MOPED ARMY

I had great luck with my Tomos. The Moped Army Survey said it was the most reliable.

Generally, people say you should know how to wrench your bike if you get the 70cc upgrade. On the other hand, you can see a lot of performance just by adding a bi-turbo.

I mean that a bike engineered and designed to be a 50cc machine will require more maintenence if you change it.

Brakes: Brakes will wear more quickly; They aren't designed to stop a machine doing 50,. They will stop you, but they'll wear more.

The 70cc upgrade will void your warranty. You can't bring it back and complain, so your options will be to repair it yourself or pay someone to do it.

You'll see more rattle and shake, so you'll have to watch for things that shake loose and put them back on when they do. Unless you have a good shop that knows mopeds, you may be out of luck.

I'm not sure that the repair manual for a moped will explain clearly to Joe Bike Mechanic what he'll need to do to adjust a bike with an upgrade.

Ree: Are there any Tomos repair manuals detailing what you need to do to fix/tune a 70cc upgrade?

I live in Maine. There aren't any shops I'd trust, so I need to know how to fix it if it goes bad. When I bought my moped, I considered the 70cc kit. The salesman asked if it were a "hobby" bike or a "main transportation" bike. He said I would have less trouble and it would be more reliable if I kept the engine intact. I had great results with the bi-turbo. When I have a second moped I will do an upgrade to 70 cc, but not until I have one that works as a backup.

I'll search the forum and see what past history there is about the 70cc. In the meantime, see what Ree thinks about the upgrade.

Some people have had no trouble w/70cc kit, others a ton of trouble. Wait until Ree explains the *confusing* engine designations of the Tomos moped. Imagine you're a shop mechanic that works on lawnmowers, or motorcycles and now you have to fix a bastard hybrid of a modified moped. Good luck!

On the bright side, there's nothing so bad you can't figure it out and fix it with the help of the Army-- a TON of knowledge here.

Remember, having a 70cc upgrade will make it a "motorcycle" not a "moped". If a cop was smart enough and was in a shitty mood, you could get ticketed for not having a valid motorcycle license. Luckily, the only cops that seem to know are the actual "Motorcycle cops" (C.H.i.P.S) hehe... and from past posts, they are amused by modified mopeds.

Ree: Have you ever had any trouble with an upgrade getting noticed by the cops?

Not that I know of, and a walkthrough on it is kinda hard to do, but someone fairly good with some experience can figure it out - it's amateurs that have difficulty.

My advice...IF you get the kit, is to see if the shop who is selling you the moped will install it for you, and warrant THAT work, since it voids the manufacturers warranty - if they'll put on the upgrade and warranty that work themselves - you should be ok.

If they don't wanna do that, get a 27 tooth front sprocket, kickstand/sidestand kit, Bi Turbo exhaust, and a slightly larger carb (15mm should do) - and it's the next best thing.

"A35" is is misnomer...there is no "A35" (tho there might be when I fix my transmission...depending)

As it were, Tomos had/has two engine designs.

A3 = hexagonal cylinder, slightly longer transmission, shorter stroke.

A5 = square cylinder, shorter transmission, longer stroke.

The "A35" comes from Tomos's original idea to mate the old cyl or trans to an upgrade A5 component, and although they printed the stickers, manuals..etc...they never actually BUILT any - going on to the A5 system entire in production.

So it's either A3 or A5.

Sprint, Targa, Colibri = A5 Engine

Bullet, Golden Bullet = A3 Engine

Simple...one would hope.

I might hand build an "A35" myself, but there's more to just putting the cylinder on, you have to change out the whole pistonarm assembly, and you do not wanna do that unless yer real good at this.

Yes, never ticketed, however..just bawled out, those cops knew* no moped should be pushin 50mph, no matter what I said, but they'd play hell proving it without impounding my moped, and the wrecker guy would have laughed them off if they asked him to tow a moped...so they let it go.

Remember, I can change out the whole kit in half an hour, heh.

Not only for the speed kit, they once tried to safety-flag the "frankenbike", and I lucked out on that for the same reason...having no muffler, lights run offa RC car battery, visible cylinder venting, and only one brake....I guess they had a point...good thing the rear wheel didn't come off again while they were in view of it.

-Ree