'05 Piaggio Typhoon

[billwill]

Found a scorching deal on marketplace and had to pull the trigger on this.

Basically, the story behind this is I've been seeing how performant and good of a platform these Piaggio motors can be and just how good the transmission is from the factory. Where overrange can make a significant difference on minarelli engines, these Piaggio engines don't need it. All of this AND the stock crank is stronger.

I have a very specific short term build plan for this scoot with the following goals:

- street manners, daily driveable
- low-to-mid 70's top speed on flat
- continue using the stock crank

Below are some pics of how she's looking now and the overall plan for parts:

- Stage6 70cc sport pro mk2
- Polini For Race 4 exhaust
- Polini CP21 carburetor
- Stage6 vforce reeds
- Polini 360º intake manifold
- Unifilter foam filter (have this laying around)
- Malossi multivar variator
- Athena belt

[90GTVert]

Nice find! Don't see many Piaggios for sale around here.

[billwill]

Jun 13, 2024 12:20:44 GMT -5 90GTVert said:

Nice find! Don't see many Piaggios for sale around here.

I'm definitely jazzed. I found this about 8 hours away in NC and got it shipped via uShip for less than $300, which was still a deal considering the purchase price.

She's landed and safe now in the garage. 

Current state of tune... this thing is a complete TURD! The guy was running a K&N knockoff air filter so I suspect that is much of the issue, along with however old of a belt and cvt parts.

[aeroxbud]

Nice find. I always liked the old typhoons.
Low mileage for a bike getting on in age now too.
As well as changing the belt and rollers. Make sure you change the oil pump drive belt if you are going to use it.
I would probably change the tires too as they are probably original.

[billwill]

Jun 13, 2024 17:44:10 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

Nice find. I always liked the old typhoons.
Low mileage for a bike getting on in age now too.
As well as changing the belt and rollers. Make sure you change the oil pump drive belt if you are going to use it.
I would probably change the tires too as they are probably original.

These tires are definitely not in the best shape but have some wear left and aren't as bad as you would think. It must have been garaged most, if not all, of its life. I will end up getting new ones soon though, something more street friendly.

I took it out last night and did some tinkering. Whatever this guy was doing or how he had it set up, it was kind of one of those things where the guy kind of knew what he was doing but definitely didn't have experience with these like folks here on this forum and deeper into the 2 stroke life.

The fuel line being used was a clear PVC with polyester braids like something you'd find on your dishwasher, lol. And the air filter was a knock-off K&N style filter that I saw in pictures but suspected he may have jetted for. Wrong - this thing was running so lean that it just wasn't running right at all. It would take off and have trouble breaking 20mph.

Oh and the vacuum line for the fuel petcock, completely disconnected. Not by accident - the vacuum port on the carburetor still had the cap on it!



I took it out with some electrical tape and ended up covering most of the open air filter. This helped and improved things greatly - not a long or even short term solution but enough for me to prove out my theory. 



Otherwise it runs and is all functioning but is a complete DOG. 40mph on flat is about all she's got and it takes a good while for her to get there. It is far less peppy than my stock prebug was.






There is some carb and CVT tuning for SURE to be had. I'm not even sure which carb is on the bike now because it seems like the previous owner threw on a newer, cheap, knock-off carb and thought it could be more plug and play.

I took the bike in to work today just to get some more time and feel with it and tried swapping in a larger main jet thinking it would take PHBG mains and it doesn't. Kind of frustrating that I wasted 20-30 min getting it apart just to find the main jet in here is about 1.5x physically larger than PHBG mains.

I'm not even going to mess with this carb anymore. I have fast-approaching plans for it and all of the parts I listed above are ordered and in the mail.

Just for fun and to get a baseline, I did some dragy runs too. She is SLOW, boys...





But, its coming along. This thing reminds me of a more modern Italian prebug. Oh, and I removed the windshield and trunk. Very functional, but not my thing haha. The windshield was SO heavy, it probably weighs 10-15lbs!

[billwill]

Made some progress with the Typhoon this weekend.

I had installed the multivar and athena belt earlier last week and while I didn't get any dragy numbers for testing's sake, it did feel a bit peppier. Nothing crazy, I knew the carburetor and jetting was in need of attention.

Yesterday threw on the Polini 360 intake and stage6 vforce reeds along with a Polini CP21.






