2023 Model Skygo King 150

[JoeKahno]

TLDR; It hasn't killed me yet.

That requires some explanation. I retired in the Philippines. Skygo is not a motorcycle company. It is the motorcycle marketing branch of a large import/export company. They have an exclusive technical licensing and supply agreement with Lifan that includes technical assitance and support. This seems to be an excellent arrangement. It allows Lifan to concentrate on building motorcycles while SMC (Skygo Marketing Corporation) is building a dealer network at an almost frantic pace. The nearest dealer, where I bought my bike operates out of what amounts to a pair of 20x40 storage units. They have to pull bikes out in the morning to clear a path to the sales desk but they somehow found space for a service bay and parts counter. More about that later.

The first thing that caught my attention was the price. With the exchange rate at the time I bought it the "all up" price was $778. That includes title, tags, a year of liability coverage, helmet and a liter of gas. So, what does that buy you? A very close copy of a late 60's Honda CG125 with a displacement of around 150cc. I say "around" because mine has the LF161-FMJ with an actual displacement of 144cc while the owners manual says it's a 162-FMJ with 149.4cc. If I still own it when it needs the upper end refreshed the larger piston/cylinder is a no machining swap.

Which brings me to the second selling point, parts availability. I've got three dealers within a ten mile radius and Cebu is the port of entry for the bikes and parts. For parts not covered by warranty there are a couple of shopping networks where dealers in country sell online. The warranty is the usual useless thing where the bullet points promise and the fine print walks it back. It doesn't matter because prices are trivial. You can do an end to end rebuild of a trashed bike for around $200. (62mm cylinder kit including piston, rings, pin and gaskets is $30 on shopee.ph) Right now the Philippine Peso is a little over 55 to the dollar.

What closed the deal for me is the retro styling. It's like owning an antique for less than I'd pay for a restorable example of an original. Yes it's primative. Yes it drives like a tractor. I started life as a Wisconsin farm boy. My first road bike was an AMF Sportster. I *LIKE* tractors. I'll add to this as I go through the break in process. As a start I did a short walk around on YT.

[JoeKahno]

Please don't take this the wrong way. I have no desire to trash talk my adopted home. That doesn't keep me from recognising that some of the ways they do things here are strange and frustrating. Initial registration of a new vehicle is handled by a different part of the LTO (land transportation office) than the section that does renewals. Mostly this isn't a problem. I happen to live in a region notorious for delays. It took me ten weeks to get the paperwork required to legally drive the bike on the street. This caused a problem. I threw some gas in on the way home but it was only 89 octane. The owners manual says 91 minimum. After ten weeks in the tropical heat it was running kind of rough. It had to run for a while with a fresh fill of the right fuel to smooth out. The delay gave me a chance to go over the machine looking for "gotcha's". Threaded fasteners seem to alternate between finger tight and torqued to hell and gone. There also seems to be a shortage of cotter pins and lock nuts. If you're going to buy one of these get the BIG bottle of locktite. I have long been a fan of 242 blue but have switched to the 243. The big difference is surface prep. 243 can deal with a trace of oil and still perform reliably. The front brake is much less spongy now, you can actually feel when the shoes make full contact.

[JoeKahno]

1,000 km later.

My original intent was to document everything that went wrong during break in. Instead I was pleasantly surprised. I just finished the 1,000 km oil change and while the crap I drained out was moderately filthy it had none of the fine metal flakes present at the 100 km change. Driveability has improved, rapidly at first then slowing as the rough edges went away. There is still room for improvement but going just by feel I'd say it has hit 80% maybe 90% of "as good as it gets".

So, how good is that? The only thing I needed to change was the luggage shelf. I wanted to mount a trunk and the factory shelf was more suited to strapping down a lunch box. The closest thing to a problem was the mixture. It's sold as meeting "Euro III" emissions and was set really lean. As it broke in it became hard to start, requiring a shot of full choke even when hot. Cruising in mid range it felt like it was intermittently cutting out. Moving the mixture needle up one notch and opening the idle mixture another eighth of a turn made a drastic improvment. It still seems a little lean but is drivable and will probably pass the emissions check when it's time to renew the registration.

