Has anyone done a dirt to dual conversion?

[Jonny]

I have an X-Motos XB88 that's about 17 years old and came with the Zongshen that everyone said was "the engine" to get if you bought a Chinese clone bike at the time. It also has the BMW front fork and suspension.

It runs no problem but I've also not driven it for about a decade!
I also have a Vitacci Pentora rat rodded and hot rodded to such a level of alteration, I named it El Diablo lol(should have about a 70-75mph top speed with the new tires). This has easily taken the role over for myself going off-road.

Once I took the X88 250 back in the woods a few times, it was too bulky and cumbersome for me personally, and I soon wished I had gone with the 125 that would be nimbler and weigh significantly less making it easier to "throw around" with my own weight and muscle. I loved this bike on the street but know I will never be reliant on it for doing a much in the dirt. I even started the process of converting it to dual sport or even purely street about that decade ago, but got sidetracked. I have a lot of parts for the project including a speedometer and clustered gauges.

Either I will convert it for dual, or I will give it some minor tuning up and sell it for something like a Vitacci Vader or one of the other popular Grom clones people rave about. Most come with dual sport tires and are said to be excellent stunt bikes. If it's not a major expense or hassle to convert it and get a conversion title, I may just decide to finish converting it to street and getting a Vader or similar further down the road since they're such a low priced bike.

In the end, I don't expect the X88 would be easy to sell for what it's genuinely worth and probably still a waiting game if I sold it for 2/3 of what's fair.

[Ursa_Adv]

When I did my engine swap on my XB88, the Zongshen NC250 I used was from a dirt bike so no harness for lights/indicators/gauges. I ended up creating a mini-lighting harness from scratch. The whole process wasn't overly complicated but did take a week or two of studying diagrams/designing the harness. Take the extra time and use waterproof connectors as future you or the next owner will thank you. Also use buttons and controls you actually like not simply what you have on hand. It goes a long way of making the process all the more rewarding.

I will note that I gave up on the whole speedo/speed sensor & tach setup. Just used a cheap tach/hour meter from Tusk for tuning idle and slapped a GPS unit on there. All my indicators are wired on their own leds.

I think the process of getting plated as a dual sport really where you might run into trouble depending on where you are. Some places are a little more lax than others.