Modified variator Rollers..... By mapbike (Read 4,927 times)

[mapbike]

I took my cover off today and cleaned it all out very good and while I was at it I took the variator off and apart so I could clean it and weigh the stock rollers being that I am wanting to put the sliders in it in the near future, the rollers that came in my scooter are 16 grams I want to be able to run 55-60 mph without over reving the engine but at the same time I would like to have a little better take off, so..... I desided I would take 3 of the rollers and drill them out a little at a time until I could get them down to 14 grams, so to make a long story short I ended up drilling them out for the final time with an N size bit and each of the 3 are now 14 grams on the dot according to my scale, I took my scooter for a spin after putting it back together and it has a little more gitty up from a stand still and will do 60mph at about 7000 -7200 rpm by my tach I hit 65mph @ 8300 rpm's coming down a slight decline, so I have a combined weight now of 15 grams.

Does this sound like I would be good to go with a set of 14 gram sliders from scrappy......?

Seems that I would have a little more bottom end take off and still about the same rpm's at 60 mph with the 14 gram sliders based on the stuff I've read, so please chime in here and let me know if this sounds about right.

Thanks, Shan

[mapbike]

I'm gonna order one of the performance variators and one of those BANDO performance belts from scrappy, the variator that came on my scooter is junk, or the rollers are just junk, I'm not sure if it's a combination of the 2 that's bad or just one of them, all I know is that after my scotter get good and heated up after 5 or 6 miles I can stop at a light and then when I go to take off it moves out like a standard shift car or bike that is in 2nd or 3rd gear, very slow getting going, but if I hit a good bump while running 15-20mph sometimes the engine will rev up suddenly and it will go down to a lower ratio and then jump back to a sluggish gearing when I hit the gas, I thought messing with the rollers like I did might help with this problem but after taking my 30+ mile round trip to work today I can see that it did nothing for the problem, I want to be able to run 50-55 mph with good take off power and I thought the 14gram sliders might help me acheive that with a new and better variator.

I now have a little over 400 miles on the scoot and I noticed that the variator already has a grove worn in it by the belt approx. 1/2" from the top which may very well be causing the hanging up issue I'm having.

Shan

[mapbike]

I have the 842 20 30 belt on my scooter, and I may order the new variator with the 13 gram sliders and then if they are too light I can always order the 15 gram and either use them in total or mix & match and have the equivelant of 14's.

What do you think of that plan?

And thanks for the info. on the Kevlar belt being harder on the drive system, I will order the Gate Powerlink Belt instead.

When you say red line are you refurring to the scooters tach and shown red line of 8000rpm's? and if so what is the normally safest RPM on these engines to not trash them prematurely?

I normaly run about 7000-7300 rpm's when I'm making my trip into town on the highway which is about 3-4 miles of running at that rpm, is that reasonable or will this trash my engine pretty quick?

These particular engines & CVT drives are new to me, all the other motorcycles I've had in my life were typical standard shift set ups which keeps the revs down out on the road, I know these GY6 egines are high revers but like all engines I know they also have their limits and I wont to stay below that point as much as possible so it will last long enough to get my moneys worth out of it.... The whole wopping $807.00 delivered to my door....! LOL! Dang these things are inexpensive to buy just blows my mind, but I can tell they do need some upgrading in order to make them more reliable.

Thanks in advance, Shan

[mapbike]

Thank you Sir,

I ordered the Variator from Scappydog..... last night with the 13 gram sliders, I also ordered the gates Powerlink belt he offers in the 842 20 30 size.

Thanks for all your great advice, I'm sure as I move along with this scooter and develope it into what I want it to be I will have more questions and concerns.

Thanks again, Shan

[turtle8]

I gotta say, interesting thread. I don't come here much, but this one caught my eye. I don't mean to hijack this thread, I just wanted to comment/compare to my 150.

I have a 2009 Znen 150 7C. I put in 13g rollers. What came out was close to 16g with plenty of flat spots. What you guys are saying is 7,000 - 7,500 rpm is optimal high speed cruising. I rarely see 7,000rpm and have never seen 8,000 rpm. According to my Cateye bicycle computer my top speed is right around 55mph. I tried 11g rollers, but found the revs to high and annoying in everyday, 35mph riding.

