Engine: Repair or replace?

[Nordic]

Hello all,

My 2009 Super 8 with about 13000 miles on it had a catastrophic engine failure last weekend while cruising along at top speeds. It just lost all power and I slowed to a complete stop on the side of the road and it hasn't started again since. Some members of the local scooter club came out to look at the engine and after ruling out things like fuel issues, a bad carb, and a bad spark plug we ran a compression test and discovered that there is no compression. During the repair work, we also discovered a hole in the hose that leads from the air filter box to the carbeurator.  I live in a town with a lot of dust in the air and my mechanic friend believes that the engine just eroded away on account of dirty and dusty air being pulled in through the carberator. It really was the worst diagnosis.

So now I am stuck, obviously. Do I repair or replace the engine? My friend said he could do the repair work but it would have to wait for a couple of weeks as he is pretty busy. He tells me that it would most likely require several hours of work and a couple hundred dollars in parts. The other option is to spend a little more and just buy a brand new engine, which would actually require less labor and could proabbly get done sooner. He referred me to thise ebay seller selling GY6 150cc scooter engines:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/150CC-GY6-SCOOTER-ATV-QUAD-GO-KART-LONG-ENGINE-MOTOR-/140594315332?pt=Motors_ATV_Parts_Accessories&hash=item20bc130044&vxp=mtr

That would cost me about $370, total.

But I called a Kymco dealer in Dallas and was told that I can't drop any 150cc GY6 engine into the scooter as there would be compatability issues. He said I should buy a Kymco engine which would cost at least $1000 dollars. Of course, he is a dealer and would be prone to saying somethinig like that, The local scooter club members tell me that it shouldn't be that big of an issue; and personally, that engine linked to above looks nearly identical to the one in my scoot.

So I'm pretty frustrated and confused at this point. My scooter is my only means around town and without it life is very difficult. It sound like the prudent thing to do is to simply wait it out and do a rebuild of the specifi components. But buying a new engine seems a bit more cost-effective and I could probably get my bike runing sooner, but I m worried about compatability issues.

Does anyone have any experience dropping a non-Kymco engine into a Kymco scooter? Is it easy or difficult to do? Does anyone have any experience with the engine linked to above? I'm desperate for any advice I can get on this folks...

Thanks...

Nordic

[Supa 8]

Great question.  Sorry about your problem.  I have no experience with swapping a Kymco GY6 150cc for a generic, but I'm very interested to hear from the others in this forum about this subject.  I may soon swap out mine for a generic 170cc GY6 I've seen offered.  Thanks for posting about this.  Good Luck.

[Vivo]

If you have access to all original Kymco parts, I would go for a full engine rebuid.

[allen1371]

I had the exact same bike and story. Cruising along, started up a hill wide  open and then dead!
Same issue low compression same year same dilemma. I ended selling to someone with alot of time, energy and a garage full of old scooters (and eager to start a winter project).
I will give him a call and see where he is in the project.

[skishades]

I have a hard time believing Kymco would save money by designing a "new" GY6 motor... The design is over 20 years old and is unchanged.  It is more likely that they just have a higher quality control over each individual part (unless its a 2009 apparently) since Kymco's company reputation will ride on the engine.  Does anyone have any idea what might actually be different? Would the engine mounts change?  I would think GY6 parts are GY6 parts.. I haven't seen anything to indicate that a carburetor or spark plug on the general market for GY6 motors has exceptions for Kymco or anyone else who uses that engine.  If your block is ruined, keep in mind, the parts on the engine are just as old.  A new engine and parts might cost a little more but then you know you have at least another 13k to put on it for your next problem (ie, piece of mind) but if you "fix" your existing engine, something else is just around the corner. 

It sounds like you need parts a little faster so you might be needing to look to your local scooter shops for parts to get it going.  If you have time, you can search chinese companies through sites like Alibaba.com or DHgate.com... You would need to know each part you need but you can find parts for GY6 for relatively cheap... keep in mind, it can take them 2 weeks to get it ready to ship and it can take another 4 weeks to get here... so you might wait close to 2 months... (there are faster shipping options but it isn't cheap to cross the Pacific puddle).  I have ordered parts through them and some get to me in 2 weeks and I am currently on week 6 for something else.  Just keep in mind with those sites, make sure you aren't sending money directly to them... use a credit card with consumer protection (so you can dispute the charges if they don't ship at all) or use Paypal... don't use moneygram or direct transfer, there are a lot of scams, all of which want the money up front.

[MotoRandy123]

I'd open it up and see whats wrong. Motor's just don't die with no compression.
Take the valve cover off and see if the valves are opening and closing. Maybe
a valve spring broke or the decompression is stuck on. It might be a quick and
 cheap fix. I'd imagine the chinese motor would work but the quality is a bit less
and you might have further problems. I'd fix the Kymco myself...

I found this on another site"

so yesterday I was plowing along when my engine died I knew straight away piston or head cause I had no compression.

after I got recovered it was too late in the afternoon to be tearing her apart so this morning I had a look. turns out the bolt that retains the adjustable part of the rocker arm has worked loose and done some serious damage.

I did pre-check all the nuts and bolts when I put it back together but obv that one was not tight enough!"

[skippy]

+ 1 strip the head down and check first. they are easer to sort than they look.

[Barrnone]

The problem with replacing the motor  , is that the distance between the engine and the rear axle differs , the ads you see on the net , are traditional for long and short case motors , but , where the super 8 has 14" wheels ,the distance between is greater ; so the dealer would be right from that point of view.