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Post by joshm on May 16, 2013 20:19:45 GMT -5
I guess I'll start this off by stating I'm 240# on a good day. However, I was still expecting 45-50mph on flat ground. I bought this scooter a week ago and I've been having a blast. Fortunately, most roads around my house are 30mph or 40mph and I can keep up just fine with traffic. However, there is a stretch of road going to work that's 50mph... which is why i opted for a 150cc scoot. On flat roads, GPS shows 42mph. On nearly a 1/2 long down hill WOT it only saw 46mph. The main reason for the scooter, other than pure fun, was to save some cash driving it to work and back a few days per week (34 miles round trip on back country roads). However, I feel like in order to do this I'll be at WOT (bad MPG) and being force to slow traffic on about 3 of those miles (45mph and 50mph). Am I expecting too much out of this scoot with my weight? Or is there something that I could try to get a little more "oomph" out of it. It runs GREAT, starts first press of the button, idles at an ideal RPM. It just seems to run out of steam at 40mph. HELP!  |
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Post by JR on May 16, 2013 20:31:40 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum You are not expecting too much. It should go the 50 out the box. I would first check the variator weights, might even just jump into a performance variator without even trying to tune the stock one. there is one on this web page for about $80.00 www.scrappydogscooters.com/125_150cc_Performance.htmlYou also may have one of those tuned too lean stock carbs, putting a bit bigger jet in it could solve that issue, but buying an aftermarket one that actually has adjustable air/fuel mixture screws would be nice. Check the link in my signature line for "how can I go faster". |
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Post by scootnwinn on May 16, 2013 20:42:49 GMT -5
You might wait to break it in fully before you do much
Do check your carburetor settings
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Post by joshm on May 16, 2013 21:41:54 GMT -5
Meant to say in my first post, but my brain works faster than my fingers. It's an 07 with 1100 miles. Fresh fluids all around. Slight exhaust leak between pipe and motor. Tight as possible. May need new gasket, if there's one there at all.
Thanks for the links and advice! This is my first vehicle with less than 8 cylinders. A lot of learning to do.
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Post by JR on May 16, 2013 23:25:42 GMT -5
Exhaust leaks can lead to a burnt valve.
Make sure the valves are adjusted on a cold motor.
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Post by scootnwinn on May 17, 2013 1:29:59 GMT -5
Get that gasket before you ride it anymore. That is likely your performance issue right there. Hopefully no damage has been done
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Post by prodigit on May 17, 2013 1:35:52 GMT -5
You should be able to get 55-60MPH out of a 150. Mine does 62-63 tops, I'm sure that the taotao PX150 does 65MPH, due to being slimmer, and lighter in weight.
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Post by skuttadawg on May 17, 2013 1:38:09 GMT -5
If it is screaming on top end then maybe heavier weights will help otherwise lighter rollers can get the RPMs up .
Check your belt as some come with a generic belt that stretch , wear out and break faster than a Gates or Bando brand of belt . The belt not only wears out from rotation but the variator weights push it out in order to have " gears " thus making it not last as long as an accessory belt does on a car .
With exhaust leak your running lean and risk damage to the engine . Have the valves been adjusted or at least checked ?
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Post by joshm on May 18, 2013 10:38:59 GMT -5
Well, I got the valves adjusted. I couldn't even get the .002" gauge in there before adjusting to .005". I tightened the exhaust up as tight as I could get it and went for a short ride. Air is still escaping between the motor and exhaust, so I think that's what's still holding the top end back. Acceleration is a night and day difference. Before, it'd take quite a bit to get to speed. This time I about fell off the back of the scooter... wasn't quite prepared for such a drastic difference. It held easily at 45mph (speedo) and 40mph going up hill. Last weekend that same hill slowed me down to about 30mph by the time I reached the top. I just can't seem to find an exhaust gasket anywhere local. I've got a few more places to check this afternoon (fingers crossed). Unfortunately, there's no small engine parts stores around here. I may swing by Honda and see how much their GY6 gaskets are. If nothing else, I'll just order one from ScrappyDogScooters. It's still not quite where I want it, but i'm hoping to get to at least 5 more mph out of it with the exhaust all sealed up. After that, I'll look into adjusting the carb, rollers/sliders (still gotta figure out what exactly they do), and/or CDI and coil upgrade. Thank you to the above posters for the tips and suggestions!  |
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Post by oldchopperguy on May 19, 2013 1:05:56 GMT -5
Joshm,
I'm about your same weight, and like you, had no experience with these before getting a Xingyue Eagle 150 five years ago. Brand-new, mine too topped out around 40+ mph. The WORST problem with mine turned out to be the convoluted rubber "tuba" style factory air-filter setup.
