Lightened Flywheel not firing spark

[paulwaite]

I have a spare Rally 200 engine that I bought a few years ago, sold as seen. With it came the lightened flywheel, as shown below. Now with my Rally 200 rebuild, on another thread, that already had a Malossi engine, I thought that I would put this lightened flywheel into that engine to gain a quicker throttle response. Which I did, but no spark. So I put the original flywheel back on the Malossi engine and the plug sparked and all is well.

However, I've now want to put the spare Rally engine into a GS160, which is where the original Malossi engine came from, but would like to use this troubled  flywheel that gave no spark above. Now if you look at the photo, there is a groove that looks as if its been caused by the stators rubbing. This groove goes across the firing point. So could this groove be the reason it did not create a spark. If so, is there anything I can do to repair. 

[henri]

as its for a rally i'm guessing its the femsa 6volt lectronic type you mean . what makes you think this is a electronic flywheel ,i'm use to the 12 volt ducatti types were the magnets can be seen to overlap in a zig-zag at the firing point .i wasnt aware the femsa's was any different ,an have a points femsa fly thats stamped on outside as "femsa electronica" .i was given it as the guy thought it was broke coz he couldnt get a spark from it .might be the reason this came as a "spare" rather than on the engine originally .
an whats the magnetism like ,if its weakened in storage maybe the pick ups not getting affected enough to trigger a spark .if it cant hold a big adjustable across the bottom ,or can ya feel a strong attraction to each magnet with a large screwdriver it needs re-magnetising .theres a few places can do it around 20-30£ . H

[paulwaite]

Sorry Henry, forgot to mention, that although its a Rally engine, its been converted to 12v electronic ignition using PX parts. I know what you mean about the zig zag firing points, via lambretta ones, but just checked again and there are none on this flywheel, that's why I thought the T shaped bit shown on the photo may be Vespa's version.

Also, plenty of magnetic charge left.

So wonder what this flywheel is. FYI, this rally engine did fire up with the other flywheel that is now on my Malossi engine.

[henri]

no zig-zag=points flywheel , alltho i have limited experience with femsa electronic ignitions so cant be 100% sure .but all other captive discharge ignitions (cdi) ive known have a magnetic crossover/reversal point as a firing trigger .H

[paulwaite]

Nov 18, 2015 8:48:13 GMT henri said:

no zig-zag=points flywheel , 

b*ll*cks, though this engine was too cheap, but thanks for putting me out of my misery Henri

[henri]

as above not 100% on femsas but not a total waste , check beedspeeds site as they have vespa crank taper info , some early rallys 180's were small taper ive been told but laters were large tapers .an i know people who tune often prefer rally cases as theres more meat on em an will take p200 cranks/flywheels/ignitions .so a basic piaggio flywheel will run that engine .tho i use lml genuine 1's as there identical n half the money . H

[vespasco]

As H says, its v likely a points flywheel, not electronic.
The Femsa flywheel would not fit on a converted ignition with a p/x crank
Does the flywheel have a hole in it (and rubber bung) for adjusting the points!!?

[pxguru]

Can't see the points lobe on that centre in the photo. Any picture from the outside to see what it might be?

[paulwaite]

Here's the picture from the top and no slot for the points. In addition, the other photo's show the inside at different points. Now although this is Rally engine, it has been converted to a 12v PX type system with a Ducati CD unit. Furthermore, I've had the engine running with a PX electronic flywheel, but never tried it with this flywheel. Only tried this flywheel on the Malossi engine as stated in my first post.

[henri]

weird 1 ,everything looks like a electronic fly , except no zig-zag ,an it wont spark , but has a tested sticker ?.an cant see any cam on centre boss for points .afraid in my shed that would go in the "odditys" pile or get nailed to wall as "sculpture" ,cant think of any other use , lamp-base maybe ,magnetic nut/bolt holder , H.

[paulwaite]

It is weird Henri, but I've managed to collect quite a few weird scooter parts along the way.

