LCGB Forums

Thanks Martin, I'd missed Adam's link. That pipe looks amazing....

I think thats whats even more incredible. Such a highly tuned engine pulling 11K rpm in top with a cheapo Indian iron barrell. Personally dont think theres enough R&D on expensive ali kits before theyre released on sale. A £5-600 kit should be capable of many tens of thousands of miles without constant problems. Just goes to show what can be done with a std barrell, albeit modified..

He did a few runs, one of which was 132mph. Then the piston melted. It's not really comparable with road use. There aren't many lambretta kits that could run at 11,000 rpm for long.

No 2 stroke runs for many 10s of thousands of miles with no problems. TS1s changed the way Lambrettas were ridden to rallies forever-fact

there's probably not that many standard TS1's on the road that haven't had something tweaked or changed from an off the shelf kit... For every ten sold probably only one gets fitted as it is, without altering anything at all...... But I think Al is right TS kits changed most peoples chances of getting to a rally on a lambretta, reliably & quick...

The TS1 kit was half of what revolutionised Lambretta touring. The AF Electronic was just as important, if not more so.

I was once overtaken by a Flywheel, It was a genuine old style Motoplat Flywheel and belonged to my mate Danny and It was doing about 50mph past me on Higher road... His scooter was now stopped, a bit of a coincedence and missing a flywheel cowling as well. This was before AF brought out the TS barrels, and long before AF lightened flywheels.
Suzuki 205 and an LI crank, not a good combination.

A std iron barrelled engine, looked after will do exactly that. My fathers Li 150 is testament to that.
All these kits do is cause confusion about carbs/jetting/exhausts/gearing and constant fettling to keep them going.
Fair enough, if a kit was supplied with the correct crank/carb/gearing and exhaust and was tried and tested over 000's of miles (like Tinos engines are) to ensure reliability thats a different matter but instead its down to the customer for R&D and with a headache thrown in for good measure over what combination of the above to use. A look through this very forum will show what problems are encountered...

Hi there , re the ts1 kit or rb from af's think you will find a great deal of jetting , carburation, exhaust , gearing details on there website, and they send a spec sheet out with every kit they sell , even for the newish RB kits, which whether you believe it or not do put a lot of R+D into them before release. You just need to look at the majority of rally going lambrettas to see a lot use these kits to great success ie euro rally to Sweden, isle of elba etc. No way calling the cast iron brigade as have one myself
Regards Baz.

If you did a kit of crank/carb/gearing/exhaust/cylinder you might sell a few but scooterists are, in my experience, tight and will try to cut corners to save money. They also like to tinker.

As much as you try and offer a complete package there is still an element of having to check stuff due to casing differences.

The only way to offer a complete bulletproof package is to offer off the shelf engines or decent engine rebuilds. Even then you are at the mercy of people putting diesel in/running with a sandblasted tank/changing the ignition for the latest new thing/trying a different carb in search of more MPG etc etc.

Very true, will acknowlege your point there Ian