ESE's works engine tuner

[seattle smitty]

All of you guys will probably know about this. Maybe about 1980 I read an article in "Cycle World" about a wildly exotic (to us) European grand prix roadracer, the water-cooled Morbedelli 125cc twin. As I recall, our 125 racers were pretty much all still using air-cooled Yamaha TA125s (my buddy held a national drag racing record with his TA), and that the Honda single had not yet appeared. How does the Morbedelli compare as a piece of engine technology to the best of today's engines? I remember the chief engineer was named Jorg Muller. The article said that he was on his way to Minarelli. What happened to Muller, is he still active? What became of Morbedelli and Minarelli, and Derbi and the other carriers of the 2-stroke touch? Have many of the old-timers who developed these machines had a hand in designing the new 2-stroke motocrossers from Ossa and KTM and others? Or got into superkarts or sleds or anything? Frits, I expect you knew/know all those guys personally.

[F5 Dave]

Kevin Cameron was the author, you can find his writings in a couple of books TDC & they are a good yarn. Most of the Euro small companies went away with the change to single cyl 125s & the loss of the 50 & 80cc class. More Honda influence if you are a conspiracy theorist (we meet on Thursdays). Derbi of course lives on & almost won a championship with Youichi Ui in about 2000 (to what extent a Derbi. . . but they make small roadbikes for Spanish/Euro market).

[husaberg]

All of you guys will probably know about this. Maybe about 1980 I read an article in "Cycle World" about a wildly exotic (to us) European grand prix roadracer, the water-cooled Morbedelli 125cc twin. As I recall, our 125 racers were pretty much all still using air-cooled Yamaha TA125s (my buddy held a national drag racing record with his TA), and that the Honda single had not yet appeared. How does the Morbedelli compare as a piece of engine technology to the best of today's engines? I remember the chief engineer was named Jorg Muller. The article said that he was on his way to Minarelli. What happened to Muller, is he still active? What became of Morbedelli and Minarelli, and Derbi and the other carriers of the 2-stroke touch? Have many of the old-timers who developed these machines had a hand in designing the new 2-stroke motocrossers from Ossa and KTM and others? Or got into superkarts or sleds or anything? Frits, I expect you knew/know all those guys personally.

I was looking at pics of its cranks the other day.
They look exactly like a KE125 crank doubled up.
The disks seem huge
The Morbidelli from memory had huge disks for the engine size as written in the bell book.
Someone post the Cameron article?

Oh it was the GARELLI 125GP - Angel Nieto 1982
I was looking at.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...8046078&type=3
Some random's lol

[Frits Overmars]

about 1980 I read an article in "Cycle World" about a wildly exotic (to us) European grand prix roadracer, the water-cooled Morbedelli 125cc twin... I remember the chief engineer was named Jorg Muller. The article said that he was on his way to Minarelli. What happened to Muller, is he still active? ... Frits, I expect you knew/know all those guys personally.

Yes, I know Jörg Möller, the Morbidelli 125 / 250 / 500 cc bikes, and the Minarelli that finally evolved into the 125 cc Garelli twin.
Jörg owns a block of flats in Italy from which he collects the rent. The last time that he was involved with engines lies some years back (the 125 cc CRS kart engine).
I could go on telling stories for days and plaster you guys with pictures; I just don't know where to start. Maybe with a couple of pictures.

[2T Institute]

All of you guys will probably know about this. Maybe about 1980 I read an article in "Cycle World" about a wildly exotic (to us) European grand prix roadracer, the water-cooled Morbedelli 125cc twin. As I recall, our 125 racers were pretty much all still using air-cooled Yamaha TA125s (my buddy held a national drag racing record with his TA), and that the Honda single had not yet appeared. How does the Morbedelli compare as a piece of engine technology to the best of today's engines? I remember the chief engineer was named Jorg Muller. The article said that he was on his way to Minarelli. What happened to Muller, is he still active? What became of Morbedelli and Minarelli, and Derbi and the other carriers of the 2-stroke touch? Have many of the old-timers who developed these machines had a hand in designing the new 2-stroke motocrossers from Ossa and KTM and others? Or got into superkarts or sleds or anything? Frits, I expect you knew/know all those guys personally.

Look up Carlo Mattrozzi on FB he has been making reproductions of MBA 125/350/500 unfortunately just for his own pleasure

[peewee]

Simple answer is that its easy to fit the clip in the lower half, and a cut O ring piece in the top - problem solved.
.

thats exactly what ill do. dont know why i cant ever think of this stuff

not sure if i showed this pic yet but i had a dummy set of cases and used that brazing rod the fill in the trench then i can redrill the oil hole, just in case theres a problem i wont ruin my good cases. i think its somewhere around 730F to melt that stuff. do you see any problems i may have from doing this ? i wouldnt think it would cause any warp but then again im not sure. i have a dummy crank i can put in the cases and tighten them up to see if it still clamps down fine. what about any problem with the aluminum annealing ? im hoping it will work fine because its far more permanent than epoxy

with the spacer ill be around 1.32

[chrisc]

I could go on telling stories for days and plaster you guys with pictures; I just don't know where to start. Maybe with a couple of pictures.

Please do!

