Very nice weather lately, been riding a lot. I can ride the StradaVariator in traffic at speeds up to 60 mph with ease now... not pushing it near as hard as I used to. Hopefully gas mileage will improve, though with the bigger jet, that remains to be seen. I didn't get a new pilot jet to put in the carb, so ended up with the mixture screw right at 3 1/2 turns out and raised the needle a bit for a good idle on warmup and smooth transition from low to high rpms. It works, and at that setting the mixture screw's not loose like it was at 4+ turns out.
Even though it's colder weather, as I've gotten the power up, the CVT has been hotter and hotter. So, instead of a screen on the end of the rubber air inlet to the CVT(with the insert removed from the snorkel), I took the whole darn rubber hose thing off the CVT and left it off. I just have a screen over the end of the CVT housing now, and it's been warm, but not hot to the touch now in 50 degree weather.... a big improvement, as the CVT was getting hot and I could sometimes smell it a bit at the end of a ride.

I put in wheel balancing beads I ordered from Innovative Balancing, and they really work well. I removed the stick on weights I had on the fromt wheel. I ran a palm sander with the rubber pad against the tube I put the beads into the valve stem with while pouring them in. Kept em going in real consistently with no clogs, even though it's a 90 degree valve stem on each tire. Much smoother ride now at all speeds. The back tire no longer starts vibrating when running at around 5000 rpm on the center stand. I never felt anything ominous from the back wheel on the road, but the fact that it quit doing that while running it on the stand has to make for a better ride too.

There's been some warm weather here over the last week, and I've been riding the Stradavariator almost every day it hasn't rained(and one day in between the drops!) :o) Haven't had it out of town, but did some hard stretches running an errand a few miles away in the Burbs, and came back and did a plug read. Brown, very very brown! It was in the upper 40s that day so I was confident that I could lean it out some, and got out the drill. Drilled a half dozen 5/16" holes in the back plate of the muffler around the exhaust outlet, but inside the chrome piece that surrounds it. At that point I already had 21 5/16" holes(from drilling holes when I put the new jet in) in the front side of the air cleaner cover where cooler air(than what's coming from the engine compartment) comes in by the seat hinge. I went nutz with the drill again, and now have 37 holes up there. I also checked and adjusted the valve lash.... it was .006" and I adjusted them to .004", which is right in the middle of the recommendation I found in a very good GY6 manual for ATVs.
I've ridden it flat out several times since, and when I can get out of traffic it'll do right at 65 (64.9 GPSed), but it seems like that's all. Maybe if I was out of town and had a level flat mile or more to open it up, it'd do a bit more, but why? Once there, it holds 62 easily enough(around 75% throttle) that it feels like there's a bunch more, but it starts running out of stuff fast at about an actual 64mph(70 speedo). To get 65 takes hunkering down behind the windshield. Haven't done an acceleration test, but it seems a little bit slower off the line now that it it's breathing better, but really comes to life after a stop about halfway across an intersection. I think without spending a whole bunch more $$$, I've hit the ceiling of what it'll do, as far as top speed is concerned, and to get much more, reliability would take a real big hit.

The parts arrived Saturday from PartsFor Scooters, so yesterday I worked on making the carb fit without hitting the frame using the PowerSortsFactory manifold. Had to grind a bit off of the very bottom of a frame crossmember, no problem, got the carb to fit fine. Then once I got the carb to fit with the bottom part of the frame crossmember, I realized there was no way in hell I was going to get an air cleaner hose or fitting to work with the top part of the crossmember dead center an inch in front the carb throat. Oh well forget that. I'll keep the $29.95 manifold. Sooner or later either I or someone I know will end up with something it fits on.

Once I got it off the scoot, the original manifold doesn't really look as cheap and weak as I believed it would be from reading other posts about the OEM manifolds. Since its all aluminum with the outside rubber coating molded to the rubber flange that goes around the carb throat, it doesn't seem all that fragile. Since I'm retaining the "J" shaped hose going to the stock airbox, that hose helps support the carb, especially since I added reinforcement to it. The stock manifold was a bit rough inside, so I polished it with a dremel and opened it up some where it bolts on the engine since the intake on the engine was bigger than the opening in the manifold. I also opened up the hole in the spacer between manifold and engine. The main jet in the scoot wasn't marked, but it was a 1.14 or 1.15 mm jet. The jet I bought was a 1.14, so I kept it and drilled out the original to 1.25 mm. Seems to run OK, but it rained all day so I haven't takien it out. I set the fuel mixture screw to 2 3/4 turns out, and will see how that works when the rain stops. I swiss cheesed the whole front side of the top half of my air cleaner box with 5/16" holes.

