X-Pro 150cc // Vader 150 // Lifan 150

[ProDigit]

The end of a project.

Perhaps I was hoping to secretly find a way to get the 150cc to gain another 10MPH, for cheap; however, I've spent way too much time, effort, pain, and money on it already.

If you plan on doing what I did, save yourself the hassle, and do what everyone else did.

In this order to save yourself lots of hassle and pain:
1- Open the right-side fairing, to gain access to the carburetor and airbox. About 2 big Philips head bolts, 4 small ones, and 2 plastic ones in the front. The plastic ones, you have to twist 1/8th of a turn, then you can remove the center pin, and also the plastic rivet. It's not a screw, just a rivet held in place with a plastic rod that has a philips head.

2- Buy a POD filter (like $8), and replace the airbox with it.
I would only do this if you live in a fairly clean environment.
If you plan on doing trails and dirt roads, you may want to keep the stock airbox.

3- Without removing the carburetor, open the top part where the jet needle is. You'll need to find a thin washer to put under the needle. In order to do that, you'll have to unscrew the throttle, so you can have a bit more cable length.
A small <0.5mm washer under the jet needle clip, will be enough to adjust the Air/Fuel ratio, and gain a lot of acceleration past 5k RPM.

4- Close everything up again. Carburetor, side panels....

5- Take off the stock exhaust and paint it completely with Rustoleum (2000F) black paint.

Run your bike like this and be happy with the 60MPH you're getting.
It's not going to run much faster with another exhaust.

The washer underneath the jet needle clip will also make the exhaust less loud.

The exhaust isn't specifically restrictive, however it rusts quite quickly.
You can replace the exhaust when the stock exhaust is rusted through.

Aftermarket exhausts don't actually fit.
Even with 2 copper gaskets, you'll still get exhaust leaks, as the after market exhaust will touch part of the frame of the bike...
So if you're on the edge about a new exhaust, it's more problems than solutions.

If I had known this beforehand, I would have just done the air intake and raised the jet needle by a bit. That's it.
Doing an exhaust does allow you to lower idle RPM from 1500, to 1200. So that's something....

The Air/Fuel screw seems to do exactly the same as the idle screw. Inject more fuel.
I wouldn't mod the stock carburetor.
I just wished I could actually have an idle adjustment screw; as the idle rpm screw adds more fuel into the mixture. Good for top end, but bad for idling (as the bike already is running very rich at idle).

The side panels seem to be able to handle about 2x opening and closing them up. After that, many panels start to deteriorate, break, clips breaking etc....

The X-Pro Vader 150 has very weak passenger handles.
Lifting up the rear of the bike with one of these handles, will cause their mount points to bend.

This will be the last test to my bike, due to time and money constraints.
I hope this thread will have saved a future person from the mistakes I've made on mine.

Good luck, and keep riding!

[ProDigit]

I've finally reverted the OEM carburetor back to stock settings (just the choke valve (flap) removed), and put one washer under the jet needle, and the bike is running great.
It does have noticeable acceleration gain across the board compared to the stock settings.

Still a little lean on the top end, but kind of starts working better as the engine warms up. No bogging.

It does idle pretty high at 2k RPM idle from cold with the idle screw to the lowest setting, and indications of a lean running bike (when revving the bike, it lowers to 2k RPM quite slowly), despite the exhaust smelling still a bit rich.
Once the bike is warmed up, that problem disappears, and idle is closer to 1500RPM.
I would try a second washer under the jet needle clip maybe another time, as with the stock airbox removed (and using a pod filter) I only need to remove the 2x 10mm nuts, to lower the carburetor enough to access the jet needle. I can do this without removing any of the fairings now.
So changing out the jet needle settings should take less than 30 minutes.

I did install the performance exhaust with 2 copper gaskets:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/385603922733
Which apparently, I could order from Alibaba for half the price...
The pipe doesn't quite fit the bike, the bottom is touching the frame, causing the header to be in a slight angle, hence the 2 copper gaskets. I do hear the air coming out the header section when riding slow, but there's nothing I could do about that.

My recommendation, if you are going to use a POD filter, is not to cap off the crankcase vent hose.
I did cap it off, but drilled a small pilot hole in the tube, so gasses or pressure can exit the case, but hopefully oil will drip back into the crankcase.
I did cap off the fuel tank vent hose.
The ~10in aluminum pod filter pipe didn't fit the bike, so I screwed the pod straight on the carburetor.
If I found another pipe with vacuum line connection, I could add the fuel tank vent hose to that.


