Rattler updates

[Kevin K]

What a day it's been. Last night I removed the cover for the drivetrain, and succumbed to the fact that I would need an impact driver to remove the variator.
I bought a pneumatic driver today, and removed the variator without any issue. Installed the 4.5g rollers and buttoned everything back up.
My first test run around the neighborhood revealed two things:
1) It was like night and day. The thing leaps off the line and stays right in the powerband and 2) I was going to need proper riding gear to fully evaluate.

I ran in the house and grabbed my helmet and my Aerostich Roadcrafter (by now the temps had dipped into the upper 50's).
Took her out for a cruise. Acceleration is fantastic and a run down a higher speed road revealed that she'll pull an indicated 53 and hold it. Bear in mind that it was very windy and the Roadcrafter isn't exactly aerodynamic. Picture a guy in a snowmobile suit trying to tuck in for minimum exposer.

I am happy with the acceleration but I am disappointed in the top end.
I am going to play with heavier rollers and find a happy compromise.
I also found out that the variator had been replaced with a more robust Malossi unit. I'm going to weigh the Malossi rollers to get a base to work with. (9/12/07--they weigh 7 grams each) I may also change the clutch spring (a lighter spring was installed along with the new variator).

Like I said, she pulls pretty hard off the line. At a red light, I canned it when the light turned green and reached an indicated 22 MPH when I crossed the intersection. This took about a second and a half. The pipe announces to the world that there's 70cc's of pissed off two stroke approaching. When I'm riding the thing I feel like a teenager that just TP'ed the entire neighborhood. Growing up is underrated anyway.

Stay tuned as there's more tweaking to be done.
-K

[thewheel]

There is a stiffer Malossi main spring in there. You need to get some stiffer smaller springs. Like these https://www.pmtuning.co.uk/Merchant2/me ... 5050BIGMAX

It is also possible to get weights in smaller than .5 gram increments to really find the sweet spot.

[Kevin K]

Thanks for the 411. I thought that the white spring (the one that's in the clutch now) was the lighter spring. I suppose it's probably still stiffer than the stock spring.

I think my next plan is to change out the secondary springs and maybe jump up to 5 or 5.5g rollers.

After that, I'm going to tackle that poor excuse for a headlight.

Rattlin' in the dark,
-K

[thewheel]

We have some halogen bulbs that will go straight in there. Someone else has it in there and it hasn't melted anything... yet.