gio beast owners

[mizke]

ok so ive been talking about doing extended swingarms and control arms..

thing is tuesday i have a meeting a guy who does cad drafting, i am taking my quad for him to take measurements and pictures of the rear swing arm and control arms..

he is going to draw up some cad designs for the swingarm and control arms. also going to look into doing some different nerf bars and brush gaurds..

what i want to know is if you guys think that all of this is a waste of time and money ?

i know we all bought the off brand quads for their prices, so its i understand not wanting to dump a lot of money into them. but it would be nice to have some options on replacment parts.. the parts may not be as uber nice as the name brand aftermarket parts but they will be nicer then stock and priced as low as i can go even if it means i break even..

just looking for some feed back from every one, cuz i am seriously considering starting a business doing aftermarket things for the off brand quads. if there some things you would like to see like its already been suggested for the nerf bars, and brush gaurds, clutch levers.. list them and i will also bring it up with the guy..

not for sure about all of this, its costing me about 200 bucks to get the cad drawings and measurements so that way if i find decent prices on the production costs, they just got to enter the info in the machines for the parts to be made..

[anthonyfa18]

i would like to buy some of those parts too front arms sound cool too keep me posted and oping shop sounds good too.

[mizke]

cool, but i know to have them all made im going to have to "order" a certain amount..

extending the swingarm 4inches and extending the control arms 2inches should bring the quad up to a full sized quad stance..

oh and by clutch levers what i ment is the little arm that comes out of the top of the transmission...

but really im looking at doing some parts that are "replacment parts" just a better quality and then the rest of the stuff to use honda or yamaha parts..

[MICRider]

Hate to say it, but I don't think the market would be there... Most people buying a $900 atv aren't buying them for performance in the first place. Some people tweak them to get a few more ponies and a little more reliability out of them, but I suspect for the most part that they are kept pretty much stock. I admire your entrepreneurial attitude but I don't think you would sell more than a handful. I personally just try to keep my machines running and driving, the tires will spin when I dump the clutch so I don't need more than that

[AceCombat]

I am in the middle of making a new swingarm for my mini beast. I am using 7005 aluminum. I have lengthened the wheel base by 3 and 3/4 inches giving me almost 9 iches of travel out of the 3 inch travel marzochji shock. I used an old oil and air shock from my mountain biking days. I can adjust it on the fly as well.

[MICRider]

Okay, after reading the last post, perhaps there is a market for them and I am just a cheap bugger...

Regards,
Stew

[mizke]

Originally Posted by AceCombat

I am in the middle of making a new swingarm for my mini beast. I am using 7005 aluminum. I have lengthened the wheel base by 3 and 3/4 inches giving me almost 9 iches of travel out of the 3 inch travel marzochji shock. I used an old oil and air shock from my mountain biking days. I can adjust it on the fly as well.

nice, see im looking to do stuff like this but make a few different versions of the swingarm in a few different lengths.. one type will let you run a honda rear caliper and axle, another would let you run a yamaha rear caliper and axle.

its all up in the air and i have to wait untill the meeting to see what he comes up with.. worset case i get the details and use them as blue prints to build the parts for myself or maybe a few other people..

[mizke]

btw i would not be charging an arm and a leg.. like a honda extended swingarm by a known brand company runns like 700..

if it costs me for example 100 to make a extended swingarm i would sell it for 150 plus shipping.. but if i can get a jig made to wear you guys can send me your swing arm, or if you buy a new one and send the new one to me to extend it it would be much much cheaper.. also looking to in powder coating.. my brother n law said you can buy the stuff to spray the powder coat and then bake it in the oven for the baking process of powder coating..

[TurboT]

Hey Mike I'm a bit with Stew on this one. I really commend you for joining our forum and showing a passion for it right away with your many posts.

I believe the ratio for replacement parts over new is something like 9:1. It might be less now, but it's a number I've heard bandied about before.

Meaning if you were to replace your quad with new parts sourced from the dealers, you'd end up spending 9 times more than if you bought a new machine.

