Vader 150 -> 250.

[ProDigit]

I went online to buy an engine upgrade for my Vader 150.
I found what I thought was a good deal on a CG250 (229cc) for $435 on the Walmart website. When I opened the cover, it looked like Arabic writings inside the engine. Didn't look Chinese, Indian or Indonesian, the countries you expect these engines to come from.

Engine: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vertical-...roke/288560980

Turned out, walmart sent me an engine with step through gearbox. In other words, shifting from neutral into 1st is down, and any following gear is down as well.
Once you reach 5th you can shift down once more for neutral.

It's totally opposite of normal motorcycle gears, and I really have to pay attention that I don't accidentally shift into a lower gear when running already high rpms.

The nice thing is, coming to a stoplight, I only need to shift 1x down from 5th gear to be in neutral, and 1x down from neutral to go into 1st gear.

Bad part is possibly wrecking the bike, when accidentally shifting down twice from 5th gear into 1st gear; as well as when slowing down, but not coming to a full stop (like the light just turns green before you got there). You'll either have to shift 5th gear up to 3rd or 2nd, or whatever gear for the speed you need, or shift down into neutral, first, second, third... to whatever gear you need.
Gear shifts up are very clunky. But I noticed it can be done when not fully engaging the clutch, but keeping it at the friction zone instead. Also,only gear shifts when moving. Nearly impossible to shift when standing still.

I had a few false neutrals, between 4th and 5th.

This new gearing takes getting used to, but it's not entirely unusable.

I can't yet say a lot about the performance of the CG250, other than this version of it, is a rather weak engine.
My 150 was faster in top speed and speed overall, save for low rpm speed.
The 250 is like a tractor, pulling first to third gear as low as 2000rpm.
4th and 5th seem to like speeds above 3k rpm though.

I do realize that the engine is still breaking in (first 25 miles done), valve adjustment done (was too tight from the factory), and the engine by itself had less than 1oz of shipping oil in it.
I took the halfway used oil from the 150, and filled up the 250 with that. Oil will be dumped tomorrow anyway.

The 250 has the same gearing as the 150, comes from the factory with a 14t, but I installed the 19/29t gearing on it.
At the moment the 250 can't yet pull 5th gear past 50mph, but 4th gear it can up to 60.
The 150 could do 70, and 74 when conditions were right; but that engine was tuned to the max.

So far I've found that a 40 pilot is close to ideal, and a 125 main is a bit rich.
I'll look into a 115 and a 120 later. Despite me being at sea level, which requires bigger jets, I do have a silencer in my exhaust, which is why the 125 still was a bit too rich.

I also have to tune the needle jet height. It's set to 1 up from center, with a thin washer making the needle run 1.5 richer (up). I'm using the same PZ30 as my 150 engine had.

As far as installation went,
It was fairly easy.

Remove plastic side panels, remove carburetor, remove kick starter and gear pedal, disconnect wire harness, unplug sparkplug, disconnect sprocket and chain from transmission, unmount the 5 engine mount bolts holding the engine.

Do the valve adjustment on the new engine, install spark plug, transfer air intake manifold from 150 to the 250 (manifold was angled,causing the carburetor not to fit).
The old manifold is slightly smaller in diameter than the new one, but fits nonetheless. This manifold only fits PZ27 carburetors, however PZ30 also fit, albeit barely. The carburetor almost sticks out beyond the seal on top.


Pop in the new engine using a jack. Insert the main (big) 2 motormount bolts, but don't tighten, then insert the other (smaller) 3 motormount bolts.
Plug in the 6 pin cable (gear indicator) into the harness (under booth under seat). In my case, the other 5 (I believe) wires can be connected to one another, as they have a similar color code (pink, yellow, green, black, blue).
Plug in the sparkplug cable, connect the carburetor and fuel line, open the fuel petcock, turn on the bike with key, and turn on starter switch, and test with or without choke on.
Make sure you're in N, when starting from the side stand peg, otherwise you'll have no spark.

Mine started after a few tries, as I had no spark, due to side stand switch.

