(Mods, feel free to delete this as it might not be appropriate for this forum.) Pre lockdown I was at the pub and after a few, got offered an old 748 that needed some work. It's a very unusual one as it's on the small side in every respect. Anyway it's fully rebuilt now and sits along side my other yellow 748.
This was my first ever bike but in red! I had a 1999 Cagiva Mito. I think it broke down every 200-300 miles.
There are a few enterprising folk retro installing larger capacity engines, although AFAIK best not to use a big 4 stroke as they fatigue crack the frames.
little gems.. only ruined by ham-fisted riders/repairers. I still have about 5 or 6 Planet/Supercity/Mito.
I loved these! I had posters on my wall as a 16yr old, my dad agreed to buy me a new one so I had a chance to keep it nice and not have one that had already been blown up (I didn't realise at the time how lucky I was!) and then when we went to buy one, nobody could get them, so I got a Aprilia RS125 which was okay because it had it's own cool aspects like the beautiful frame etc. To this day I think the RS125 has by an absolute mile a better engine, but I wanted one of these so badly! I fixed up a mates one years back, and rode it and tbh it was slow, and then my close mate recently picked up one on eBay from Swindon for a bargain, like £1200 that was MOT'd and I rode it home for him. Absolute garbage! honestly it vibrated so badly I was convinced it was going to let go, but going up the hill out of swindon I couldn't do anything but rev it to about 10k rpm, I had already changed down 3 gears! Turns out it had no gearbox oil in it, which was scary, but it's left me with only bad experience of them. I'd love to ride a really well sorted full power one.
Tbf, that applies to almost every Ducati I’ve ever owned. It got so bad at one point and spoiled so many ride outs that my bike mates insisted that I used my then Honda Hornet rather than a Ducati. One of them likened my relationship with my bike to that of a bartered husband in that I was always trying to cover up problems and make excuses such as “if I only serviced her more often then she wouldn’t break down but now I’ve had [insert description of expensive remedial/preventative work here] done she won’t let me down again”......only for some other problem to crop up the next time we were all out together. Tbf to Ducati though, none of my bikes have ever been less than 10 and are often more than 20 years old.
I can see the point of fitting a bigger smoker engine but what would be the point of fitting a 4 stroke lump? That’s just reinventing the wheel by building a slightly smaller 748/916 with a different frame and double sided swingarm. Sounds like a lot of time, effort and money to make a bike that’s worse than the one which already exists.
I guess because you may have a thumper lying around, from what I’ve seen big singles are favoured not sure anymore cylinders would fit in the frame easily. I be looking should I (n)ever get the time to use a 250 LC engine. Or just keep it standard and ride it. The answer is, because it’s possible maybe?
some of the RD350 conversions I've seen look almost factory, and can have around 70 genuine HP (maybe more at crank) which would be really appealing. The engines are expensive though and if you don't have the bike already then it's a really big money pit
Aprilia RS250 engine would be awesome in the Cagiva Mito and also a 450 single apparently works.... I always wanted to try it....
I can't find the thread but the std Mito/Planet/Raptor headstock is not up to handling large, torquey, 4 stroke singles in the long run. Although getting hard to source 350 two-stroke twins work very well. just for the record, having run and worked on both, i don't agree that the Aprilia equivalent was better "by an absolute mile". There wasn't much in it as regards bottom end but Cagiva refined both gearbox and barrels to achieve a far better result in the end, this is only my opinion. The power valve was arguably more durable on the Aprilia but far more bulky. The Cagiva power valve was a bit crude mechanically but fine if checked and cleaned regularly.
From what I’ve read the welds crack around the headstock due to fatigue from the vibrations of a 4 stroke. You’d be better IMO using a 250lc engine with an Athena big bore kit AFAIK they take a 250 out to 475, from a little research you can’t fit the larger kit to a 350 but can’t recall why. It would be a real huge money pit though, but what a bike.
I've got a 6 speed one of them... Well, the teenager runs it at the moment, but I'm paying and will have it back when he gets bored, we're slowly changing a few bits to improve it. The only problem I have found when riding it other than terrible fuel consumption is that I turned into a right idiot, flat out, wide open throttle everywhere, red line every gear else it drops out of the power band, head down.. it's brilliant ! 6 or 7 speed? Bunny ear airbox? Edit, and as RD350 motors are now becoming prohibitively expensive, people have started to put TZR250 motors in them, 45hp out of the box with more to be quite easily found - if you're engine swapping then the really need to be parallel twin stroker so it'll fit and you'll need to change the front end to cope with the additional weight (I may have looked into this a bit more than perhaps I should)