I just got done ordering a PFS intake manifold and main jets for both the StradaVariator and Linda's Matrex. What was going to wait til spring got moved up a bit when someone on the ScootDawg forum said that what I'm aiming to accomplish with my Strada is only possible by spending around $700 on bolt-ons. That's kinda like a triple dog dare to an old engine tuner like me. Having always had more time than money, I've learned to achieve through tuning, fabricating parts, modifying stock parts, and carefully choosing a few low cost parts that help tie all the other mods together, what others do by spending $$$ at the toy store. After rejetting, I should be able to make more changes to intake and exhaust that'll bring the top speed up to an actual 65 mph, and cruising speed to 60.

The StradaVariator has had a shake in the front wheel between 43-48 mph since I've had it. It's a slight persistent shake if I have to cruise at those speeds, and a definite annoying shake when decelerating. I finally decided to balance the front wheel. I took off the caliper and tied it out of the way and spun the wheel a number of times with the scoot on the centerstand, noting where it stopped each time. I found that 60% of the time it was stopping with the tire valve at the bottom. I experimented with stick on weights on the opposite side of the wheel from the valve. I varied the position of the weight(s), going on short test rides and making changes in between. I finally got the shaking minimized with about 3/4 ounce of weight split between the left and right sides of the rim. It still shakes some on decel, and I feel it occasionally when cruising, but it's a lot better than it was.
It has been feeling like the scoot is running better all the time, and while testing the tire balance, I also did a high speed run with the GPS and found I could hit 62.2 mph. I thought it had picked up a couple mph because recently it has been able to easily hit an indicated 65-66 (60 mph GPS) anytime I have enough open road to open it up. I still haven't rejetted, so maybe there's a chance I can get it up to 65 mph yet.

I finally installed the electrical parts I got about three weeks ago. A Bando high performance coil, a YTZ10S 8.5 amp AGM battery, the same dimensions as the original 6 amp battery, and some LED lights. A white 24 LED brake light bulb, a 6 LED license plate bulb, and two High Power Super Blue LEDs for the front running lamps in the headlight housing. I can't tell that the high perofrmance coil has any measurable effect on performance. It seems like it may pull a bit stronger on mid range acceleration. The biggest benefit of these things together will be a more efficient electrical system and more positive cold starts for winter-time riding.

Looked like this may be the last 70 degree day of the year, so I decided to ride to Heeter's, a scoot shop in North Manchester that's been there since 1977. Most of the route to Heeters was straight west down IN 14, with a WSW wind of 20mph gusting to 30. Beautiful day except for the wind. I planned to bring a camera to capture the fall colors. The route to North Manchester has losts of wooded areas and gently rolling hills. The trees here in Ft Wayne are in full color so I thought I could get some good pics. Well, I forgot the camera, and once I got out of the city, I found the higher winds and colder nighttime temps out in the countryside had pretty well defoliated most of the trees anyhow. Oh Well.

Going there I got the worst gas mileage I've ever recorded so far on my Strada- 58mpg. With about 80% of WOT I was able to run an actual 52-54mph on level sections of road. Most uphills I was able to hold 50 mph at WOT. A couple of the longer ones slowed me down to 48-49 by the time I hit the top of the hill. I hit close to 60mph a couple times going downhill on the way there, but I sort of let the engine rest downhills since I was bucking a lot of wind. The wind was somewhat aginst me going there besides being a hell of a crosswind. It seems easier to run straight into a wind than to ride with a consistently high crosswind. I didn't think about getting to the far side of the road once when meeting a tractor trailer and about got blown right across my lane when it went by. That was the first one I met on the trip... usually they're not that much of a problem, but combined with the wind, I decided to get way to the right side of my lane for the other 5 or 6 semi's that I met on the road west.