After that I gave it the 3g clutch with yellow springs and the malossi white spring that came with the variator. Also swapped out the stock rollers for 5.3g rollers.








And, the Polini for Race 4 pipe. This thing sounds so good - one of the few pipes that will give you that classic two stroke ping at idle, almost like an MX bike. It reminds me of the sound my Honda cr80 made at idle.

This first video is without the carb, intake and reeds but listen to that sound. Just beautiful.




And then with the carb, intake and reeds. Definitely some carb tuning to be done, but its getting close.




Really wanted to take it out for a rip after all of this was done but the fuel tap is leaking like crazy. If you watch that video above, you can see it dripping right on the exhaust. No fun, no good.



Gonna have to fix that before I do much more with it so I ordered one of these from Scooter Tuning: www.scootertuning.ca/en/replacement-parts-fuel/19200-fuel-tap-malossi-racing-4260267810967.html?search_query=6511990B&results=1

[billwill]

Got some time this week to throw on the bars, fuel tap and some other odds and ends. The malossi fuel tap is really an awesome product that just feels quality.

Bars and wiring was a bit of a mess and trial and error working with a multimeter to reverse engineer switches and wiring. I used some cheap but good kill switches I found on Amazon to work as the starter button and kill switch and I found a left side switch with high/low beam, horn and turn signals that is exactly like the more expensive stage6 unit on my prebug.

Here is a link to the left switch unit: www.amazon.com/dp/B01ARJEHUW?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
And one for the kill switches: www.amazon.com/dp/B08SW4G9LJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

I need to figure out a bog at the start with this thing but for now I'm happy leaving it as is until the 70cc kit goes on. Just need a few spare hours to come around to tackle that job. I took the bike out for a test rip and its definitely rich with the CP21 at 36 pilot and 100 main.

Also, interesting to note that the little rubber connector on the Polini pipe (you can see it zip tied in the pics) is prone to popping off with this setup. I never had that problem running the same pipe on my prebug but I guess things are a little different with the Piaggio platform. It popped off as I was testing around the block and I thought the entire muffler fell off lol.

[Lucass2T]

I really like typhoons. They look so 90's! When I was like 12-13yo there was this guy in my town with a really fast one. It was super loud and obnoxious, way louder what you's normally see with scoots with a chamber and pod filter. He was pulling power wheelies all the time and blasting WOT through the streets and I thought it was so damn cool. I'll buy a typhoon myself sooner or later too.

[aeroxbud]

Just don't buy the later Chinese one Lucas.
I really like them too. Used to see a 172cc early one riding around here years ago. Was hard to keep the front down.
He eventually sold it as he was getting too much attention from the police. 😁

[billwill]

Jun 30, 2024 2:20:26 GMT -5 Lucass2T said:

I really like typhoons. They look so 90's! When I was like 12-13yo there was this guy in my town with a really fast one. It was super loud and obnoxious, way louder what you's normally see with scoots with a chamber and pod filter. He was pulling power wheelies all the time and blasting WOT through the streets and I thought it was so damn cool. I'll buy a typhoon myself sooner or later too.

Ha we all remember “that cool guy” growing up ripping around town. For me, a little bit different but there was a guy who used to live in town with a mid 90s Pontiac firebird. V8 with a fat cam and straight pipes.

Typhoons really do look an uglier Prebug don’t they? Kind of just a simple, not trying to hard, look. Like, it’s not trying to look like a liter bike, it knows it’s a scooter.

I also like the fact that for what it is, fairly lightweight and the Piaggio platform has already impressed me. I have a buddy from one of the Facebook groups I’m in convince me to take the plunge into Piaggio. More stout I can already tell, especially in the transmission.

Jun 30, 2024 3:39:17 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

Just don't buy the later Chinese one Lucas.
I really like them too. Used to see a 172cc early one riding around here years ago. Was hard to keep the front down.
He eventually sold it as he was getting too much attention from the police. 😁

The 170s seem to be much more popular overseas. I’m a member of a few typhoon facebook groups and feel like I see much more of them. I think I’ve seen people swap them into the 50 frames too. Don’t give me any ideas 😃

[aeroxbud]

That's the great thing about the Piaggio motors. They all share the same mounts, from the 50cc motor upwards. It's such an easy swap.
The Chinese built bikes seem to suffer with crank bearing problems too. Never really heard about that till production move from Italy.

