Modifications made to my new Viva VX200SX!

[TeamCheap]

Looks some serious work going on there SamM, a little more than my bike although I am removing the very long engine mount bolt and redoing the upper rear engine mount as well as changing all the engine mounting bolts.

I'm not sure if your bike has the same engine bolt setup as mine but on mine last summer I popped the head off the upper rear bolt, near swingarm(real long bolt).
I noticed recently as I was installing a new OHC engine inplace of the stock pushrod engine that the lower rear engine mount bolt was also badly damaged.
I have no idea of why this happened but all the engine mount bolts fit very sloppy on mine and I think the engine just torqued them around to much.
Maybe it's because I put to much stress on the bike at 250lbs and the engine completes the bottom frame support so the stress gets transfered thru/around the engine - IDK.

Oh there was nothing wrong with the stock pushrod engine I just wanted to try the OHC engine in it and rearrange a lot of the electrical components.

[msRandi]

well you guys have them apart, nows the time to figer out somthing for the swing arm bolt.

[justjoe]

Wow Sam

That is some nice mods, The Rear shock could use it,the stocker is almost a hardtail!

[red2003]

Hey Sam,

That looks ALL too familiar . That shock looks pretty nice. Do you have a center to center measurement yet? Looks about right. If you plan on making a new scissor, it HAS to be longer then the stocker or you wont gain a thing on rear wheel travel. If you look at my pics, you'll see the new linkage hangs down a good bit more then the stocker, and it has to. No way around it. BTW, if you go to a top mount shock on the swingarm, the battery can't be where you plan to put it. Also, what air filter do you plan on running. My K & N pod type filter was too long to mount the battery like that, and it was pretty stubby. Best of luck with the mods.

Steve.

[SamM]

The swingarm bolt and quite frankly, all of the bolts on the bike look suspect to me. I've already bought a swingarm bolt off ebay for my bike. Someone posted a link a couple days ago and I immediately clicked on the link and purchased the bolt. If it works, ok, if not I'll be trying to source another bolt. Hopefully, something grade 8. I believe most of the bolts on the bike can be replaced with metric bolts purchased locally.

Wow TeamCheap, OHC engine huh! Very nice mod! Start a thread and post some pictures of it. I'd love to see that swap. May attempt that myself later.

[TeamCheap]

I agree with you on the bolts 100% I dont trust them at all after that engine bolt popped on me last summer.

I dont think the OHC engine is much of a difference, it's still a lifan just not the pushrod engine.
The cool thing is I'll still have my wifes stock bike to compare it to to see if there is any noticable difference in performance.

[SamM]

Posted by: red2003
Hey Sam,

That looks ALL too familiar. That shock looks pretty nice. Do you have a center to center measurement yet? Looks about right. If you plan on making a new scissor, it HAS to be longer then the stocker or you wont gain a thing on rear wheel travel. If you look at my pics, you'll see the new linkage hangs down a good bit more then the stocker, and it has to. No way around it. BTW, if you go to a top mount shock on the swingarm, the battery can't be where you plan to put it. Also, what air filter do you plan on running. My K & N pod type filter was too long to mount the battery like that, and it was pretty stubby. Best of luck with the mods.

Steve

Steve,
I've tried everything to get the stock shock to move. It won't move even a fraction of an inch. It may as well be a hardtail. The stock linkage doesn't inspire me as working much better. I don't have a center to center measurement on the new Buell XB shock. It should be here in a few days. I paid $75 for it! a bit much but I think it was worth it. I'm kinda just going on faith that it will work. I'm thinking it's around 11". I'll be completely eliminating the linkage from the suspension. The Buell XB uses no linkage and since I'm using a shock from an XB, I'm going the same route. The stock shock is basically worthless, so I may cut the mounting eyes off and use them on the Buell shock. I'll have to have it professionally welded but I know professional welders, so I'm covered.

On the battery mounting issue. I may move it down and over. Either way I have plenty of room. The battery is much smaller than it looks in the picture. I'm using a Uni-filter. It should fit in there just fine. I'm not moving the top shock mount. I'm thinking and hoping that everything fits in there just fine. If I get a chance I'll take a few more pictures to show how much room I actually have. Here's a picture that shows were I may mount the battery. It's much like your setup.

[SamM]

Another picture. This one shows my newly rewelded swingarm grease fitting boss. I cleaned the weld up and put some primer on it. Tomorrow, I'll spray some silver and all will be right with it.

[TeamCheap]

LOL I'm moving my battery from the side (like how you want to put yours) to the middle real close to the rear fender.
Atleast you have yours on the other side from where mine came stock, the stock battery location on mine was about 3/8"-5/8" above the exhaust pipe which seemed to be cooking the battery.

I have a K&N 3x3 filter and it looks like it will all fit nice.

I'll try to get a thread with pics started on my little mods, I just need to get the pics on the net somewhere other than yahoo-yuck.

[red2003]

Originally Posted by TeamCheap

I'll try to get a thread with pics started on my little mods, I just need to get the pics on the net somewhere other than yahoo-yuck.

We have a gallery here. The site admin, Frostbite, needs to give you permission to post, but that's where most of us post ours. You get 64 mB of space. Good deal, and works well.

[SamM]

Over the past few days, I've made a couple purchases for my Viva. A new Clymer 1979-2003 Honda XL XR 125 185 200 XR200 REPAIR MANUAL cost me $27.85 including shipping. This should come in handy!


A leap of faith was made on this one. It's a 2001 Honda XR200R swingarm axle pin. It was $34.04 shipped. Not bad if it works!


New sprockets, a 520 chain and a Uni-Filter will be on the way shortly from EJCycles. I may have this thing back together in a week or so. Today's, plan is to start hacking up the frame removing all the little brackets and tabs that will no longer be used. I've decided to leave the shock linkage mounts on the frame, just in case the rear shock replacement doesn't go as planned.

I have a few other small purchases planned. More on those later!

[sheadouglas]

Hey SamM, once you get this thing finished, maybe you can represent all the Chinariders at the Erzberg in Austria this year!!!!!!!

[SamM]

OK! I have a PayPal account. Everyone can send money to finance my trip to Erzberg! Seriously, I don't know if the Viva would be up to the challenge of Erzberg. Have you looked closely at the frames on these? I know you have! They're not very good! I hope to have a very nice china bike when I'm done but it's not going to be very off-road capable, IMHO. It will be a nice commuter though. The FedEx guy just delivered my new Buell shock, a few minutes ago. I need to get back to the shop.

Thanks!

[sheadouglas]

I honestly dont think these 200cc bikes could make it up those steep hills. There are people on high powered bikes that arent making it up a lot of those hills. No , I dont think the frame would be able to handle the absolute BEATING that race has to offer. The bikes and the racers absolutely WEAR IT by the time that race is over. That is something I would love to do before I die. That's one thing that die hard bikers argue about chinese bikes is that they cant handle a serious beating. No, they probably cant, but I didnt buy my bike to be able to handle those type of situations, and I bet most people on this forum didnt either.

[fatboy250]

Shea,
You're right...I already have a great bike. The Roketa was bought for: fun, quality time with Dad, gas, commuting, easy trail riding, wanna be supermotoing, and just being cool for really cheap.