1988 super scoot stage one

When we bought a pair of snow scooters from Jerry's Yamaha in Lakeville, Minnesota, we had big plans for them. The electric start version would stay stock. The manual model would head for Dale's Performance in Long Lake, Minnesota for a little weight training - power-to-weight training.

The stock scooter has about eight ponies. We wanted to bump that up a tad. The baseline scooter with its electric start won't be touched. The manual start scooter immediately got a clutch make-over. The stock Yammie units are okay, but Dale's found immediate room for improvement, getting a quick 2-3 miles per hour out of the scooter with a little clutch work. Nothing serious, just some balancing, a little of this and a little of that to make them more efficient. Anyone with a little go-kart experience is going to have a fun time getting more speed out of these very basic clutches. Of course, it's unlikely that Yammie's engineering staff ever figured that anyone would actually be nuts enough to try and get more pop from the little scooter in the first place.

One thing we noted was that the clutch hub housings were nowhere near round! In fact, one hub was scuffing the clutch cover housing. That'll knock off top end as quick as riding down a dirt trail.

The immediate speed increase came from the clutches. It was a quick and easy place to start. The additional power and speed is more intricate. At first, we thought that the 80cc Riva engine was the base engine for a series of motor scooter engines that went up to 175cc or more. It isn't. Yes, there are bigger engined Riva scooters, but they use different engines. The pro staffers at Dale's devised their own mini- "big bore" kit for the 80cc Yammie single. They used a Y-Zinger piston, overbored the stock cylinder, did a little porting and internal refining in all the right places and got another 2-3 miles per hour out of the stocker. We're guessing that we gained three to four horsepower with the changes. We know that we gained four to five miles per hour on top end over the baseline stocker - we observed 35 mph versus 30 mph! That's pretty good on a percentage-basis when you figure we started with about eight ponies. What we have now aren't Clydesdales, but they aren't Shetland ponies either!

For now, the carburetion has been kept stock. Jetting and fine-tuning the revised motor has required a little by guess and by gosh tinkering. There is no baseline to fall back on since this is the first Scooter big bore with which we are familiar. The stock main jets, in our two Scooters at least, seemed too lean, so we stuck bigger ones in and that seemed to cure the low end hesitation problems that we noticed with the stock carb and stock set-up.

That will change again when we get to Super Scoot - Stage Two.

For now, let us just state that there is a noticeable difference between the stock scooter and Super Scoot. Super Scoot is quicker accelerating, seems to have increased low end, better mid range, and depending on the rider's caloric intake, greater top end.

In our experience with the scooters, we wholeheartedly recommend adding the optional windshield for trail riding.

If you'd like more information about super tuning a scooter, call Dale's at 612-473-9073.