Set idle, adjust AF screw for fastest idle rpm.
If idle screw is all the way in or out, means you'll need to go smaller or bigger on the pilot jet.
I went from a 35/38 pilot on the 150, to a 40 on the 250 (229cc).
Still testing out the main jet, but it looks like I'll be going from the 112 main to a 115 main on the new engine.

On paper the CG250 should have 12hp, while the 150 should have 10.
While torque definitely is better on the 250 from 1-4k rpm, I probably will have to wait until the first 600 miles are over, before I can start noticing better higher rpm performance.

I read online the total install takes 4 hours. But for a first timer, and despite everything going well, it took roughly 12 hours.
This included rejetting the carburetor and testing.
Also, I don't have all tools, so sometimes I have to be inventive to get a job done, taking some extra time.

I'm expecting avg mpg to go from ~66 on the 150 (not including leisurely rides
between 30-45 MPH that net 84MPG), to go down to about 50-55, as the engine rpm in 5th is the same as on the 150.
Although it feels like first gear on the 250 is taller than on the 150.

I had a 20t front sprocket once, but it didn't fit the 150 engine.
I might check if it's still available, because it could potentially fit the 250, as it still has some room left to go. (Just ordered one on AliExpress.

[Thumper]

Got a few photos??

[ProDigit]

Sure, will get some soon.
I'm still tuning the carburetor, so the fairings are still not installed. The new engine is larger so swapping out carburetors can't be done with the fairings still on.


Meanwhile, I'm surprised to say, that even the 115 main jet is running a tad rich.

So the swap from a 150 to a 229, didn't require a change in main jet. Just the idle jet needed to be upped from 38 to a 40.

[Deckard_Cain]

Sounds more like an ATV or pitbike variant of the CG.

Should be just fine, just totally different and need to get used to it.

One of the reasons why I bought my Vader 125 instead of the Icebear Fuerza.. Fuerza had an extended swingarm I didn't like plus the all down shift pattern.

To be fair to the walmart page for your engine though, there is a picture with the shift pattern ...

[ProDigit]

Yeah, I think you're right about an ATV engine. it was the cheapest cg250 I could find.
On paper the 150 in my Vader had 10hp, and this one 12HP, so it should be faster.

But this one is still slower.
The top of the engine looks exactly the same as the 150, and weighs also the same. I feel like I got a 150 instead of a 250, save for the extra torque.

I'm going to see if an adjustable CDI can gain me a tiny bit of top speed, as I don't want to tinker with the flywheel to advance the timing.
I'm using the CDI from the 150, so maybe that one isn't ideal for the 250.
I'm presuming it's an AC CDI?

I'm also going to look for a different intake manifold that has a wider opening, because the one I'm using was for the PZ27 on the 150 engine.

[ProDigit]

You know, initially I was complaining about the 250 having less HP?
It topped out at 50MPH with the 19/29 gearing and 140 70 R12 tires (up from the stock 130 70 R12 tires).

Yeah, in 4th gear it could reach 55MPH, but I had hoped those extra 2HP of the CG250 compared to the 150, were hidden inside there somewhere.

So I looked online for adjustable CDIs. To see if I can somehow change the timing.
I also swapped out my exhaust for one with a slightly larger diameter.
A 300CC exhaust, unlike the 125cc exhaust I had on before, hoping performance would go up somewhat.

The 115 main jet was running a tad too rich, so rather than rejetting, swapping to the new free flow exhaust corrected that.

While riding, I did do a fuel up (half the tank with the 150, half with the 250), which showed 84MPG.
I thought it might be an error, and just forgot about it.
After that, I noticed my valves were ticking again.
You know how they always say that valves get tighter, not looser?
This is the second bike where valve gaps get looser, not tighter.
There might be a reason though...
I think that initially, the engine oil has a lot of metal flakes that can get stuck between the tappets. It makes it look like the valve has zero clearance.

When I came back home from a test ride, I opened up the valve cover (hot), and noticed that the play was slightly more than what I had set it to (I had set it to roughly 0.002-0.003" COLD, play was 0.003-0.004" HOT).
So with the engine steaming hot, I got some gloves, and just set the tappet screw to zero (hand tight). Then I tightened the locknut, and closed it.

