[Darkrider]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Yes, you'd get disc brakes up front. Depending on the model of China bike, you could have disc brakes on the rear as well.


I recommend against swapping the forks without doing the monoshock conversion. The inverted forks are considerably longer that the stockers, and you'd have a chopper-like effect. The monoshock rear and inverted forks are a matched set that provide tons of ground clearance (comparatively).


With some light fab work, you could also swap the plastic tank and contoured seat from the China bike. Essentially, you'll be able to street-register a China bike, due the Honda frame.


The plan I have is to use a later model XR200 seat and tank, so there is a little more Honda, and a better fuel cap. I have everything in place, except the XL185 frame.

Hmmm ok Good points about the suspension. I may just go down the route of tuning the existing one then and setting up the brakes similar to how i have them on my DT. One thing i am going to do however is see about fitting some stiffer rear shocks and more then likely add a pvc pipe spacer in the forks to add some preload to them.

Originally Posted by Bruce's

I would be a little careful doing this ,as depending on your doner bike some of the chineese bikes have trash suspension components that are not any better than the original bike in reality .

Once again good points. I am probably better off working with the stock honda suspension.

I may also see if there are some Honda street bikes that use a compatible front end to gain disk brakes up front. I know with my DT i can swap on an XS 650 front end to do so. I loose an inch or so of height in the front by doing so but can regain it by running a pair of XT500 rear shocks to make the bike sit similar to current dual sports/supermotos. Kinda wondering if there is some parts switching i can do with honda parts to get there as well.