After trying everything, I found my engine simply would not run up past its weak top-speed with ANYTHING attached to the carb-mouth other than a UNI "sock" filter. This phenomenon is not all that common, but not unheard of. You can easily check your scoot to see if it suffers from the same problem by simply removing the existing air-filter assembly and taking a short test-run with NOTHING on the carb at all. If it makes a HUGE improvement as it did with mine, the UNI filter is the way to go.
NOW... That being said, my factory main jet was too lean, as they usually are. I went up several sizes larger from stock, and honestly after this time, I don't remember exactly... I think the stock jet was a 102 and I went to about a 110. I also raised the needle to get it open quicker, which stopped any bogging on take-off. These carb mods raised the top speed to just over 50 mph on the flat.
Over the years, I upgraded the CDI to a no-limit one off eBay, and replaced the coil with an orange Bando coil, and installed an Iridium spark-plug. Each of these changes made slight improvements in idle, acceleration and top-end. It would now do around 53 mph.
Recently, I changed out the variator for a Prodigy unit (12-gram rollers). THAT made the most improvement. It now will do an honest 55+ mph on the level, AND bucks wind and hills MUCH better, while a 45 mph cruising speed is now a sedate "putt-putt" rpm, rather than near 8,000+...
All these scoots are different, and what works on one may not work on another one just like it, so my experience may or may not help. FIRST thing you need to do is get that exhaust leak stopped at the head. It CAN damage the engine. You can get gaskets off eBay if no other sources are handy. I'd go with the automotive flat "full-size" gasket rather than the "O" ring gasket they often have from the factory. You could probably even get some nice, thick high-temp gasket material from an auto-supply store and cut your own.
If you need exhaust nuts, these scoots use both 6mm and 8mm... I found that out when trying to replace my own with 6mm. It uses 8mm... LOL! I found my local LOWE'S home-improvement store has a good selection of factory-style metric, plated "flange-nuts" and bolts to use.
Based on my experience over five years with mine, I'd suggest FIRST you button up that leaking exhaust. You already set your valves, so NEXT I'd test-run it with no air-filter at all. If THAT wakes up the engine, get a UNI-sock filter, and mount it DIRECTLY on the carb mouth with no rubber tubing between it and the carb.
NEXT fine-tune the carb with richer main-jet and maybe adjusting the needle if needed to correct bogging. No bogging, no needle adjusting needed.
In the future, you will probably be MUCH happier with an upgraded no-limit CDI, better coil and iridium plug. These are fairly inexpensive, and take only minutes for "plug n' play" installation, and do make a truly noticeable improvement in overall drivability.
The fact that yours does "Peter-out" at just over 40 mph makes me think it might be "air-filter-sensitive" like mine was. Checking it with nothing on the carb takes only minutes, and will instantly tell you if that is the case. Don't run it much sans air-cleaner though... You don't want to inhale junk.
Having spent a full season "learning" with mine, I truly hope my experiences may help you out.
Ride safe!
Leo in Texas
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Post by joshm on May 19, 2013 13:11:06 GMT -5
Leo, thanks for taking the time to write all that info! It's MUCH appreciated.
This season, I'm really going to focus on just having fun riding it. If I'm able to get it up to a decent speed, it'll be a ride to work and back a few days a week. If I can't get it much past 45mph, I'll just ride it on the weekends and thoroughly enjoy them. I don't want to dig too deep into it until Winter.
I've got a exhaust gasket and upgraded coil/CDI/plug from Scrappy on order. I don't know how the latter will help, but if nothing else, I'm sure the stock plug could use replacing anyways. I ordered a donut/circular gasket for the exhaust, but I will hit up a small engine shop around here this week and see if they have a standard flat gasket seem on most automobiles... just smaller in size.
I may mess with the roller weights if that doesn't get me too much more MPHs. I think I've finally got the weights reasoning down (lighter vs heavier), I'll just need to get mine out to weigh. The thing is, mine has decent acceleration but it just dies off at 40mph. I'm just really hoping the exhaust will get that fixed.
