Conversion Details

Here's some more detailed pictures about the frame conversion.

This is a shot of the underseat arrangement. You can easily spot the oil intake that replaces the air scoop. Yep, auto lube on a Lambretta. Easy to install since the Skipper engine comes with everything in place to install it.

The carb is a PHBL Dell'Orto that comes with two extra intakes - one for the oil and another for a fuel pump (which you don't need on a Lambretta).

Next some detailed views of the frame.
Stoffi converts the frame so that a ZIP 50 double link can be used. This dramatically decreases the engine vibrations passed to the frame. It comes at a price though - the engine is a bit wobbly sometimes. Looks a lot worse than it feels. Rocksolid thanks to the excellent rear shockers available for the twist'n'gos.






The side section showing the fuel tank, carb, rear shocker, glovebox, etc. Quite easy to tell that you can keep most of your Lambretta components. Making this a pretty cheap conversion.

Pipe

Now things went pretty quickly from there on. Getting a bike with such simple controls (just a brake cable and throttle running to the rear!) together was just a few day's work.

The next big one was to get a suitable exhaust. First attempt: try on of Lambretta Innovations' pipes as shown here (on a buddy's bike who's done the same conversion).

As you can see, we didn't have a real fixture and the pipe bulges out way too far to the right.


It runs like hell though - based on the 360 degree PM pipe for Gileras.

Second attempt: Jim Lomas of JL exhausts live somewhere in the sticks in the Czech Republic, just a few hours' drive from Munich.

Here's what he got done after a year's work...



And here's the almost untuned dyno run (upgraded the rollers to 9g):


Pretty good, 17 HP on the rear wheel for most of the time. A standard TS1 doesn't keep up!

Frame conversion

Next step was to dismantle the bike and get the frame down to Stoffi's for Zini to weld the frame.

Stoffi promptly got it back after just a few months and I took it home from the Stockach QM race.

This is a picture of the first build - engine already in place, not much else there yet. Sorry for the cell phone pic.

Project Lambrettwist

The Lambretta engine is one thing Innocenti liked to point out in their ads back in the 60s. It doesn't make the bike unblanced like that of an unamed competitor's. Great. Meanwhile it's the next millennium and Piaggio have learned their lesson.

Their engines are also much better balanced. In fact they must have had the Lambretta engine in mind when they came up with the engine layout. So much so, that the new Piaggio engine geometry is almost identical to a Lambretta Series 1-3 engine, albeit a mirror image with different engine mountings.

Reason enough for people to start putting modern lumps into the vintage bike to get that best of both worlds beast: unbeatable Lambretta styling with twist'n'go reliability and performance.

That's what was going through my head crouched down next to my once again blown to pieces TS1 en route to Holiday in Holland 2001. The PM had once again cracked, the maghousing threads torn to leave annoying rattling noises.

Fast forward a few years. Stoffi had long advertised their first conversion kit and Lambretta Labs also had a go at it.

And the guys from Vorarlberg had just told me about this old Swiss LIS125 they were selling. Bingo: project start.

Ok day 1

Blogs blogging whatever. This'll be about Lambretta rebuilds mostly because that's what I've got bucket loads of pictures of. Have fun.