Cruise at 60MPH on a 50?

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 4:55 pm

I'm wondering if anyone has gone beyond the variator and clutch mods to their transmission and done a gear upgrade on their Buddy 50. I know Weezol did it to his RH, but I'd like to know if someone's done it to their buddy and what parts they used.

JSharpPhoto · Post by **JSharpPhoto** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:17 pm

i wouldn't suggest it. there is a difference between making a 2stroke 50cc that will do 60 on a track, and building one that will cruise at 60 for long periods of time.

Vic · Post by **Vic** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:18 pm

edited because it did not answer the question.

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Fri Nov 19, 2010 5:41 pm

Sorry about my rant on the 50 vs. 125 thing.

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Sat Nov 20, 2010 12:05 am

i dont know what the gearing is in the genuines

but is cruisong at 60 mph on a moded hm engine possible

heck yeah is it fun heck yeah

have you done it

heck yes i have built a 60mph hm engine without upgears

now you will need to consider a few things if you want to hold those speeds

you can do it with a quailty sport kit and i dont mean that crap ass prima kit

you will need a pipe that gets up in the power band of the kit

and you realy should get a bigger carb

oh and you will want to upgrade your crank the stock hm cranks dont play well at much over 9000 for long periods of time

now from what i under stand you have to be carefull with your gear choice as not all the gears that work with staderd hm engines will work with the pgo hm enigne

you should shoot for the 11.00 final drive ratio
here are the zuma ratios and what you net to give you an idea of how to figure your ratio

as for parts i would recomend the top performance trophy kit second woult be the athena single ring kit if you go with a bigger carb and dont ride a lot of miles the sigle ring al kits need rebuilding after about 1500 miles some guys get more

i like the stage 6 varatior it has good ramp angles and comes with a good contra spring for the trophy kit

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 3:21 am

Thanks for the info. Sounds like I'll have to shoot for something a little milder than 60. I've got the Prima kit in there now with the Prima pipe and 26 mm keihin carb. I also put in 6 g sliders, the 100 rpm comp spring and 1500 rpm clutch springs. All that in there and the top speed hSn't moved much. I get there Hellas fast, but just run out of power at the end of the gears. Any clue as to which gear kits play nice?

trackpete · Post by **trackpete** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 6:16 pm

Not a specific answer to the question, but be aware in my experience on my Rattler 110 with long distance cruising, I found myself glazing the stock rollers inside of a thousand miles of high RPM/load cruising and my belts were showing signs of separation typically within two (though it all held together for much longer, I lost tons of power/comfort/etc.).

So whatever you end up going with, depending on how long/often you ride, get tons of spares.

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:24 pm

DC to Alaska... Wow! That's a long ride. I'd expect a few more issue with parts (the human ones mainly) going bad on a ride like that.

For the curious, I checked the Ligero 50 service manual and the stock gearing for the buddy 50 (if they're exactly the same) is 4.00 x 3.38. More like the '08 zuma that the older one.

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Mon Nov 29, 2010 6:56 pm

FYI - if anyone is following this...

Drew fron Scooterworks let me know that there currently isn't an upgear available for the Buddy that will work without machining. Hopefully something will come along for all of us 50 owners that don't feel like switching to a 125.

Post by **ericalm** » Mon Nov 29, 2010 7:09 pm

trackpete wrote:Not a specific answer to the question, but be aware in my experience on my Rattler 110 with long distance cruising, I found myself glazing the stock rollers inside of a thousand miles of high RPM/load cruising and my belts were showing signs of separation typically within two (though it all held together for much longer, I lost tons of power/comfort/etc.).

So whatever you end up going with, depending on how long/often you ride, get tons of spares.

+1 Any time you push or exceed the boundaries of the type of riding a scooter was originally engineered to perform, at the very least you'll be going through the consumables much faster.

This is one reason people will complain about modifications and say they reduce reliability. If you're using good parts, properly installed, you'll have to accelerate your maintenance schedule to reflect this type of riding and maintain reliability. Otherwise, you're throwing money away.

