I have come into possession of a good ol Urban Express. Came running and in one piece, is currently sat in many pieces around my garage for funzies.
I estimate I am about the 4th or 5th owner of this particular noped, as there appear to have been many "repairs" and slathered silicone in place of a $5 dollar gasket.
Sometime in it's life, someone either attempted to give it some juice or was simply simplifying it because the oil tank was removed and the fuel injection was disabled. Then, the owner that I procured it from said he had been running it for years... without premix. Seemingly unaware. And to my amazement, it WAS still working, kicked over the first friggin time.
So upon inspection the top end is... I cannot actually tell. The piston itself is scratched to high hell but the rings looks fine(?) and the inside of the cylinder feels kinda smooth(?), but who tf knows I can't get a picture worth a damn. How much are pistons supposed to wiggle inside the cylinder?
So I have some options ahead of me, and the foresight to know I don't know which path to take:
The bro in me wants to slap as much cool shit as possible on it; 70cc kit, mikuni carb, variator the variator out of that variator, fancy crank cause I'd rather it not explode, and get a custom-ish pipe made cause dammit I want me an expansion chamber but my autistic ass ears are having none of that 2 stroke nonsense. Then paint the shit out of it cause I saw Zixor's NU50, and, good god, that's sexy.
But also, blue anodized hardware isn't going to survive around me and my ghetto tools, you can't have just one of those things cause 70cc's requires this and that, powder coating requires going to that one powder coating shop down the street and there'll be a weird interaction about how I'm the guy that delivers their pizza pretty much every Friday at 12:30, and that's anxiety I don't need.
Then the sensible, forward thinking me know's that what I actually want is a dual sport or small ADV bike (310 gs just looks... mhmmmm), so shut up and just have some fun fixing the thing to then sell for a decent profit, which is what I have been doing so far. Don't go obsessive, put on a 50cc kit, and down-jet the carb cause some sources say the factory jet is too large. You've already got a challenge to clean the damn thing, cause dear god, it was made in 82 and hasn't been cleaned since. The gunk is so thick in some areas a shovel would be more efficient than the wipes you bought.
Then there's a small squirrel in my head wondering if the 60cc kit is a drastic step down in tuning requirements from the 70cc kit, because in that case I might be persuaded towards that if I don't need a new carb. Or, if it's just as much work and 70cc kit is better value for time spent tuning, in which case I'll stick with the 50cc.