-Michael

[turtle8]

Here is an old picture of my scooter. I don't have the trunk anymore because the scooter got knocked over. I now have a Staples crate instead. I replaced the stupid mirrors with bar-end mirrors. I also removed the decals.



The scooter has 13" wheels.

[turtle8]

yes when I had 11g it revved easily. I am sure I coulda hit 8,000 rpm but I didn't get to a 55mph road because I didn't have them in there long. I didn't like putting around town at 35mph with screaming 6,000 ish rpms. I didn't like the constant vibrations and racket. Besides, I could tell it was gonna reduce my top speed. So now I have 13g rollers and it is a nice compromise.

[turtle8]

Yup, that's what I meant. But, I also was wondering if I there was a way to raise the top end rpm to 7,500 and increase top speed to 60mph while keeping my around the town revs where they are now.

[zugzug]

There seems to be confusion about what the weights do. Your scoots top gearing is going to stay the same no matter what weights you put in it. The weights set the rpm range the motor runs in until you hit the top gearing by centrifical force of the variator. The only way the weights affect your top speed is if they are too light to make the variator reach the top gearing.

I have 14g sliders in the 150. This puts me in the 6200-6300 rpm range which is where the torque is on this scoot. It makes for decent accelleration and its not taxing the motor when Im just putting around in the 45mph and less zones. Then that leaves the full powerband for the upper speeds between 45-60.

[turtle8]

I understand what weights do, I simply wanted to know why is it many other 150 riders are seeing such high rpms at top speed. Or rather, why do their scooters must attain such a high rpm to get to 55mph when my scooter does not. I was wondering if I could get more performance out of my scooter because I have so much "head room", so to speak, leftover. My reasoning was that, as I have read on forums, that peak hp on the gy6 150cc engine was around 7,000-7,500 rpm.

The lighter weights I installed made for good acceleration but put the cruising rpms too high.

[turtle8]

I am pretty pleased with the way my scooter drives around town. I'd like a little more top speed for when I hit the country back roads. The 13g rollers give good acceleration and a good 45mph cruise in the city. I'll have to experiment with the other variables.

[mapbike]

others here are full of knowledge when it comes to these issues so I would like for you to explain this one please, as you know I had 16 gram rollers in my variator, it came stock that way, I took 3 of them and drilled material from the inside until each of the 3 weighed 14 grams, and with the combination of 3 16 gram & 3 14 gram rollers I had 15 gram total weight affect in the var. with this combination my scooter would turn roughly 7300-7500 or so.. @ 58 - 60 MPH and would hit 65 MPH on a slight decline @ 8200-8300 RPM's which I only did a couple of times knowing the redline was @8000 RPM's

Since then I have put one of scrappy's 115mm var. with 13 gram sliders in it, and a Gates powerlink belt 842-20-30, my acceleration from stand still did increase++ which is nice, but with the 13 gram sliders I figured I would have to be careful and not over rev the engine, but in reallity the opposite has been the case, it now runs 6800-7000 RPM's @ 60 mph and that is all it will do I lost top end and the RPM's dropped instead of increasing, I dont mind the top speed of 60 so much but it does seem to struggle on even the slightest incline now, unless there is NO wind and the road is very flat I cant get much past 50-53MPH now after the Var. Slinder & belt change out, it seems the my engine is now below it's power band (Max Hp RPM"s) I'm unsure which way I should go in trying to remedy this problem.

I love the 115mm Var. and 13gram sliders for the extra takeoff gearing, but how does this set up cost me top speed and cost me RPM loss at the same time? this is the puzzler to me.

Can you please shed some light on this for me and advise me in the direction I should go in trying to get my engine back to the 7.3K - 7.5K RPM range, I hit the bottom of even a slight hill @ 60 MPH and will come to the top of the slight hill @ 45-48 MPH & 5000-5200RPM's.

I'm thinking of trying my old rollers in the new better 115mm variator just to see what happens, but I am also thinking that I may need to go down to 12 gram sliders becaus emaybe the RPM loss is due to the difference in the overall Dia. of the Variator being 115mm instead of the original 107mm, it seems that maybe I'm getting my 60MPH at lower RPM's because the belt can ride higher in the variator thus increasing my overdrive ratio, this would be fine if the engine pulled good at the lower rpm's but it seems like loosing those 500-700RPM's has made a pretty noticable difference in the pulling power of my engine at 55-60MPH.