Top speed (with a little tailwind) in 5th gear was 68MPH indicated (this was with 1 washer under jet needle clip, tucked in, and the fastest recorded speed), though generally it'll top out around 63MPH in 4th gear (60MPH GPS verified) at 8-8.2k rpm without tail wind, or 55MPH GPS verified in 5th gear.
I use it more as a cruising gear than a gear to go fast with.

Around 8k RPM, the engine also is nearly vibrationless (balanced).

I also supplied the bike with 5W30 oil, after the top speed test.
This should mean the bike could run even faster with this type of oil.

The ~200 mile oil change had some minor metallic flakes, but nothing serious. The oil screen was clean.


My recommendation for new riders on the shipping oil, is to use it to start the bike, set the idle, let it reach up to temperature idling, lightly revving the engine (to like 4k RPM), to feel throttle response, and go for a few hundred feet of a ride and back at low RPM, to see if everything is working normally.

Then dump it, never use it for actual riding, and fill up with break-in oil (Lucas oil with zinc) added to standard 10W40 oil, for the first 50 miles.

Then use any regular 10W40 oil (you can add some of the zinc oil as well), for the next 150 miles.
After this, the engine is pretty much broken in, and you should use 10W40 motorcycle oil for the first 1000-3000 miles.
Don't follow my example on using 5W30. I only do it for testing purposes.

Other things I disliked:
The passenger handles are weak. I almost bent one from picking up the bike's tail by one handle. Always pick up the rear end using both handles; and even then, I feel the construction is too weak, and prone to breaking.

The Lifan 150 engine used is not a very efficient engine.
It barely ekes out at 60MPH, meanwhile Honda Grom 125cc engines, and the older Chinese 125cc pushrod engines top out at 65-70MPH; and the pushrod engines can actually get 120MPG easily (with the right gearing, and 100MPG when driven hard).

The lifan 150 makes most power at a high 7.5k RPM, which costs MPG and efficiency. It doesn't pull a 19T with the stock 34T rear sprocket at speeds over 6-6.5k RPM in 5th gear, but I can get the bike up to 8.5-9k RPM in 4th gear.
I will swap out my 34T rear sprocket with a 30T sprocket, which should give me higher top speed in 4th, and better cruising speed between 30-50MPH in 5th.

[ProDigit]

300 mile review.

After putting the 5W30 oil in it, I noticed my top speed was higher than before (I reached 68mph once, and 67mph another time today on that same stretch of road).

While during the break-in, I felt as if the bike only ran well up to 5k rpm and after that had a flat torque curve, lifting the jet needle with a washer, made my bike so much more responsive.
After 200-300 miles, it feels like the bike pulled better past 5k rpm, all the way to 6.5 and even 8k rpm.
The bike's vibrations have significantly reduced, and now I can actually see and feel where the fairings and pegs vibrate the most.
Below 5k rpm, vibrations are little, and generally following the following pattern:
2k-3k rpm: smooth
3-3.9k rpm: little rougher
4-5k rpm: smooth
5-6k rpm: vibey (with 5.5k rpm being the worst)
6-7k rpm: smooth
7-8k rpm, very vibey, mostly around 7.5k rpm.
8-8.25k rpm perfectly smooth.

With the lifted jet needle, the bike occasionally burps rich at 1-10% throttle, runs great between 10-50%, but beyond that, I hear the exhaust gets loud again, leading me to believe it's still running a little lean on the top end.

One of my next projects, now that I removed the airbox, and can access the carburetor easily, is to hacksaw open the OEM pz27, and measure the used jets, to install new ones in a new PZ27 I bought for like $20 on Amazon.

I'll then choose a smaller pilot jet -2 (if stock is 40, I'll try to install a 38), and increase the main jet +8 (if main is 100, I'll put a 108 for starters), which should be close to ideal jet sizes im expecting to install.

I'll also lower the jet needle back to it's stock settings.

I'm kind of interested to see what the new 19t sprocket with proper jetting will get in terms of fuel efficiency, as well to see if properly jetting the new carburetor will net better mpg values?

As is, I'm pretty content with the bike so far, but there's always room for improvement.

I also bought a seat cover, to protect the seat from rain and sun.
The cover helps distribute my weight on the seat better, which makes sitting on the bike for longer times much less painful.

[delzy]

If you ditch the stock airbox and just go with the pod, you can slip the carb out easily or even change the jets without removing the throttle cable. Of course, you need a carburetor with screws for the bowl.