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Tue Nov 30, 2010 12:31 am

paikkylee wrote:FYI - if anyone is following this...

Drew fron Scooterworks let me know that there currently isn't an upgear available for the Buddy that will work without machining. Hopefully something will come along for all of us 50 owners that don't feel like switching to a 125.

well your not going to find it from scooter works you will have to try the euro sites for pgo scoots

i personaly like scooter attack out of germany
you might be able to get some parts listed for the pgo from scooter craft they are now located in the us after having been in canada
or you could even try sip parts

but again you will have to look up pgo parts

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Tue Nov 30, 2010 2:58 pm

The ship has sailed for me on making a mod vs. reliability decision. She's pretty much modded for good now. I don't really ride far or many miles, so it's not a huge concern if I only get a couple thousand miles off a particular part. It's been fun learning about how it works and a lot less expensive and easier to work on than a car

jasondavis48108 · Post by **jasondavis48108** » Wed Dec 01, 2010 12:17 pm

paikkylee wrote:It's been fun learning about how it works and a lot less expensive and easier to work on than a car

I think that this is the whole point right here. Modding these little 2T air cooled 50s is fun and relatively easy. If you enjoy tinkering on stuff then I figure any investment in parts or trade off in how long particular parts may last is totally worth it.

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 12:48 am

the real fun begins when you take them from air cooled to liquid cooled

when i finsh my conversion with the crank gears and better kit then i have right now im aiaming for 70 mph on my zuma on the flats

heck i managed to eak a true 50mph out of 50ccs with out gears just a pipe varaitor and ported stock bore so i dont see why 70 out of a 70cc isnt out of reason

jasondavis48108 · Post by **jasondavis48108** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 1:08 pm

jmkjr72 wrote:the real fun begins when you take them from air cooled to liquid cooled

when i finsh my conversion with the crank gears and better kit then i have right now im aiaming for 70 mph on my zuma on the flats

heck i managed to eak a true 50mph out of 50ccs with out gears just a pipe varaitor and ported stock bore so i dont see why 70 out of a 70cc isnt out of reason

This sounds very interesting and at the same time insanely difficult and expensive, hmm...

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Sat Dec 04, 2010 4:58 pm

actauly i havent found much dificult as the hm engines comes as either a/c or l/c so the parts are there

the hard parts are figureing out where to mount the rad
for my zuma it will be behind the front tire with a screen to prevent rocks from hitting it

then there are some oddites that you have to over come
some of the a/c cases are a bit wider then the l/c cases so you have to trim the water pump down just a little bit to get things to work just right

now i have bought more parts then i needed that way if i mess something up i can get right back at it i probaly have about 800 in used parts layaing around for this conversion

you could proably do it for around 1500 with new parts if you keep a mild kit

but my goal is 70mph all day long

with some sort of relabilty i will still be running a cast iron 2 ring kit autolube

but the big advatage to lc is you dont have to be on the rich side of your jetting as your not cooling with your fuel so you can run leaner and you can run a bit more compresion before you need race gas

after a sason of running down parts and mocking things up come spring i should have a running lc zuma that will be running 60 mph then i have to get the gears in there

get it all set up then out will go the testing polini kit and in will go a top performance kit

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 1:51 pm

It's really too bad that PGO changed just enough of the engine configs on the Buddy to make this kind of thing really difficult. Expensive, yes, but fun if you like to mess around with engines and stuff.

Sounds like a great project. Share some pics when you get going. Esp on where you mount the cooler.

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 6:56 pm

water pump and leo vince zx on scoot

rad location

just awating the hoses

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Tue Dec 07, 2010 8:29 pm

Looks like a nice fit and a fun project.

jasondavis48108 · Post by **jasondavis48108** » Wed Dec 08, 2010 12:15 pm

that's one hell of a project jmkjr. I know I'm not at that level mechanically yet. I'm gonna stick a new cylinder on this spring and if all goes well when I blow that up then I may attempt something like this, but I definitely need more modding experience first

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 3:45 am

paikkylee wrote:FYI - if anyone is following this...