Thanks in advance for any & all advise.

Shan in Super HOT Super DRY Central Texas...........WOW..........it's bad right now.......!

[zugzug]

Well the 115mm variator has a steeper face and larger diameter, the sliders can actually push it to its max and a belt that is a bit longer to take advantage of the taller gearing. Its no suprise that you dropped some rpm at higher speeds because you effectively changed the final gearing. The reason that you might be loosing top end is because these motors on the 150 are only putting about 6 hp to the rear wheel. The motor probably just doesnt have the power to push it to its top rpm with the new gearing.

Instead of trying the old rollers in the new variator do the opposite. Try the sliders in the stock variator with the stock belt. It will change your top end gearing back to what it was but will give you the better accelleration in the low/mid speeds with the smoother shifting of the sliders.

[jrryan]

ZUG hit the nail on the head with the 115 variator and the final gearing. The engine just needs a little more ummmp to handle the higher ratio on the variator. But if you are riding from a going to work stand point and not in very hilly terrain and want the engine to run at less RPM at a nice 55 MPH then it does add up to higher MPG and a less worked engine.

Zug made some good suggestions but if you want to keep the 115mm variator then some slight tweaking may get it to where you want to be such as going to a 835 belt or as you suggested 12g rollers.

Myself I used 13's and 12's to get a ratio of 12.5g. Sliders will give you better shifting and less top end loss.

Myself I ride in the hills a lot but on my 150 Bali I was riding it a lot to area towns in the flats on errands a lot so I set it up for lower rpm higher top end cruising. I also wanted to see how high I could push the MPG which as I said it's easily over 80MPG. A engine running at a lot less RPM simply put will get better MPG.

Also one can do slight but easy engine mods in air filter and upjetting which I did to give just a little help on the HP one can send to the final wheel, every little bit helps. Very cheap to do and just takes some patience and tuning. Once I got the variator like I wanted then I would consider this because then you're adding a touch of power to a finely tuned CVT system.

If you want to check and see how far the belt is going out on your variator here is a way to see;



One can put magic marker color on the back plate and then run her up to a good RPM and see how much of the mark is left. The 835 belt won't go as far out but that will give you some RPM's back too.



Now the above is mine with a 835 belt on and as I said before I special ordered a 846 belt and I can tell you it pushes the outer variator OD to the edge! LOL Can't even tell you have a red line left! But again she'll on flat terrain will run 60MPH in the low 6k RPM. She just purrs right along! LOL Dr. JR

[mapbike]

Thank you gentlemen, I dont want to seem like an echo in any way or one of those know it all types but it is funny that you zugzug would mention trying the sliders in the old Variator, I was thinking about that on my way home from work today, and wondering how that would play out, my thoughts were exactly as you descibed....Thank you for the info. and the confirmation on this........!

Dr. Jr Thank you also for you confirmation and alternative solution info as well, I have noticed an increase in my MPG, believe it or not the last 2 times I figured it I was in the 90 MPG range +/- maybe 2 MPG either way, and to me that is awesome, the last time I filled up I had about 85 miles since the last fill up and gas here is $2.56 per gal. and it only took $2.32 worth to fill completely back up, so I would figure this close to 88-90 MPG, ya gotta love that.!

Well, guys I think I've desided to try the old var. with the new 13g. sliders just for curiosity sake, but when I get a new free flowing exhaust and either a larger carb. and intake or just a larger rejetting of the current one along with a better flowing filter, I will put the setup I currently have back in if I like the way the sliders in the old var runs out for now, I think if I can bring the HP up by 1-2 HP it will probably pull my current setup very nice and due what I want it too, I will post my results with the old var. and 13g slider set up as soon as I get a chance to make the swap hopefully Tuesday, "if the Lords willing and the Creeks dont rise" as we say around these parts....!

I am enjoying the tinkering with this scooter so much........I know they can be a pain sometime but it is highly satisfying when it gets worked out and Ginning again.........!
Now I just need to get my headlight to where I want it and that will make me very happy.

And I think I may have to replace my front tire also, at first I just thought it was out of balance but I think it is actually out of round possibly, I will take it to my local Motorcycle shop and see it they can balance it and check it for roundness before I do anything.

Thanks A Million all.....
Sincerely, Shan