Here's an interesting story: First Ever Win for a Japanese Rider the 1963 50cc TT
http://www.2116680.contentys.com/196...t-jap-win.html

Interestingly, in 1962 there were 57 50CC race entries and in 1963 there were only 34, of which only 18 started the race. Noted in that article as being due to the much faster Japanese and German bikes. Hugh Anderson (another brilliant New Zealander) was there on a Suzuki 50. What a cool era of racing that was.

[wobbly]

Trust me, welding the cases the main tunnels will be miles out of round and the deck will be warped to buggery.
Just use Devcon F and score the surface and bead blast clean, the stuff will never come out.
If you are really worried you can wind in several self tapping screws that sit up into the epoxy so it cant move even if the surface grip is lost.

[husaberg]

Trust me, welding the cases the main tunnels will be miles out of round and the deck will be warped to buggery.
Just use Devcon F and score the surface and bead blast clean, the stuff will never come out.
If you are really worried you can wind in several self tapping screws that sit up into the epoxy so it cant move even if the surface grip is lost.

That's how they used to stuff those old Villiers engines crankshaft bobweights.
Skeletons from the closet Wob?

[Grumph]

Yes, I know Jörg Möller, the Morbidelli 125 / 250 / 500 cc bikes, and the Minarelli that finally evolved into the 125 cc Garelli twin.
Jörg owns a block of flats in Italy from which he collects the rent. The last time he was involved with engines lies some years back (the 125 cc CRS kart engine).
I could go on telling stories for days and plaster you guys with pictures; I just don't know where to start. Maybe with a couple of pictures.

thanks for those Frits. Can we assume the barrel marked "campione" was the best ? Practically every combination of transfer ports known to man amongst that lot. Is there an evolution sequence ?
I'm looking at the side on pic of the motor and trying to work out how I can make a similar side cover setup for the Kawasaki....

We actually had a Morbidelli racing in NZ. Dave Moore from Christchurch had it. It was looked after by the well known Dr Bob who produced some very quick kawasaki buckets which probably had Morbo copy porting...Dave took it with him when he moved to Australia and when i saw Bob a few months ago he reported it's in the Aussie National Bike Museum at Bathurst.

[husaberg]

thanks for those Frits. Can we assume the barrel marked "campione" was the best ? Practically every combination of transfer ports known to man amongst that lot. Is there an evolution sequence ?
I'm looking at the side on pic of the motor and trying to work out how I can make a similar side cover setup for the Kawasaki....

We actually had a Morbidelli racing in NZ. Dave Moore from Christchurch had it. It was looked after by the well known Dr Bob who produced some very quick kawasaki buckets which probably had Morbo copy porting...Dave took it with him when he moved to Australia and when i saw Bob a few months ago he reported it's in the Aussie National Bike Museum at Bathurst.

One thing i do know from Google Greg is The covers were bronze because bronze and steel are old mates.
I started to raid the Cameron article from TDC2 but googles is on to me and it doesn't have all the pics in the preview.
Can anyone post up the original Cycleworld article or what issue it was in or the TDC2 article?

Frits will fill us in but I think from memory there was a photo description tucked away on Pitlane.

[senso]

Were Mr. Jörg Möller, Mr. Voskamp and Mr. Jan Huberts all friends?
Their cylinders look like they all came from the same castings.
This was mine a long time ago, its a portuguese copy from the original HuVo kits:







And probably a works pair:

[Frits Overmars]

thanks for those Frits. Can we assume the barrel marked "campione" was the best ? Practically every combination of transfer ports known to man amongst that lot.
Is there an evolution sequence ?

Italian is generally an easy language, but not always: campione can indeed mean champion but it can also mean sample, which was probably the case here.
Evolution sequence: not really; most versions are shown, but not in any particular order. The bottom row shows both the first and the last versions.
Bottom left is the original cylinder, and if I'm not mistaken the second-from-right cylinder is the ultimate version. Both are marked 'S' for 'sinistra' but there's nothing sinister about that; it simply means 'left'.

I'm looking at the side on pic of the motor and trying to work out how I can make a similar side cover setup for the Kawasaki.

Looking at the past is a good idea but then you'd better look at the best of the flock: Jan Thiels Garelli 125-twin with a straight run of six world titles: 1982-83-84-85-86-87.

[Frits Overmars]

Here are some drawings to complement the above picture series. Left is the ultimate Garelli 125-twin pipe, right is a dyno comparison between the Garelli 125-twin (yellow) and its descendant, the thirty years younger Aprilia RSA125 single (blue). Solid lines show power, dotted lines show torque.
What made the Garelli invincible was not just the power but just as much the tractor-like torque. Jan Thiel accomplished this without a power valve, without a power jet and without a programmable ignition (we started testing with programmable ignition after the 1987 season).

[Frits Overmars]

Were Mr. Jörg Möller, Mr. Voskamp and Mr. Jan Huberts all friends?
Their cylinders look like they all came from the same castings. This was mine a long time ago, its a portuguese copy from the original HuVo kits.

Yes they were. Jan Huberts used to be a works Kreidler rider, Jaap Voskamp and Jörg Möller worked together at Van Veen Kreidler.
Jörg then went to Morbidelli, and Jan and Jaap started the HuVo (Huberts-Voskamp) company. Jörg kept visiting HuVo and prepared engines for his friends.