The base color for all the King series is black with decals to give blue, red, or gray accents. However, the tank is finished with a clear coat that contains fine multi-color sparkles. As a result, unlike the usual gloss black finish, it doesn't seem to be screaming "wash me" any time it picks up a couple of dust specks.

The front tire seems to be losing around 3 - 5 psi a week. I have a replacement tube ready if it gets any worse but with the current state of available inner tubes the new one might not be any better. The tires are some super cheap retro looking things that will get upgraded on replacement. For now they are getting the job done. I spent a couple bucks and swapped the original turn signal flasher for one that includes a really annoying beeper. After I regain the habit of manually canceling the signal after use I may go back to the silent unit.

Bottom line? It's not a late sixties Honda, but then, neither is the current 150 from the Honda dealer and my Skygo sold for a little over half of what the Honda dealer was asking. So far, I think I got my money's worth.

[JoeKahno]

I just passed 3,000km and had to deal with some additional issues. First was replacing a busted headlight. While stopping to close a gate at the apartment complex I picked a spot that turned out to not be as level as I thought. The bike rolled off the side stand. I could maybe have gotten away with replacing the lens and trim ring but the entire headlight assembly was in stock at the dealer for $10. The OEM part was available online for $5 but I didn't want to look at the results of my dumpf uckery for a week while waiting for it to arrive.

A more serious issue was the clutch. I have shifted US standard pattern for half a century. Instead of one down four up this machine uses five down and repeat. If you go past fifth you are back in neutral. Several times in the process of retraining my foot I found myself in a much higher gear than traffic required. Attempting to slip the clutch and come up to speed anyway started glazing the clutch disks. While I rapidly became slightly less stupid, once the glazing was started it slowly progressed until I replaced the disks as a preventive measure. A set of OEM friction disks was less than $5. As an unexpected benefit, the usual sticktion that would happen after leaving it parked a few days was greatly reduced. You still want to free the clutch before the first start of the day but it's less of a problem if you forget. Also slipping the clutch for smooth starts became much more controllable. It was well worth the trivial expense just for the improvement in driveability.

So, it seems to be holding up to a reasonable amount of user error fairly well. We have a month or two of tropical rainy season left and it's been spending considerable time under a bike cover. Normally I avoid these but around here it doesn't chill enough at night for condensation to be a problem and the UV levels this close to the equator will fade the paint and make the plastic crispy in nothing flat.

[JFOlivier]

Hey Joe, I really enjoyed your post. Bike really looks good for such cheap transportand it is good to get a taste of the Philippines.

[JoeKahno]

Well, I've got a year and a little over 7,000 km on the 150 King. That seems pretty light for a retired guy with plenty of free time in a country with a year round riding season. Part of it is due to local traffic being mostly first and second gear. The other factor is that I'm just now starting to trust it enough for some longer road trips. Skygo is built by Lifan. The design (as stolen from Honda) is rock solid, the materials are fair but the QC is a little "iffy".

I did another short YT video about the issues I dealt with this time around. I'll be covering the carb swap in a separate post because it wasn't a maintenance item. The OEM unit wasn't defective and it wasn't the manufacturers choice in any normal sense. Instead of being able to optimize for economy or performance they were required to meet emission standards in order to have a market. For the rest of it, I'm seriously impressed by what I got for the money.

[buzz]

Hello I want one,great price,but it will never get here.

[JoeKahno]

Originally Posted by buzz

Hello I want one,great price,but it will never get here.

You have my sympathy. While there are plenty of Lifan bikes available in the US this model isn't on the list and none of those that did make it are for sale at anything close to a reasonable price for what they are.

[2LZ]

Originally Posted by buzz

Hello I want one,great price,but it will never get here.

.....and then there's CA.