The Red Baron is a 1985 350-cc Moto Morini with significant engine modifications, along with other mods, which has achieved land speed records on dirt, salt, and tarmac over six seasons of refinement. Given its now the off-season in the midst of a pandemic, we are daydreaming about what comes next. Well, we are beyond daydreaming at this point… 🙂
125 H engine
Long-term, we hope to set records across several land speed racing classes, which can be achieved by swapping and modifying engines to change the displacement classes. The 125 H engine is one of our long-term projects to go after records in the 125-cc classes for pushrod and blown engines.
This engine has been sitting unused for decades in a coastal Italian town, and wouldn’t turn over by hand. We are hoping to clean it up and turn the power back on. Easier said than done.
Piston, Cylinder & Cylinder Head
We were looking for a long-term project, and that is certainly what we got. The engine needs a lot of cleaning. Having been in a coastal location, there are water marks and rust everywhere, along with the sludge of oil and carbon build-up.
Draining the oil
It wasn’t too surprising that oil drain plug didn’t budge. It was completely stripped by attempts to unscrew it, until eventually the oil was drained from the engine case through the hole where the oil filter is installed.
Crankshaft
Just like everything else, the crankshaft gear was seriously stuck in place too.
Down the road, we will check whether the end of this 125 H crankshaft has the same taper geometry as the 350-cc crankshaft currently used by The Red Baron. This will make the swap with the supercharger much easier!
Clutch
One major difference between The Red Baron 350-cc engine and this 125-cc engine is that this one has a wet clutch, whereas The Red Baron has a dry clutch. Other than that, the removal was very similar. Parts were slightly smaller and required a new “special tool” — a modified socket — to unscrew the clutch sleeve nuts.
It also took some interesting engineering to hold everything in place to remove the clutch basket and remaining nuts.
Opening the engine case
Finally, after many hours of soaking, prying, and heating, the engine case could be opened. Guess what? More cleaning!
More updates will continue as things are cleaned, and we can see the state of the engine underneath.