It might sound stupid, but I have not tried this flywheel on the rally engine, although it came with the rally engine. But as this rally engine sat on my garage floor, whilst re-building the Malossi engine, I thought I'll pinch this lightened flywheel for the Malossi and get crisper acceleration. But later found that there was no spark.

Anyway, tomorrow or over the weekend, I will fit it back onto the rally engine and see if there is a spark, you never know!!!

But thanks for all the feedback.

[pxguru]

That looks very much like a SERIE PRO flywheel. Didn't they make their own stator plates at one time?
It has worked on something before or it wouldnt be scored! Does the stator on the Rally that it came off look different to the usual PX one?

[henri]

i thought the "serie pro" was just a sip brand name/tuning line .if ya tap in serie pro fly into sip it kicks out flys by beedspeed/hp4 an others . thats def not a hp4 ,as its not in a million bits flying past ya ears . sip still make there own stators or more likely re-make indian ones ,but there straight copys of piaggio 1's with same pick ups .i did notice the sip serie pro by beedspeed has the same style sticker as pauls fly but in green . whereas my lml genuine fly has a identical sticker . H

[paulwaite]

Oh well, home early this afternoon. So above flywheel on, plug out and no spark. then I realised that I had forgotten to turn on ignition. So second time a bright spark every time. So in a way, mystery solved. I too looked up Serie pro and it sort of led to a Beedspeed conversion for a Rally from Femsatronic to 12v Ducati. So that's probably what I've got and the stator and pickup must be unique to this flywheel, as it did not work on the standard PX one. Might contact Beedspeed to see if they can confirm all of this, just so that I know for future maintenance.  Anyway, I'm well suited and thanks for sticking with me.

Now just got to find out what that sound is when I turn off the engine. Its like a ball bearing spinning around a tin can until the ball bearing  runs out of momentum and slowly stops.  But that will be another thread if I can't solve it first. 

[henri]

bugger , thats stolen my "henri's a genuis moment" . remembered last night that femsa was based on the 60's bsa captive discharge ignition, or so ive been told . dug out my old bsa c15trials spec/tech sheets an dredged my memory .if femsa is the same as bsa ,the rotors on bsa's=flywheels on scoots an they didnt have a crossover point on magnets ,there fired by the wave forms generated from coils alone .the bsa was a crude 12volt wasted spark/3 per rev system . femsatronic a 6 volt with fancy cdi that read the waveforms an fires at appropriate moment once per rev . well thats what ive been told anyway .as above i have limited experience of femsa an zero experience of beedys femsa/ducatti conversions . but do know there damm expensive but good,the femsa that is ,thats why most converted to the cheaper/commoner duke 1's .
the rattle ,i'm guessing you cant hear it whilst running ,but sounds like a escaped ball bearing/little end roller being thrown around til it settles .wouldnt run that lump again an am afraid a full strip/investigations going to keep ya busy/happy this xmas .you lucky beggar ,a good excuse to dive in the shed n avoid all the "enforced jollity" the rest of us will have to bravely smile n suffer . H

[paulwaite]

Thanks Henri, wish you had spent more time on reading up on the above and saved me 3 sleepless nights, I'd call that selfish.

As to the shed, I'm overrun with Vespa and lambretta jobs to do. Just put my series 2 lambretta back to original, which included stripping original engine to make sure all was OK, replacing layshaft which had the wrong hub thread (18mm instead of 16mm) with a Li layshaft. Last job last weekend was to torque up rear hub nut. At around 60% of torque force, layshaft sheared. Frustrating, but lucky as well.

[vespasco]

Also, stock 200er flywheels have curved fins

I see so many pictures of restored/rebuilt 200 engines with what is, in my eyes, the 'wrong' flywheel fitted.

[henri]

sheared layshaft ,wont seem it but better now than at 5000rpm an 40mph . you want to try bretta LD's , its drive shafts n output shafts ,rotten carrots from the factory . scoots ya got to love em eh . H