MOPED ARMY

Haha ya the bike will come together quickly, it suppose to be pure winter project, but I am like a kid when it comes to this shit haha. I can't wait lol!

Yes ceramic going in front hub, and every bearing in engine cases and final drive will be ceramics.

I'm also talking with to my engine coaters at Line 2 line about coating the final drive gears so I can run them dry, or with very little lube. Looking to cut as much friction and parasitic losses as possible put of this engine. So much power is absorbed in the final drive (edited)

Is acceleration or top speed your biggest concern in these drag races?

Yeah......local dude who is a stella builder experimented with ceramics.

I would not do it. Yes, motos use them. But those engines are built within a very tight tolerance spec. Its not for benchtop builds unless you like asplodin

Unfortunately they don't start racing until 8 years old in the mini gp, but we have a perfect spot for a training course for me to teach him on until then

Interesting, I don't know much about the ceramic bearing stuff, most research I've seen puts all engine friction around 5-10% of total losses in an engine, that's for a four stroke. Most of the friction in a 2t is from the rings, and those numbers would change because a 2t is less heat efficient. So rough numbers maybe .01% increase in engine output from swapping to ceramic bearings? Either way it looks like this will be a very high standard build, excited to see the progress, not really a Moped but you're pretty in a good place to get some info about TUNING single speed 2t, not a lot of folks PUSHING that envelope and it presents some interesting challenges for sure

- EDITED FOR BAD MIDNIGHT AUTOCORRECT POSTING (edited)

Just for the record, so there is no confusion, I'm no amateur engine builder, been building 2 stroke flat track engines since I was a teen ager, been a motorcycle mechanic as profession for 12 years, built my drag bike from the ground up in my backyard shop, ai have plenty of expiernece in this field. This is such a simple motor, already tripled the factory horsepower with minor tweaks and adjustments, looking forward to building it to be the best it can be. For the ring friction, I do have a solution for. Once the thermal barriers and skirt coatings are applied to the piston, I will send it it Micro blue racing to have the cylinder walls rings, piston ring lands, pin and bearing all micro blue coating. It's a friction reducing coating, tungsten disulfide that is applied to walls and metal to metal surfaces, retain oils and has a fraction coefficient of. 001%. This helps with keep everything oiled and prevents seizing while reducing friction. All these things I am doing have been treated vigorously with my racing bikes, should be a super fun project and I'll get to teach my little man so much through the process.

yeah thats pretty cool stuff. i've worked with TiN and DLC coatings at work on a few engine components where it gets used something like 'super duper case hardening' just giving the components a little more case hardness and in the case of the wrist pins slightly better performance in mixed-mode friction.

There is a lot of stuff on the market that gets sold with some pretty spectacular claims, when i've worked with it in the past its been in a specific application where it was more cost effective than a redesign or not possible to use conventional stuff... but that was OEM production so super cost sensitive.

i guess its probably a good option to use some coating on the cast iron, but most moped folks go to a nikasil kit for high performance stuff, along with a 1.5mm single ring instead of the double heavy cast iron rings in the malossi. Also the single ring weighs less and seals up better at high rpm so you got that going for you.

what is the class you guys are running? how far is the distance? i didn't even realize there was such a thing as junior motorcycle drag racing, probably a lot of moped tech that could apply. they sprint race these things in europe, guys like OVC and PSR have youtube vids of some scary fast straight line mopeds.

I think the malossi will serve as a good power increase for him while he is small enough for the pw. If he gets real serious about it, we will probably buy a cobra dirtbike and convert it to a supermoto.

I have looking into changing rods to get the 12mm pin, then absolutely options open up so much! I think 20hp on a pw would be way to much lol

Lol! Yea she knew what she signed up for when she married me, I was surprised how well she took to him picking up riding so young, but she's let us boys have our fun haha

I'll get the information about the local class, so here is the deal with jr drag racing. The NHRA use to allow it and it was part of their sanctioned events. About 12-15 years ago, NHRA determined it was "unsafe" to race in the most safe environment possible in motorcycle racing, and banned it from all NHRA sanctioned tracks. Total BS, and many of us parents have been fighting it. Some for many years. So what we are stuck with now is local non sanctioned tracks that will allow it with a signed waiver. Its bracket racing, so really doesn't matter how fast it is, more that its consistent, but we both want it fast lol. Ivw been working on building a local league and been talking with the local tracks as I attend them and most wre totally for it, just tskea getting a group of parents together, finding a track and starting something up. Most tracks already host JR drag car racing so it can easily be piggy backed with their events. Here some pics of jr bikes from the NHRA days

Yea man it's the Texas Minigp, they race about 45 minutes from where I live, I cant wait until hea old enough to join, starts at 8 years old. It's like a riding school for kids + racing

Cool stuff! A couple thoughts, if you want 'em - depending on exactly how you want the engine to make power, a stuffed case may not be needed, and may be detrimental for power band (I think the guys that developed the Aprilia RSA125 ended up running pretty large crankcase volume because it made wider power?). And compression ratio/compression readings don't matter a ton when you're going for top power, because the pipe can stuff plenty of air in for it not to matter a ton.

My 50cc Peugeot has a pretty low compression ratio and large crankcase volume, and makes zero power below 8000rpm, but it makes a ton of power from 9k to 13k (13hp or so if I had to guess? Does over 65mph and accelerates quite well, pulls 5% grades at over 50mph. Gotta get it on a Dyno someday). I have the luxury of a well-tuned clutch and variator, so I can get away with a narrow powerband with low compression and hard-hitting pipe. That low compression is a bit easier on the motor too, I run very very low head temps even when ripping at top speed and climbing long hills. I almost don't trust my gauge because even after climbing up a 500' hill at 10% grade doing 30+mph, it says I usually hit about 140F. But I can easily keep my hand on the radiator, so who knows?

Things obviously change for single-speed applications, but you need tons of power for drag racing regardless, and with a centrifugal clutch, your launch phase (while clutch is slipping) is determined by the torque you make at the clutch slip speed. F=m*a, P=F*v, so at any particular speed, more power (to the wheel) gives more acceleration - which sounds obvious, but it means if you can downgear to let the engine rev higher and get into the powerband (especially after the clutch slip phase), you will often have more power available to you (even if there's less torque!). For instance, if you shift the powerband up a good amount to make more power, and sacrifice some torque to do so (let's say 10% less torque, but 20% more power), you can change the gearing by maybe 20% as a result. So the net impact is better performance all around, even when the clutch is slipping (roughly 10% better acceleration even with less torque).

My real 2 cents, it you're taking this much time and effort with this, it would be well worth it to get some good simulation software like EngMod2T. Costs less than your bearings, and has the chance to make a much bigger impact! 50% improvement on 99% efficient bearings only gets you to 99.5% efficiency, so a 0.5% overall improvement (even if you have a noticeable improvement in revvability). You can easily find several percent with better porting and pipe than what you get off the shelf.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project! Good luck!

Sweet!!