Tuned scooter engines: is there such a thing as perfection?
No matter what engine or cylinder kit is produced for either the Vespa or Lambretta there are always those who will seek to improve it...
The two most expensive engines to date, the Targa Twin and the Casa SSR series, in theory, should already be perfect, but will they be subjected to the same treatment?
Ever since the Vespa and Lambretta made their debut on the two-wheeled market some 70 years ago the engines that power them have been subject to tuning in the quest for even greater performance. No one is saying this is a bad thing but the question remains: will there ever be a time when a product is so good that nothing can be done to enhance it.
If you go back to the days of mass production for both makes, it was obvious there would be those who sought greater potential from the engine. It must be remembered that they were detuned to a certain extent to make them as reliable and economical as possible. The power created was well within the tolerances the components were designed for and rightly so. Even the biggest capacity models such as the Rally or GP200 were well within the limits of what they were capable of.
That’s probably why there was such an appetite among tuners to improve power output going all the way back to the 1960s. There were big gains to be made even with only slight alterations to the setup. Tuning factory cylinders or the original top end as a whole would continue well into the 1980s but that’s when it would all change with the introduction of purpose-made kits.
For the Vespa, there were plenty of options with Pinasco and Polini being just two examples. For the Lambretta, there was the TS1 which even in standard form almost doubled the power of the engine. These were the first true ‘bolt-on power’ options available for both makes. Even so, within months of them coming out tuners were looking at ways of improving them or offering options of what they thought would give even more potential. There were two ways owners started looking at why this was occurring. Either there was the possibility that the manufacturers hadn’t done as good a job as it first seemed in producing the kit, or a dealer knew if he could get more power out of the kit then he would have an advantage in the market. The truth was it was probably the latter, but this led to even more confusion. With tuning shops situated all over the country, there would be several versions of the same kit – each supposedly offering something better than the original.
It wasn’t just aftermarket kits that were prone to this type treatment either, I’m sure we can all remember when the Vespa T5 came out with a five-port Nikasil lined aluminium cylinder producing great performance from its 125cc engine. However, it wasn’t long after, that tuners were offering radical conversions to exploit the T5 engine even more. Does this mean that Piaggio, who had probably put a huge investment and considerable time and resources into producing the T5, got it wrong? Of course they didn’t, but if they had taken the engine as far as the tuners were now offering, then the reliability would have suffered.
Which is exactly what happened when the T5 was taken to its limits.
Now we come to the present day and the flurry of kits that have entered the market. I don’t think there is one of them that is free from the same kind treatment. Even the Supermonza kit for the Lambretta which was hailed as the complete top end package seems to have been altered afterwards to try and improve it. The two most expensive engines to date, the Targa Twin and the Casa SSR series, in theory, should already be perfect, but will they be subjected to the same treatment?
The two-stroke engine is in many ways very simplistic but on the other hand, has the potential to have great power squeezed out of it. The problem is though, there are many ways of how to go about doing it. Therefore every tuner will have their own specific methods of how to attempt it. At the same time, it seems that when a kit or engine comes on to the market, however good it is, we the scooter owners expect – maybe even demand – that it is taken even further. So there lies the answer to the question, even if the perfect tuned scooter engine is created there are those who will try or expect it to be made even better, one way or another…