Most people who buy the chinabikes are buying them because they're cheap, and like to tinker on things. We cannot afford big name bikes or quads, or the parts that go with them.

It's fine to buy Yamaha bushings or Honda sprockets because really they are $10-20 items, but most of us will just live with the parts we have if any 'upgrade' is in the hundreds.

I bought the Gio quads (small ones initially) as test machines to see how much my daughters would use them, and I wanted them to be able to ride with me when I hopped on my YZ. This saved me a large investment in a small Yamaha per say considering my kids had never ridden and could crash it, or it could never be used and I spent 2 grand on a garage ornament.

I have the big beast because it was a purchase of opportunity. I found one dead on craiglist and got a stupid good deal on it considering it was just a broken spade connector on the coil that was the problem. It's now just a toy for me and Weldangrind to play with. Heck, it's probably half his in labour costs he's incurred on it (however much he loves working on them)

I for one am going to complete my objective which was to install the Yamaha bushings and a new chain, and do a couple mods (with W&G's help) and beat the hell out of it as a buddy bike or a fun toy for me, and hope to not spend much more money on it.

I have my Yamaha dirt bike which I spent a good bit of coin on. It lives up to it's billing. I've done nothing to it other than tire tubes and oil changes, and it's a great bike. However I spent double on it than I did my three Gio's combined on intitial purchase.

[AceCombat]

It all depends on what people want. IF for say there was a china bike racing circuit then you would have a much bigger call for after market parts. I for one have 3 ATVs now. I either go them for free or spent less than 150 bucks on buying them. I got them all as non running but got them running in less than hour after they were dropped off at my door. I am a tinkerer and I love to improve on designs. I also have at least 10 China bikes or ATVs in my family therefore if my idea works on one then I am certain I will have to do it again for a family member. I also happen to have a couple of stores near me that sell Gios and some other off brand china bikes So if my designs work really good then I might take one or two swingarms down to them and see if they will hang them on the wall to entice people to buy em. Then you also have to worry about the liability like if your Brake or clutch handle was to snap off causing a person to crash and hurt themselves. I trust my welding and my metal but i would still test anything I made for a few months before selling it.

[mizke]

of course there would be testing, im really good at testing stuffs limits. im very "hard" on my toys so to speak. my mustang see's redline at least 3 times a day, my quad gets used and abused more then a 20 dollar hooker in vegas.

like i am a tinkerer, i start with what i have and improve upon the design and change things to the way i like them..

ive found some control arm extenders that are nothing more then 4 plates on top and 4 plates on bottem connection the control arm mounts together

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Honda...mZ310215640678

[anthonyfa18]

^^^ do it i thing it will work

also i bought my beast for one thing as a project and i my have just found out about a racing leage where china can race. so ya i dont mind puting money on my atv. i save on the labor anyways, i do it all my self. befor i bout my beast i was looking into a trx250r or trx450r, but i said to my self i will have to spen just as much to make a use trx250r or trx450r run like new as doing a project on the gio beast.

[mizke]

if i had the option to get a trx over a knock off quad.. i would have gone with the trx.. my problem is i dont have all the stuff to cut metal and i cant weld.. i will get soemthing worked out

[Weldangrind]

If you choose to develop such items, prototyping will kill you if you can't do it yourself.

I was thinking about your welding questions when I found this in a Hot Rod magazine on the weekend: http://www.eastwood.com/welders/east...5a-output.html

That's the best deal I've ever seen on an infinite control MIG. It would do every thing you need, and it would be great for mocking up designs.

[streetfighter_75]

After a day of riding I noticed the swingarm on my GIO T3 had a crack in it. The smart thing to do would have been to grind out the rust and paint but I decided to build a new one. I have an active imagination and thought it would be a great test of my fabricating abilities. Ok, not much of a test because I do this stuff for a living but what the heck. So I would be the first idiot to build a custom swingarm for a Chinese knockoff, I've been called worse for less. Either way, it would be the first one in existence.

The following pics were taken yesterday, it is almost done, I'm just going to pick up some Aluminum checker plate to make a skid plate, should be done tomorrow or at least within the next few days.