we spare no expense with R&D. Thankfully the US Air Force lent us an F-15C Eagle to help figure out which exhaust to use on Plan B. The kids over at Vespa-Ciao.NL chimed in too. The Calibrata & Fabrizi are the hawt shit pipes to have, but after some 9G-force inverted maneuvers the Simonini Especiale emerged as the best of the best, Goose. A real Maverick...anyways, so after it landed and cooled off, Jack and I gave it a thorough inspection.

Also on board is the Tillotson HL360. I got this on the way, then ordered the velocity stack. It's pretty much beyond awesome. Plan B is getting steadily more ferocious and I'm nearly ready to assemble. Giggity!

Takes a big trough t'feed them ponies, man.

So Plan B's case inducted manifold just got finished by the quality aluminum wizards over at Kvichak Marine, where skeeter Matt Smith works. It's totally awesome and off the chain or something. I'm really excited. I also have a Tillotson HL360 on the way. So hopefully after I repair the exhaust flange on the cylinder, I can actually put this motor together. Woot!

Glamour Shots:

Sexiness & Unsexiness

So, stuff has actually been happening during the broadcast black-out of late. I managed to get the lights to sort of work on the super cub, I modified a 28t sprocket to fit on the super cub's rear wheel, replacing the original 40t. It gained like 10mph and is alot more nice to ride. I also removed the decked tomos cylinder, dellorto 16mm and modified biturbo off of the Newport, returning to the slower set-up of a stock hi-torque cylinder, stock exhaust and 14mm bing. I blued up my clutch earlier, well, and clutch pad came off of the the rest of it. Luckily Phil happened to have a Clutch and bing jet around to help me wake the machine up. It rides 'OK' now, I did some silly porting to it and it's not quite jetted right, but it runs! The combination of both the super cub's lights and the newport's running meant that Liz and i got to go on one of those ride things they do on monday. It was Liz's first ride in a group, and her first ride at night (ever x2).

On other frontiers, there's more steam building behind the Plan B bike than ever. Updates to follow on that. werd.

At last it can be told...

So, if you look at the custom cylinder, you'll notice it has a third case transfer. It also lacks a piston-port intake. This is because I made the cylinder only compatible with a case-inducted motor. The ZA50 motor pictured here has the reed-block welded to it already. It uses a malossi VL6 reed, usually found on smallframe vespa scooters and certain moped cylinders. (Gilardoni Puch) I actually cut the two huge chunks that became the reed block out of a single piece of aluminum by hand with a hack-saw.

That took F O R E V E R...

The block is pitched to the flywheel side, to create proper clearance for the rear-facing carburetor. My buddy Ratboy did most of the welding, alot of which was pretty difficult, in exchange for a six-pack of cold ones. Rat works at one of the coolest places in the world, and gets to horse around on stuff like the #2 & #3 LeMans winning Ford GT40's from 1969, Amphicars, Nazi Staff Mercedes', Isettas, $300,000 Porsches, Loti, Ferraris etc..etc..

I've actually had this laying around for over a year, but without the custom cylinder it was made for, it didn't make much sense to share. Some of the gross welding on the case transfers I did myself, and I'll probably end up fixing before the cylinder goes on. I'm getting a sense that this motor, while absurdly customized and DIY, isn't going to win any beauty pageants.

Taste the Rainbow

I've always thought that the malossi team race bikes always looked great, albeit ridiculous and fruity. Like starburst, skittles kinda fruity. (the Derbi GP1 pictured below, an example) Most race bikes go for a more tough-guy approach, with lots of black, red etc... Anyways, I've always wanted a Malossi scheme racer. As you can see, Plan B's paint is nearly there and very very ridiculous.* =Awesome! Now all I needs is more shop time and a few small parts.








*-funniest book ever written, IMO.