October 2018
There were two reasons I wanted to spend the day at the Rimini Lambretta Centre:
- As an agent for Casa Performance I felt I needed a full in-depth knowledge of the two new SSR 265 & SST 265 motors as well as anything new in the pipeline; and
- As a future owner of one of these motors I obviously wanted to choose and buy the one that best suited my requirements.
Arrival in Rimini.
Well on arriving in sunny Italy, it was wet, grey, and it looked here to stay. I feared this may prevent the test rides, but was hoping otherwise. The morning came, my phone rang, it was Dean. “The shop is flooded, can you find your own way in?” Sure not a problem. So off to the train station I went. Upon arriving in Santarcangelo I phoned the shop. By now Dean was able to pick me up as they had made a lot of progress mopping up the flood water which I later learnt was from a “water bomb”, a freakishly heavy downpour.
Although this was my first visit to the shop it felt a bit ‘dejavu’, to say the least. I mean, I’ve seen all these streets, corners, and businesses in the numerous road test videos that RLC upload to the net regularly, but now I was there myself and I must say, I was a little excited about what lay in store (no pun intended).
First up were introductions to all the staff. This was swift because they are all busy, all of the time. It is a complete madhouse, not what I expected at all. I was just in time for a Dyno run with adjusted port timings on the T. Another first for me, they were using the new “Buzzwangle” – a very special piece of kit, and one I will be owning very soon indeed. To me the curve produced on the screen looked great, I wish my TS 1 was as good, but they are perfectionists, and so much loud discussion in Italian followed, reinforced with waving arms and pointing of fingers. “Time to leave” I thought. Dean appeared like the shopkeeper in “Mr Ben”. He was off of the phone and giving me an order of events for the day. He almost finished, but then he was called away again. With everybody speaking Italian except myself, I grabbed Luke as he was walking by. He’s from the North of England, but fortunately I had prior knowledge of his tribe’s language and mannerisms that I learned from his Father some decades earlier, so communication channels were now re-opened. While Luke showed me around the stock shelves, Dean, covered phone in hand, shouted up “take out the 265 T and the R”. Well, I was in my riding gear instantly. Dean gave me a quick run down on the 265 R’s specifics, especially the RPM range. A normal Lambretta will rev to a nice 8,500 RPM, but the SSR revs to 11,500 RPM, so when you think you are flat out, you still have a way to go.
The Ride.
I was offered both and I opted to start on the 265 T while Luke would ride the R. This meant we could swap at anytime during the ride.
Let me do a short preface to the ride section. Italy is beautiful, warm, and sunny (usually), but today and the previous night they had decided to have their entire annual rainfall in a single 24 hour period, in the midst of which was my ride. Unfortunately the roads had been badly damaged during the war by Rommel and his squadrons of the Panzer VIII Maus super heavy tank, plus the relentless allied bombing, and they (the Italians) haven’t quite gotten around to fixing them just yet. Plus, as a special bonus, both scooters are sporting slick tyres too! This was going to be fun.
Both scooters are full bodied. The T is a Serveta, the R is an Italian GP, and both have Casa Performance twin anti dive front discs, with the unobtrusive matching Casa Performance master cylinder perches, and of course the 5 speed Cyclone gear change perche. The R also has the large Oiltek fuel tank with pump, whereas the T copes well with just a standard tank and gravity feed.
Both scooters fired up first kick. Then we gave them a couple of warming revs and off with the choke, a bit earlier than you normally would with a stock motor. There was little, if any, vibration. That was unexpected from such a powerful unit. And throttle response in neutral was excellent, a lot crisper and sharper than I expected from a touring build. Off we go. The T is noticeably all torque and seems to develop power from tick over all the way through, as and when you call for it at the throttle. It pulls well in every gear, even a 1:3 Hill did not require changing gear, in fact you can accelerate! Gear changing when needed was easy and smooth. The 7 plate 12 spring Power Master clutch operates with zero resistance at the handlebar lever. You just have to assume that the clutch is operating because there is no feeling on the lever, great for anyone with arthritis or joint issues. With a very straight road ahead, I opened the throttle to overtake a lone truck and accelerated easily up to 80 MPH (129 km/h). This, I was previously advised, is the T motor’s happy place for long distance, but still it would pull up to 90 MPH (145 km/h) if required for overtaking. I found myself approaching a ‘Stop’ sign before having a chance to find that out. What I did find out was that the anti-dive twin disc set up is outstanding. Smooth powerful braking because this system is specially designed for a Lambretta; not the brutal jolting that most other hydraulic systems produce because they use modified motorcycle parts designed for stopping a far bigger diameter wheel.
