Wind beneath my wings

           Everyone has an inspiration, a goal, something they want really badly, or want to be with every iota of their being. When I get coffee, I see dudes that are definitely attempting to become Johnny Depp, or Demetri Martin or that really, really want to fall into an Ocean Pacific T-shirt design from when I was 12. When I was 12, I wanted to be Chuck Yeager. I wanted to shoot down Messerschmidts with my Mustang and test-fly rocket planes. Now that I've done all those things, I think I want to be Jan Thiel. Why? Because Mr. Thiel designed probably the blindingest most amazing race engine to date. Now, its possible that he has some competition by way of Yamaha's direct injection boat engines, but I can't find anything with wheels that holds a candle to the RSA. Even the Boffins at HRC & KTM are struggling to match this beast. 

           Some years back the arms race in MotoGP 125 was a dead heat, with bikes from a handful of marques pretty evenly matched. Piaggio / Aprilia was getting feedback from the riders that they wanted an engine with more torque in the upper midrange. Tuning possibilities exhausted with the current RSW engine, they sought to develop a different style of engine, and recruited legendary 70's 80's GP engine tuner/designer Jan Thiel, who happened to be alive and interested in the project. With his genius and Piaggio's resources, the results were unconventional and powerful. The RSA is a 125cc Transverse Rotary valve engine that makes a blistering 56.5hp, with more torque and 3.5 hp more than its reed valve predecessor. Without a new material (carbon this, silicon that) having been invented, a 3.5hp gain is pretty significant in a race class where the blood has been squeezed from the stone for decades. 

              Like many, when I first got into bikes I presumed that the stock rotary systems on my Vespas were garbage and that aftermarket reed valves were the only way forward. The truth as I'm learning is that reeds are the easiest way to access 97% of available horsepower, but that at the tip top, rotary is still the Hp King. Why? Because when a rotary valve opens there is no obstruction (like a reed cage) between the crankcase and the carb, optimizing intake charge velocity. And that miniscule difference in intake velocity is what gives rotary the narrow edge. A transverse rotary is even better as it dumps the incoming charge between the crank webs, just behind the cylinder transfers.  Combine all that with the knowledge that a rotary valve can be independent of piston position, and therefore successfully manage backflow and low-end issues, and you have a very spicy meatball.  Alas, the ship has sailed on all of my current bikes, they will all be reed valves. But now I'm thinking that for future efforts, I'll try to build a rotary bike. 

         I can find very little info on this motor, lots of pictures on complete bikes racing, but very little on the engine itself, or its 250cc brother. I made a graph to illustrate what an efficient powerplant the RSA is. Basically, the total power of the motor, divided by the capacity. As an example, the Yamaha R1 is rated at 172hp. If it were as efficient as the RSA, it would have 280 MORE hp. I realize the logic is kinda flimsy and my numbers are not all official, this graph is more a visual aide than anything. Not pictured: as it didn't fit on the graph is the pokey Harley Sportster 883 with a rating of 19.2. 

   

          In other news, I made another batch of Tomos/Polini/Daelim type intakes and tree'd them up. As I'm writing this, the wax is being cooked out of the mold in my oven. Probably this week I'll cast the mold and see if things are improving. I altered my mold design based on some suggestions from fellow engine nerd / metal caster Graham. Elsewhere, I used a bore bar to enlarge the small end on my Vespa PK crankshaft to fit the new piston for my smallframe racer. I originally bought a 20mm reamer to do this, but after setting everything up, the Adamantium or whatever the con-rod is made of actually dulled the blades on the reamer. The new piston is about 8mm wider than the old one, and should produce a big improvement in capacity.

Quick Update: 2/19/10

Lots going on, no time right now, GO:

PK Crank + Bore Bar = win! 

Original Piaggio Si shock, meet Paoli hotness:

Engine I'm obsessed with and can find almost no info on:

 

That's called progress

-but not quite there yet. I cast another mold yesterday, this time applying my library gained knowledge of last month. The results were definitely better than the last time, but not quite there yet. Specifically, I used a smaller, narrower crucible filled with all the same alloy of aluminum (6061) and cast it at a lower temperature, with minimal stirring. All of these things were done to reduce the amount of gas being absorbed by the metal. Looking at the results, it appears as if it was cast at too low a temperature (1250F). It also appears that some residual wax in the mold created gas pockets that couldn't escape.  So I still need to improve the mold design for flow, and pour it just a smidge hotter. 


