Yet another page for my projects!

Project Blue Dwarf. Built as a follow up to Red Dwarf but with improvements in design and a test bed for more radical tuning. Oh! and for me to have fun on as Dave has taken over Red Dwarf.

The completed frame.The build up was the same as previously using the donor engine to get the measurements but the rake is more radical and the rear section has extra bracing and two rear engine supports.All the brackets for the fuel tank,radiator,seat and exhaust etc. are in place as are the footrest

mounting plates.The frame is 6" longer than before so the footrests are now mounted further foward.Again the metal tubing was sourced from our local scrapyard.

Further on and the build has moved indoors as most of the work to be done is assembly and wiring, the rest of the fabrication is continueing in the garage.The frame was painted in a navy blue base and coated in blue metalflake.The rolling chassis,minus brakes,is complete and most of the engine is in leaving the transmission pulleys to be fitted last.The fuel system is another 1.5l capacity lawnmower tank leading to a 28mm keihin PWK "D"slide carb and Ramair filter,fitting this meant I had to fabricate a completely new manifold for the bike.The reedblock was opened out and fitted with 0.25mm carbon fibre petals. Cooling system is fitted useing another radiator from the breakers,same as Red Dwarf this runs with an external electric pump and a 12v cooling fan from a computer as the water impeller was removed when I assembled the crank and cases.Power comes from a 12v sealed battery mounted in front of the fuel tank. The CDI unit is mounted as is the coil, the flywheel rotor was machined by a friend and balanced by me to lighten the reciprocating mass and make for a faster throttle response. The barrel and piston remain as standard Gilera 125 items but I had the head machined down 0.5mm to increase compression, this was`nt a standard "skim" as the o-ring sealing groove also had to be machined out the same amount.

Most of the wiring is complete apart from the fitting of an electric water temp. guage and a kill switch. The transmission side will run an improved std. clutch pulley with malossi springs,a polini 180 kevlar belt and a Gilera 180 variator. The exhaust will run fowards under the front of the frame.

Finished and cooling down after the initial fire-up. It started on the third kick and after a bit of tinkering with the mixture and tickover it seems to run fine at low revs.A quick blast up and down the carpark and the pick-up is good, all thats left to do now is run it at the drag strip for a proper test and to check for leaks etc, fine tuning of the carb jets and to sort out any mechanical problems that arise after a proper run.

I wasn`t quite happy with the black exhaust both in looks and performance so I made another one with modifications to the dimensions and a lot better flow.Material is 0.8mm mild steel but I polished it then "scorched" around the welds followed by a coat of vht clear laquer.

We`ve now aquired a race van (an old builders Transit that we`ve refurbished) and this makes life a lot easier as we don`t have to trailer the bikes behind the old Ford Fiesta:-).Both the bikes are now kitted with malossi 172cc kits and we`ve done one test day so far that went well.It also showed up some problems and areas for improvement,namely the standard Piaggio reed blocks are too small to allow the engines to breathe properly and will be replaced with race items,the carb jetting was too rich but this will be left alone until the new reed blocks are fitted and we can dial the carbs in properly. Having said that the results are encouraging as even with these problems Red Dwarf managed a best on the day of 14.721sec at 81.68mph and Blue Dwarf managed a best of 14.825 at 82.98mph. This makes for some very close racing between Dave and me:-)

Best times to date: Santa pod 04/09/2005 Blue Dwarf  14.667 @ 81.63mph Red Dwarf  13.828 @ 89.81mph Santa pod 24/09/2005 Blue Dwarf  14.441 @ 85.86mph Red Dwarf  13.735 @ 89.76mph

During the winter break in racing and with some time on our hands we decided to build a pit-bike along the lines of the sprinters.Useing a 50cc Minereli air-cooled engine from a Yamaha and left over parts along with the usual visits to the breakers and scrapyard we came up with "Mini-Dwarf".Total length a shade under 5 feet and weight about 20kg it`s ideal for our purpose, we might even run it up the strip:-)

Shown against a standard adult pushbike for scale.

Santa pod 26/02/2006 Blue Dwarf 14.113 @ 91.44mph Red Dwarf 13.850 @ 93.16mph Santa pod 01/07/2006 Blue Dwarf 13.89 @ 90.03mph Red Dwarf 13.016 @ 96.45mph

All these developments and more are available from our business dedicated to the tuning,repair and maintainance of scooters as well as less radical tuning for road scooters using the best names in tuning such as Malossi and Polini products. TDR Scooters can be found at: Unit 11 Trojan Centre, Stewarts Rd Finedon Rd Ind Est Wellingborough Northants NN8 4ST Tel/Fax 01933 443430 Details and updates/results from our drag racing can be found on the new page TDR