the kinetic tfr project

So I pretty much knew that this would end in disaster, but I did my first round of port maching/boring a little while ago. Not that you really get “rounds” to do this. Smitty from smc uses the phrase “boat anchor” on his site in several places to describe a crank case that was incorrectly ported.

I was trying to increase the airflow through the intake manifold and took a 1/2 in drill bit and drilled the thing out. Unfortunately, this messed with the fundamental engineering of the engine. The crank opens and closes the port as it spins. Messing with the shape of the intake port on the inside like this results in a back pressure disaster, causing gas to be ejected back through the carb and into the airbox. Needless to say, it no longer runs, but dang, there was a TON of gas and air going into that thing. And then back out again. Through the back.

So I have that going for me. I sent Smitty an email about it and he said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I have a really bad feeling that you’ve ruined the crankcase half that has the intake… after seeing the inside of the crankcase, I’d think that it’d be a miracle if you can get it to run again using that crankcase.

I got a tip from a moped tuner in Denmark (Arndt - who has been incredibly helpful with tuning info) about a product called durafix. You can apparently use it to correct some mistakes and replace metal on your case. I am interested in doing this even though I have a couple of extra vespa cases that I could use for the kinetic. I will be sure to shoot some video. Meanwhile, check out the video on the Durafix homepage if you can. Thanks again, Arndt!