    In scene drama news, I got some poetically simple bumpers stickers in the mail from Dave of the Elm City Scooter Club. Thanks Dave. As many of you already know, there are too many scooters out there, and the vast, vast bulk of them are dumb plastic ones. This is a piece of common ground between mopeders and vintage scooterists, and an especially big bummer for the vintage scooter scene; who are constantly assailed by pithy pleas for acceptance and validation by humorless modern plastic riders. Elm City slices to the core of these matters, usually in less than four words. Here's to you Elm City, for calling a spade a spade in these lackluster, apologetic times.

Also, expect some development in the next few days on the Racer/ Long Term project front. 

....... ......... .....WHAAAT??!!

I apologize for the lack of original content, but as a MotoGP fan and scooterist, this is earth-shaking news:

Lambretta returns to MotoGP

Lambretta!!  I don't know if they'll stand a snowballs chance against the big guns of Honda and Aprilia, but I know who I 'll be cheering for in 125cc.

 

Holy Shit. Seriously. 

Deluxe Field Trip

        In this week's episode, I took a trip to Responsible Jon's Deluxe Powder Coating operation in Georgetown to see the magic first hand. Owner, Proprietor, Powdersmith Phil walked me around the shop. Having painted some bikes in the past with automotive paint, spray gun, clear coat etc.. I was very impressed with the quality of finish the powder coating could render, and the relative speed of the process itself. Phil was shooting some small compost bins, to make them machine washable. He also had earlier coated a bicycle frame a lovely satin black. After observing the coating operation on the compost bin from bare metal to a textured copper vein, and general BSing, we went and grabbed some lunch across the street at Matt's Famous Chili Dogs. I had a Chicago style brat -which was exquisite! Exquisite enough where I took a bite before remembering to take a picture first. Whoops. Josh hungry.

        If you didn't get so see Tony's Rigid Puch frame, I can say that RJ's Deluxe Powder Coating does some fantastic work. The spray booth is huge and the oven is huge enough to accommodate any moped frame or part, any bicycle frame, fixie or whatevs, probably a Lambretta frame, probably many motorcycle frames as well, definitely capable of any gas tank, rim, fender, etc.. etc... You get the idea.

As always I ended up taking pictures with the crappy phone camera, because my vintage 1995 digi-cam was out of batteries -I mean diesel fuel. My apologies, obviously.

You gotta Fight, for your Right-

    -for Paaaaarrrrrrrrrking! Josh Jones has wisely, boldly posted on the 'Ideas for Seattle' board of Mayor McGinn's webnet thingy to help legalize parking mopeds on the sidewalk. The board is a popularity contest for any issue anyone wants to put before the mayor, with topics ranging from "sustainability"? to bringing in another NBA team. As it stands, mopeders and scooterists are the frequent target of parking enforcement officers and police, who are often very under-informed about the law regarding our beloved vehicles. Because of this, a regular amount of harassment on the part of Johnny Law is expected from Mopeders and Scooterists. Having gone through this process before in Columbus, I personally believe the law should include all bikes under a certain capacity or size/weight restriction; if for no other reason than to gain the support of the much larger groups of scooters riders in Seattle.

    Some believe that the community is better of not calling attention to itself, living within the blissful ignorance of the cops and meter maids out there. I certainly understand that position, but I feel that as the number of riders in the city increases, we must either get involved in the political process, or we will find ourselves legislated against, by some disaffected bureaucrat.

    Please take thirty seconds to vote for this, you can use your gmail, facebook or twitter logins to sign in:
http://www.ideasforseattle.org/forums/27772-general/suggestions/440752-to-make-it-legal-for-pedal-mopeds-to-park-in-the-s?ref=title

If this idea can be the status quo in Columbus & Sacramento, hopefully it will become law in Seattle and spark a nation-wide trend: Just like Grunge Rock!

OMG Bonerjamz!

    At some point last night, the Team Nerdspeed blog here hit 10,000 views. Woo!

    Yesterday was my first day working with the Exhibit Design Team at EMP/SFM. Our first project is the renovation of Sound Lab, a permanent exhibit that offers musical instruction.  Even though it's been maintained  since the opening of the museum,  many of the systems are banged up or have reached the end of their service life. The computers in there are running Windows 98, for example. This project will require a lot of original fabrication and design, so I've been assigned to assist in the fabrication and design of the new components. EMP/SFM has two separate and well-equipped workshops, a wood shop and a metal shop -which is where I'll be spending my time mostly during this project.

A thousand apologies for these crappy pictures. Bonerfail!