Immediately out the gate, the engine had a lot more low end torque from that.
Definitely noticeable! I could basically accelerate from 2k RPM onwards in 4th gear, though the bike prefers 3k RPM and up.

I went on a 96 miles fuel economy trip, to and back from West Palm Beach, with little to no stop lights, speeds of between 30-40 MPH, ideal for this little engine.
The Vader 150 has a 1.5 gal tank, and with fuel lines, filter, and carburetor, that's 1.6 Gal (trust me, I know).

With the 150, I would reach 84 MPG on these eco trips, so I calculated I should make it with 1.5 Gal if the CG250 (229cc) would consume at least 66MPG or better (=99 miles of range, plus the 0.1gal in the lines and carb is 105 miles of range).
Not all the trip was a great fuel economy run, I had some stoplights, and some pieces where I started to notice the bike started to go faster than 50MPH in 5th gear.

Once I arrived back to my home fuel station, I was surprised to see that I not even used a single gallon of fuel!
Result: 111 MPG!!! (See sig).
I couldn't believe it.
I remember people saying they got more MPG than my 94MPG Lifan Xpect 200 doing the fuel economy run, out of their hawks, but now I can finally see it myself!

The CG250 had beaten the 150 in terms of MPG numbers!
This also during the break-in, so I tend to believe fuel mpg will only go up from here on.

During the first 30-something miles, the engine was really getting used to running at 3-4k RPM (30-40MPH). I noticed vibrations slowly started disappearing, to the point where 3-4k RPM almost felt like a counterbalanced engine; and engine braking smoothed out to feeling more like coasting in neutral when letting go of the throttle, than braking.
It did still vibrate above 4.5-5k RPM.

As I continued riding, between mile 60-90, I noticed the bike slowly started to be able to
handle higher RPMs and higher speeds in 5th gear!
In one run I was able to reach 67MPH (65 GPS) in 5th gear, with still left to go, but it took forever to get there.
The CG250 really pulls all the way to 50MPH. From there on, it's a slow crawl to more.

What surprised me, was that I was able to maintain speeds of 60+ MPH, without needing to tuck, like on the 150.
So the engine finally is starting to bloom!
I start to fall in love with my Vader 150 once again, as I see the performance above 50MPH was quite exhilarating!

I've even started thinking, if anyone ever wants to steal this bike, they'd get hell of confused, as the gearbox isn't doing your ordinary motorcycle gearshift order.

Right now, I believe the correct gearing for this bike is 19/29t.
But I've already ordered a 20T front sprocket, once the engine is fully broken into.

A new X-Pro Vader/Condor 150 weighs roughly 275 LBS wet.
I shed 7LBS from swapping the exhaust, and roughly 5.5 LBS from swapping the lead acid battery to a lithium one. The difference in weight is roughly the difference between the 250 and the 150 I replaced.

[ProDigit]

Here are some pictures of the new engine installed.
Fairings stay off, as I need to still get a new intake manifold for the PZ30.
I'm hoping that will resolve some intake restriction.

[Thumper]

That starter relay/solenoid seems to be where the coil used to be! Yes, you DID have to move things around. Did the original mounting bracket by the intake vale line up OK? It looks kind of shortened.

Good to hear the engine is loosening up and gaining power. I guess that is typical break-in behavior.

I have never encountered pass through shifter set up. I guess there is no reason why the roller couldn't be engineered that way other than the safety reason (protecting first gear from a catastrophic engagement at 50mph!).

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by Thumper

That starter relay/solenoid seems to be where the coil used to be! Yes, you DID have to move things around. Did the original mounting bracket by the intake vale line up OK? It looks kind of shortened.

No. It was literal plug and play. The starter is on the other side of the bike, it's a bit bigger and longer,and sticks out to about halfway the engine.
What you're seeing is the back side of the starter.

The only thing was the carburetor would hit the frame, hence I used the 150's intake. All the rest is just a drop in replacement.