I'm glad you mentioned the UNI filter test to see if the scoots just not getting enough air. I actually have a UNI filter for a go kart, I'll see if that fits on there.
It's hot this weekend, and it'd be great to be out there on the road. That's the hardest part lol.
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Post by prodigit on May 19, 2013 17:59:27 GMT -5
If that's the case, it definitely is restricted somewhere.
My ATM50 goes past 45MPH on a normal day. On a good day, and with little or no wind in the back it goes past 50MPH.
But good acceleration, and then a reasonably sharp decline in acceleration near to 40MPH, usually means it's restricted somewhere (perhaps they used the wrong cdi on that one, lol).
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Post by oldchopperguy on May 19, 2013 22:08:16 GMT -5
joshm,
I know just how you feel... Riding is the BEST part of these, NOT wrenching... LOL!  I have no idea why some scoots run fine with any air-filter, including the massive stock factory ones, and some won't.  In my case, my Xingyue 150 acted like yours until after trying everything imaginable, I discovered it simply would NOT tolerate ANY extension off the carb-mouth, regardless of filter. As a test, I added a short rubber tube (about 3") just long enough to clear the "cat-back" frame/engine mount piece. Most riders use a short piece of tubing like this to attach their choice of air-filter. Incredibly, the engine ran EVERY bit as BAD as with the factory filter, AND THIS WAS WITH NO FILTER AT ALL!That cat-back member is the bugaboo when trying to attach a different filter. It simply gets in the way in a BIG way. Even the shortest filters won't usually work. You must add a piece of tubing between the carb and the new filter to get the filter BEHIND the frame-member, and back by the rear fender. With mine, it was always the tubing that killed the performance. Here's a photo of the UNI-sock on mine. You can see it is squeezed between the cat-back and the starter. There just isn't room for a proper filter to go on the carb, so the flexible UNI fills the bill. I could run the engine on the stand with NOTHING attached to the carb, and it ran fine. Then I tried holding just a 2" piece of tubing onto the carb-mouth, and instantly the engine would falter and die out above 7K rpm EVEN WITH NO LOAD! Attaching the UNI sock created virtually NO decrease in performance. I can't explain it, but others have had the same problem. The UNI sock "fits" because while jammed under the cat-back piece, it will flex with the suspension. It will break up after a couple of seasons of such flexing and require replacement, but $10-bucks for a new one, every couple of years is OK with me... To get the doggone thing to run right, all the way to WOT. One day, I'll just "bite the bullet" and do what it takes to reverse the intake manifold, and let the carb protrude through the under-seat plastic. THEN I can stick on ANY filter I want to try... There MUST be a reason so many "skelly" or "nekked" Ruckus-style scoots do the reverse manifold. It's no just for looks... It gets the carb-mouth AWAY from that miserable cat-back piece, and allows unlimited experimentation with air-filters. If you go with the donut-style exhaust gasket, do be sure to EVENLY tighten the nuts to secure it all round. Then, I'd either put "jam-nuts" against them, or, use thread-locker to ensure they don't come off. They have a nasty habit of coming loose. Mine did it all the time, and before you know it, you can burn a valve. Please note also that you can't be sure that "hot air" you feel coming from around the header flange is leaking exhaust. The cooling fan forces air over the whole cylinder, and a pretty good blast of hot air exits around the exhaust header hole in the plastic shroud. You can usually hear genuine exhaust leakage, but a careful tightening of the nuts, one, then the other, back and forth is always in order. I'm finishing my own exhaust replacement right now, using a mix of home-made parts. I'll be posting a thread on that as soon as I can get it together and weather allows test-riding. If it works as I think it will, I may have some fairly easy "fixes" for the EXTREMELY restrictive head-pipes these have from the factory. From experience, I can tell you the upgraded coil, CDI and plug are ALWAYS a welcome change from the stock parts. I don't mean to make this longer than necessary, but I've learned SO much from my own scoot over 5 years, that I hope I can help others overcome the problems inherent with these without going through the learning curve I suffered through... LOL... I think... If you find yours IS touchy about the air-filter, and you go with a UNI, you may have to go to a richer main jet... That is pretty easy to do though, even if you never worked on the carb before. I rode around with my under-seat storage bin removed for a full season just to have constant access to the carb, CDI and coil... Cheesh!Enjoy the ride! And "live with the wrenching"... Leo
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