This was the first road trip I've taken where the GPS really proved useful in letting me know just where I was. All the IN ST Hiways on the trip showed up on the built in map. I really couldn't have read the hiway numbers on the GPS while going down the road... but since I've lived in this part of the country most of my life, every time I crossed one, I remembered what the next one was going to be.

Once I got there, I was the only customer in the store, so I spent about an hour looking at scooter stuff.... saddlebags, trunks, riding duds, lots of two stroke speed goodies, and of course the scoots. They sell Kymcos, Daelims, Hyosungs, and Ventos, as well as Tomos mopeds. I ended up buying a smallish trunk for $55 to put on my wife's Manco. That'll give her about the same carrying capacity as I have on mine. Her underseat storage will hold a full face helmet, mine only a half helmet. My trunk is large enough that the trunk for her scoot fit inside of it. I also picked up some fogfree OTG(over the glasses) goggles and a fogfree(I hope) flip shield for my open faced full size helmet, for when it gets too cold for goggles and the half helmet. Those items went inside the trunk I got for my wife.

The crosswinds were a bit higher on the way home, but at least the wind was slightly in my favor, so I didn't have to hold the throttle more than 3/4 open, except for uphills which were less of a problem than they were going west. All the bikers I met going either way gave me a wave, and the cagers (with only one exception) stayed a reasonable ways behind me unless they decided to make a pass. It was a pretty nice (probably)last long ride for the year in spite of the wind. The GPS said I hit 62.5 mph, had to be on a downhill, with the hellacious crosswind. I was really glad I wore a windbreaker on the way home, because it clouded up and the temp dropped about 5 degrees from the afternoon high of 71. Got home, put the scoot in the garage, showed the wife her new trunk when she got home (about 10 min after I did), fired up the grill, and barbecued some St Louis Ribs. Life is good!

I did some work on the exhaust today and then went out and did two WOT runs for an average of 66 mph according to the speedo or 60.4 mph GPS. In the past, I went out of town over 8 miles away to get to an open stretch of road for top speed runs. This time, I just took the scoot out onto "the bypass" (which hasn't bypassed anything in 30 years) about a half mile from home. Beat my previous best two way run on a much shorter section of road. The piece of road I was on today is a long curve, and I had a run of just over 1.3 mi. with a stop light in the middle that I had to time right to get up to "top speed".

Before my run today I took off the header pipe and used a little grinder on both ends of the pipe, taking off welding beads and jagged edges/rough seams inside the pipe as far as I could reach with the dremel. Then I put a fine sanding drum on the dremel and smoothed out all the scratches and "polished" the inside of both ends as far as I could see and reach. the last thing I did to the exhaust was to cut the 90 degree bend of the exhaust end of the muffler. Then I drilled a few more holes in the airbox, and opened up the somewhat flattened bends in the hose from air box to carb by reinforcing it with radiator hose clamps. Since I haven't rejetted the carb yet, those things required that I turn the fuel mixture screw ou a bit farther for a decent idle and throttle response. It's now so far out it's loose and I put some gasket goop on it to make sure it doesn't fall out!

I'm going to be putting a 'Hot' coil on the scoot for better wintertime starting, but would be very surprised if that affects my top speed any. Don't know when I'll get out to my stretch of open road for a real wide open top speed test. I'd rather scoot around in town and suburbia with temps in the 40s and 50s than trek out into the countryside.

The StradaVariator has a new garage mate and scootin buddy, a 2006 Manco Matrex. It's a black 49cc 4 stroke scooter. Ran about 35mph tops on the way home. Bought it on Ebay used for $450 from a kid who had tired of it over the summer and is ready for something different. I bought it for my wife. She used to have a Honda moped in the early 80's when we lived in the country. We sold it when we moved to the city, and she's missed it ever since. We'll be able to ride together to the coffee shop or some of the local restaurants, and there's a few back ways we can take out of town for rides on country roads. I'm pretty sure I can apply some of the things I've done to the Strada, to the Manco next spring, and get it to where it'll hold a speed of near 40. She won't be riding over the winter anyway, so there's no hurry.