[billwill]

Jun 30, 2024 13:33:14 GMT -5 aeroxbud said:

That's the great thing about the Piaggio motors. They all share the same mounts, from the 50cc motor upwards. It's such an easy swap.
The Chinese built bikes seem to suffer with crank bearing problems too. Never really heard about that till production move from Italy.

Whoa, that is NOT a good noise haha. I'll keep an ear out for it. That's helpful to know about the 170 swap. Seems like sourcing a 170 from somewhere overseas wouldn't be too difficult.

Was able to install some bits this weekend and last night I finally threw the 70cc jug on! Hopefully can test later today if weather and other chores around the house allows.

[tysta]

share it like this on the 2tfl group me and burke we are trying to bring more people sharing their builds

[billwill]

Jul 2, 2024 0:53:10 GMT -5 tysta said:

share it like this on the 2tfl group me and burke we are trying to bring more people sharing their builds

Was gonna wait until I had it ready with a dragy video. Should have one today that I'll post here and over there.

Got the 70cc kit together and running last night! Had a nasty exhaust leak and by the time I got to test drive it last night it was after 9pm and I decided to be a good neighbor and stow it away after just going around the block once. 

This thing feels so much more refined than the prebug (no surprise there) and pulls like a freight train. It's sort of in between the Vento Triton (Stage6 Street Race/Yasuni R) and the Prebug (MXS Race/SCR Corse/MVT dd iggy). Where the Triton kind of starts to fall off after 40mph, this Typhoon keeps pulling strong.

Really excited to get some more seat time in. 

I hooked up my old Stage6 temp/tach gauge that used to give an inaccurately low reading. I tried tysta 's recommendation of putting some heat shrink on the temp sensor as low as I could to insulate it but it still seems like its reading way low with max temp seen of just around 200º F. I'm just going to keep an eye on the plug for now. I was jetted for 50cc using the lowest jet I had of 100 but going to up to 104 based on a recommendation of a friend on Facebook.

Not sure what is going on but it would be nice if I could source a copper temp sensor ring like TrailTech uses, that would connect to the Stage6 unit.

[billwill]

I didn’t have a 104 jet but wanted to start higher than 100 with the 70cc kit based on what some other folks were running with a cp21 carb so I upjetted to 106 and put probably 30-40 miles on the bike and began to adjust small things like idle and mixture.

This seemed to run really well! And the bog on take off that was there with the stock bore was no longer there. Bike felt great, nice and crisp throttle response too.

Minor exhaust leak was fixed by using a crush gasket so I decided to take it work a couple days this week and get some more seat time in.

I did a couple dragy runs yesterday and got into the 11s for the 1/8th mile. Happy with that but top speed was still only around 60-63mph on flat for WOT runs. Should be more well into the 60s with this setup or even 70-71 so still some fine tuning to do.



Last night I decided to check the plug since my temp gauge isn’t giving me accurate numbers and all I can say is that she’s definitely rich LOL. Downjetted to a 100 main, swapped in a new br8es and going to see how that does.



I had the air mixture screw set to 1.5-2 turns out so maybe another half turn to 2.5 and this jetting change will do the trick.

The Reggae’s that are on it now ain’t it. They vibrate like hell at anything over 15-20mph so I have some Boppers on the way and going up to a 130 in the rear. They should be delivered tomorrow.

What’s kind of crazy is they are so cheap on Maxiscoot and shipping was strangely affordable, that they were cheaper there including shipping, than anywhere else I could find. AND, they were the only place other than expensive eBay that I could even find them in stock. I also got the last 130 in stock on Maxiscoot… so… SCORE!

Also this temp gauge is still reading low. Need to figure that out, highest temps I’ve seen on it are 245° or so. So I rewrapped the sensor in heat shrink with two more pieces. I don’t have high hopes that this fixes things, but maybe.

While in there I also threw on a new NGK spark plug cable I had laying around. It’s strange but it felt like the stock cable or boot didn’t click in or seat on the plug well or at all.

Full build so far:
- stage6 sport pro 70cc
- cp21
- Polini 360° intake
- vForce reeds
- Polini for race 4 exhaust
- malossi multivar
- malossi white contra
- Athena belt
- Polini 3g clutch
- 5.3g rollers