Drew fron Scooterworks let me know that there currently isn't an upgear available for the Buddy that will work without machining. Hopefully something will come along for all of us 50 owners that don't feel like switching to a 125.

I've been researching this. I found this PGO parts list that offers some suitable long gears part numbers. This is a pretty valuable list of other tuning parts for the PGO 50cc engine as well...

http://www.scootershack.co.uk/general-t ... t7533.html

viney266 · Post by **viney266** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:40 am

We had 70CC of Tomos moped going 72MPH...It was terrifing with the lack of suspension and brakes

The Scooters are MUCH better suited to it, the suspension actually exists and the stop a good deal better, even stock

That being said. The trick to the 70 kits with a good pipe is KEEPING them "on the pipe"...If you can gear them right they will scream, and yes you will eat some parts, but its fun and waaaaaayyyy cheaper than building up anything else (cars motorcycles) like that...

Looks like there a few guys on here willing to dig into the parts.

I agree with the second post...Doing 60 is one thing, maintaining it is tough...You loose speed crawling up a hill and get out of the powerband and you are done for a while...Also, rider weight does play a part. If you are 250 like me, its FAR harder than if you are 140 lbs ( my racing buddy)

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 2:50 am

Yep I think 60 all day long is a bit of wishful thinking with my 70cc. It'll be fun seeing where the wall is though. Don't think I'll go as far as LC with it but maybe someday.

I'd like to get it to cruise at 50 with enough reserve to pass or climb then call it a done deal.

Then I'll start over again and stuff this new 150cc GY6 I have purchased in there. I think the 150cc conversion will be alot easier to be honest....

Going back and forth between power units will be cool.

I wonder if I have voided my warranty yet?...

jmkjr72 · Post by **jmkjr72** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 7:52 pm

warranty whats a warranty

as my zuma sits with out a gear ratio chagne it runs 55 all day long and hits 60 but i am also limiting the revs to 10,000 rpm becase i have 15,000 miles on the oem crank and bearings

as she sits i am running a lc polini corsa lit leo zx pipe stage 6 varatior and drive face and a 28 mm thorttle body and only one injector on the 2 injector fi set up (second injector kicks in at 10,000 rpm so in conjunction with the pipe and only running one injector it does a pretty good job as the power drops off after 10,000 rpm but i have hit 13,000 rpm for some short stints)

paikkylee · Post by **paikkylee** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:56 am

jmkjr72 wrote:warranty whats a warranty

as my zuma sits with out a gear ratio chagne it runs 55 all day long and hits 60 but i am also limiting the revs to 10,000 rpm becase i have 15,000 miles on the oem crank and bearings

That's awesome. Could you do that before the fi conversion, or do you think it makes a big performance difference? I'm toying with the idea of getting another 50 to mess with. Is the Zuma the way to go?

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:51 pm

jmkjr72 wrote:warranty whats a warranty

as my zuma sits with out a gear ratio chagne it runs 55 all day long and hits 60 but i am also limiting the revs to 10,000 rpm becase i have 15,000 miles on the oem crank and bearings

as she sits i am running a lc polini corsa lit leo zx pipe stage 6 varatior and drive face and a 28 mm thorttle body and only one injector on the 2 injector fi set up (second injector kicks in at 10,000 rpm so in conjunction with the pipe and only running one injector it does a pretty good job as the power drops off after 10,000 rpm but i have hit 13,000 rpm for some short stints)

I've been following your posts on other forums. Fuel mileage was one of your major concerns. Last I heard 36MPG was with your last carb and 42 was with the FI installed.

You then needed a cable for programming. Did you get the cable and how much fuel mileage are you getting now? Is sounds different than a carbed scoot, where if you can cruise 55 mph all day long it takea no time to get to 60mph, therefore making the top speed much higher than 60....maybe 65mph?