Going a little Italian

No 92. has had a hard life so ........

My Serveta Jet 200 has been due for a full strip and rebuild for a couple of years. The original SX casings have been raced, enduroed and generally abused by probably 8 different engine configurations. Similarly the frame and ancillaries have covered about 12000 mile since it was last fully replaced. So a re-build has been required for a while.

The upcoming Scottish NC750 trip will be 9 days of pretty hard riding and old 92 just had to be sorted before embarking on this amazing but very tough ride.

So. the plan was originally to rebuild the Engine, continuing with the standard casings but increase the stroke/conrod to 60/110 to give a little more torque. The Casa SS225 top end had been re-ringed only 400 mile ago so nothing

there to do. However, closer inspection of the Layshaft, gear change and end plate threads revealed a basically knackered gear train and needing surgery to make serviceable. It desperately needed a complete re-think.

A number of new small and large block casings have come to the market over the last year or so and this looked like an opportunity to dip my toe into this new and exciting world of modern metal.... So a complete new engine was quickly decided upon and to leave my old SX 200 casings for another day and another build.

Having had first hand experience of the excellent Casa 225 barrel it made a huge amount of sense to compliement this amazing barrel and go full Casa and to use the new Rimini-based Casacase as the base for the new engine. This casing would offer the most flexibility going forward in terms of tuning and add-on potential. A huge barrel deck area offers the potential to use motorcycle barrels if so desired in the future.. Furthermore, the Casacase offers an extensive variety of crank options. With the casa crank being of non standard size, choosing the right one was critical. I finally decided upon the 62 / 110 variant as this would make things a little more torquey for those hills as well as some CC to ease the pain. Hopefully not too wild to handle around those greasy lanes but grunty enough to get you out of trouble when needed.

With only some 5 weeks before the Spring enduro and the trials of Scotland there is a lot of work to be done. As can be seen above the Engine is built and just awaiting a re-machined flywheel and new exhaust to compliment the TMX 35mm that will fuel this new beast. Beware! the anodised flywheel cowling does not take anything other than a Casatronic ignition and flywheel. Neither the BGM or AF lightened fit. To fit your old flywheels will need to be machined.

New bearings and seals in front hub and Steering. fresh Vennell cables throughout and new rubber and rims should make the whole thing sing!!

I can't wait and will try to provide a few updates here as i progress. Oh and pretty much the rest of the scooter has been replaced whilst i'm at it...A new bike anyone????

Update: 07/12/2017

So, 8000 miles in and the Casa SS 225 is worn out and need of reline and new piston. I have to admit to be extremely happy with the performance of this kit for touring purposes as it it has delivered faultlessly and not missed a beat. Swapping out the ignition to Casatronic has not been so easy and still not convinced this set up performs as good as the previous BGM / Mtech arrangement. Still, it has not failed on me so there's a blessing. The new Casa case has now been fitted and should ease the Clutch somewhat as the SX casings I used prior just do not work with the AF road/race clutch and was very stiff in action. I can literally operate the clutch by hand now without it even cabled up. Awesome!. So just a matter now of waiting for the barrel to be returned from LangCourts and rebuilding the top end and she is ready to rock and roll for the year ahead.