It's been a little quiet around here so I'll share to the community what I did to get more power for not a lot of money.
What I did was advance my ignition timing by modifying the ignition pickup but do this mod at your own risk since the slightest movement of the ignition pickup while riding will shut the engine off. This happened to me 4 times and since I brought some tools, I was able to get going again but I would be on the side of the road for 15-20mins trying to slide the ignition pickup back into place.
What I suggest before trying this mod is to buy a new ignition pickup from Ebay. I was able to buy them for around $15 bucks shipped. Lookup "GY6 pickup coil". The reason for this is the stock Kymco ignition pickup has little posts that slide into the screw holes. This prevents the ignition pickup from moving and like I said, the slightest movement will shutoff the engine.
What you need to do to the ignition pickup is to use a Dremel tool to grind the screw holes so you could slot the ignition pickup.
If you look closely at the above pic, you could see that I grinded the screw holes so I could slot the ignition pickup upwards. This advances the timing a little bit but the power gains are pretty noticeable.
Here is a pic of the ignition pickup installed. If you look closely, you could see how the pickup is moved slightly upwards:
As I mentioned earlier, the slightest movement of the ignition pickup will shut the engine off leaving you stranded if you didn't bring tools with you. What I did to remedy the situation is I installed a washer only on ones side of the pickup. You can't see the washer in the pic above because it's under the pickup but I installed one on the top screw hole and none on the bottom screw hole. I did use lock washers on both screw holes though. Since I installed that washer, I have had about 500 trouble free miles.
I installed a tach on my Super 8 a little while ago:
and I recommend everyone get one since you could see what RPMs your motor is turning at any given moment.
Before advancing my timing, at full throttle my Super 8 would wind up to 6600 RPMs, then lower to 6300 RPMs and then would take a brief moment before the RPMs started to climb again. This was really noticeable and I was sort of pissed off at the weak acceleration of my Super 8.
After advancing the timing, my Super 8 would shoot up to 7200 RPMs, then lower to 6800 RPMs and then would start to climb the RPM range without much hesitation. It was really noticeable and I instantly enjoyed my ride much more.
This is a cheap modification with noticeable power gains but I have to give another "Do at your own risk" as this could potentially go bad for you if you don't know what you're doing. Also, you HAVE to use Premium unleaded if you do this mod because detonation will destroy your motor. Also, I just started carrying a bottle of Octane booster for those situations where you roll up to a gas station with single hose nozzles. I've read that you're getting anywhere from 1/3 to 3/4 of a gallon of Regular unleaded before the Premium stuff starts shooting out.
