Beast arrived Oct 07

[PCD]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

waynev, thanks for the great link. The truth is that max horsepower is not ususally attained at 14.7:1, it's usually somewhere in the 12's. The stoichiometrically ideal 14.7:1 is generally the best ratio for emissions though. Still, excellent article.

Pete, I'm with Reveen; you've adjusted the air / fuel screw to what seems to be the best setting, so try moving the clip up one notch on the needle and see if it behaves.

Ah groan..I thought so..I have to remove the thin wire retainer right? Can I do it without ripping the throttle cable from the slide, inside the spring? That was hard to do right.

BTW, I haven't installed the Mikuni yet, and I can pull the front wheels on our Beast.

Same...I use a 12mm socket...you? :P I keed, I keed

The only mod so far has been a dual layer Uni pod.

Tried hard today..ended up drilling 8X 3/4" holes in stocker. Filtration still blows, but the carb is breathing OK now at least. My local dude was closed for the sled show. I can't wait to see what the Mikuni and a new pipe will do.

Carb and pipe will probably put you back at square one..GOSHDARN why didnt you do yours before mine??? ..I mean I could have been on easy street if you went first.

[PCD]

I just came back from starting the bike dead cold, garage was smelling like unburnt fuel, pulled the new plug and she was black...bike started and ran fine...but that carb seems to be shipped with the needle on the richest setting and it shows.

Nobody has to take my word for it, and every engine is different, but if I had that carb uninstalled and still in the shipping bag I would move the clip up at least one notch before I even bothered to put it on.

Oh, and after I put the plug back in, the bike wanted full choke (its cold) and she started right up. Stalled once after 15 seconds then fired right up...took about 2 minutes and it would live on half choke...another 3 or 4 and it idled great on no choke.

YMMV of course, but i'm purty happy

Cheesy mock up of winch:

[Weldangrind]

Originally Posted by PCD

Ah groan..I thought so..I have to remove the thin wire retainer right? Can I do it without ripping the throttle cable from the slide, inside the spring? That was hard to do right.

Ripping the throttle cable? All you do is remove the slider, compress the spring to remove the cable, remove the needle and retainer, move the clip without flinging it across the room and re-assemble. Am I misunderstanding your trouble?

BTW, cool winch; too bad about the bush guard. I'm in the process of fabricating a Weldangrind-approved bush guard that will look more like a Mountie push bumper. I'll post photos upon completion.

[Reveeen]

move the clip

The "Jesus clip", as in: Jesus, where did that ****-off to?

[waynev]

Thanks for the tip on the rear case PCD, i will be getting it next week hopefully. Got my beast running not too bad on the stock carb, will have to go for a ride today, but i'm looking forward to the mikuni carb and CDI upgrades, they too should be arriving next week.

I too would like 800cc on my project buggy, but the 200cc might have to do the trick unless i can find a bigger engine with reverse at the price of a beast, being a past racer and builder, lightweight is always the key, so a nice light buggy with the 200cc should be good enough for me and my son to cruise around in.

[PCD]

W&g and Reveeen...Yes, fun, wow. The Jesus or S.O.B. clip sounds about right. I know its pretty straightforward but that delicate stuff always gives me trouble.

Waynev: I talk like I could go out and buy an 800cc engine HA!...I would build it to the level I could manage at the time. The Gio 200cc has 4 forward & 1 reverse and I would try and get my final drive fairly low (bigger rear sprocket, etc) for the power factor. Forget top end speed.

W&G The brush gaurd isnt THAT much in the way, the real issue is the width of the frame rails and that Raptor looking nose on the bike. I may have to weld the mounting plate on those rails after all. Might not have enough meat left on each side of the plate for the way I wanted to mount it.

[TheRealWorld]

Can we get any comments from the Kentucky Donkey on this machine?

[waynev]

Well back from my first ride......can't wait for the mikuni carb, stalls were the name of the game and the idle A/F screw kept coming out, other than that anything over 1/3 throttle was just fine. I'm shocked to say the ride was very good even with the stock shocks up front, now i also won a spare set of stock shocks and they seem very very stiff, the ones that came with my beast are actually quite soft on the front and pushing my weight ( 175lbs ) on the front end allows it to move 3" down, i do have the performance shocks coming this week but i think they may be better suited to my 110cc T1 rebel, those are very stiff as well.
So overall a good day out.