After about an hour of hills, straights, and torrential rain, we pulled in to swap machines. As Luke got on the T, I could see he was very much at home on it. After all, he had just ridden it for 2000 miles trouble free to his home in England and back, laden with 2 stroke, spare fuel, and luggage.
I fired up the SSR 265. It was noticeably louder, but with a very appealing tone. The throttle response in neutral was instantaneous with still no vibration. A gentle flick and she was in first gear. I tentatively pulled away, probably a little too tentatively at first. Unlike the T, this motor develops its power far higher up the rev range. This became apparent when in third gear I opened the throttle a little more, taking me into the power band. Then a combination of water, slick tyres and inexperience caused the back end to fishtail. I quickly backed off the throttle a tad. She straightened out. I changed my underwear, and headed off, overtaking Luke as another straight section was coming. I dropped from 5th to 4th, overtook a truck and a car, then back into 5th. I wound the throttle on and the acceleration was phenomenal. There seemed to be no end of its ability to rev. All the time it was pulling hard, the speedo was probably showing my speed of around 120 MPH (200 km/h) but to be honest all my attention was taken up by holding on and worrying about a rapidly approaching roundabout. Yet again the twin front discs did what they are supposed to do, and I comfortably managed to navigate the roundabout, which I may or may not have taken in the wrong direction. It seems driving on the left hand side of the road is my automatic panic de-fault setting! After a quick course correction I pulled in and waited for Luke, we discussed my preferences and I elected to finish the road test on the T. After a quick fuel stop we continued back to the shop. It was only whilst at the fuel stop, I noticed the clutch lever pivot pin was missing, yet, the clutch operation was so light, that the pin missing did not affect clutch usage at all.
The T comfortably ticked all the boxes on my personal list, from fuel consumption to top speed. If I was a tad younger and still in England the R may have just edged in, but distances in Oz are somewhat greater, not only between towns but petrol stations too. Dean greeted us as we arrived back at Rimini Lambretta Centre. I changed into some dry clothes then had a short Q & A with Dean about the almost 2 hour test ride, and we talked about my reasoning behind preferring the SST.
Now it was time for assembling an SSR from scratch, under the guidance of Lorenz.
SSR Build.
The parts required were all laid out on the clean workbench, and the main empty engine case was sitting in an original factory assembly jig (which works very bloody well, even 60+ years later). The assembly proceeds in the very same order of parts as a regular build, sort of. The first obvious main difference is the two piece crankcase, so there is no more gynaecological skill required while fitting any configuration of crankshaft. The crankshaft itself is specially made with tungsten weights to balance and make it considerably heavier. This means all the weight is between the bearings, and the flywheel is only there for ignition triggering and air flow, so with even the lightest flywheel it will still idle slow and steady. There is a change to the bearings and oil seals too – this all contributes towards the increased rev availability. The new designed drive side seal plate requires no gasket and gives more room to the crank cheek. The gasketless seal plate will also fit a standard motor. The top end goes on as a dry build first, but due to the precision of all the parts involved I was told what the squish would be by Lorenz, although, he was 0.011mm out! This precision goes for the entire assembly. They do still do a dry build on the gear box too, but that also ends up with exactly the same shim every time. The gearbox endplate is part of this repeatable accuracy. It is a tough steel item that will also fit a standard motor, improving the action of the gearbox by removing the warped and worn cast iron original.
The short end to this story is, you can, and I have, build/built a complete engine from parts which is ready to run in 4 hours!
In conclusion.
Although I was at the shop for over 8 and a half hours, the day absolutely flew by. Not only was I thoroughly impressed with the quality of the parts now available I am also incredibly excited about some of the new designed parts which are going to be released this year in 2019. To say these are game changing parts is an understatement.
This is one of those rare occasions where you actually get what you pay for. While other people are out there flogging cheap Indian produced parts, this is the real deal and the quality is outstanding. I am a tool maker by trade and I understand what true precision engineering is. I am excited to be an agent for Casa Performance because I have no hesitation standing behind the quality of any of their components.
I would like to thank Dean and everybody at Rimini Lambretta Centre for a great day and their amazing hospitality.