[PCD]

Originally Posted by waynev

Well back from my first ride......can't wait for the mikuni carb, stalls were the name of the game and the idle A/F screw kept coming out, other than that anything over 1/3 throttle was just fine. I'm shocked to say the ride was very good even with the stock shocks up front, now i also won a spare set of stock shocks and they seem very very stiff, the ones that came with my beast are actually quite soft on the front and pushing my weight ( 175lbs ) on the front end allows it to move 3" down, i do have the performance shocks coming this week but i think they may be better suited to my 110cc T1 rebel, those are very stiff as well.
So overall a good day out.

Thats what did me in on Thanksgiving night...backyard, rainy, dark, would not start after stalling out...long story short, idle screw fell out. No hope of finding it in grass/leaves.

My front shocks got better too! Funny eh? I used to be able to move them just a bit by standing on the front end, but after a couple hours they are VERY soft now. I was (slowly) going over curbs (head on) and leaned in to a few turns pretty well and I could feel the front shocks working.

Maybe they just need to be worked in a bit.
I saw a comment on GIO Bikes where someone said the stockers were non adjustable and that remote resovoir was for show only.

Still cant go wrong with the performance ones...I have read they really are adjustable via a schrader valve. Lucky for me I have a Nitrogen filling machine at work and an industrial compressor. Somewhere I read around 175-225 PSI works well, but never ever under 150 or they can be damaged.

I was busy glassing up the new nylon battery box, removing body panels and painting the underside with Krylon, and designing a new mounting plate for the winch.
The underside of the panels looks SO SO SO much better painted matte black, as well as the white headlight housing under the nose.
$10.00 bucks for the paint and $13.00 for resin and hardener (have lots of cloth) so cheap day.

Glad you had fun!

EDIT: My front shocks are mounted in the bottom outboard brackets and thats the way it came..how about yours? I would guess if the factory mounted them on the inboard mounts it would compress them and make them that much stiffer.

For people not familiar with the GIO Beast, the front shocks have 2 lower mount points about 1" or 1.5" apart IIRC. The inboard mounting location stands the shocks up straighter, where the outboard mount splays them out further.
Top mount point is unchanged. only one place to put them.

[waynev]

Yeah, mine are on the outer postion too. It might just be that different batches of springs might end up with different spring rates, and a coil spring rate effectively doesn't change unless it mounted at over 15 degrees from straight, not sure about the angle different between the two mounting holes. Come on mikuni....... i'll be watching my tracking #'s like a hawk this week.
My friend used to rebuild FOX shocks so he has the tools to do the nitrogen pressure in my new shocks, also we use nitrogen in our race tires so i also have use of my friends nitrogen tank, i think i'll start at 215 and go from there. I might also check the spring rate of the springs on the new shocks as it looks like the Afco small body springs that we run on our microsprints look about the same size and 8" and 10" springs are available in rates from 65#/in to 300#/in.

[PCD]

I think I read on here somewhere that a fellow put the stock springs on the performance shock. Apparently the damping was good on the performance shocks but the spring rate was too high.

I've honestly done so much reading here lately I dont know where I saw it.

My rear spring came set at the softest position, hows about yours? I've got some sag built in to the Honda's but nothing on the GIO.

It feels pretty good. As usual I couldnt leave well enough alone and made it stiffer by 2 notch's. I put it back soon thereafter.

[PCD]

Ooohhh....looky what arrived today The fronts are on the way, these are the rears. Why you ask? I got lucky on auction...$12.00 each sound OK? Plus fee, but I ALWAYS combine shipping so first item is $18.00, second usually adds 2 bucks.

[Weldangrind]

Those are Monster tires, and they'll be about an inch taller when installed. They've got a decent tread pattern for loose stuff like sand, but the stock Beast tires are better in the mud.

Good score on the tires and shipping!

[PCD]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Those are Monster tires, and they'll be about an inch taller when installed. They've got a decent tread pattern for loose stuff like sand, but the stock Beast tires are better in the mud.

Good score on the tires and shipping!

I was wondering what they were, thanks. An inch more wouldnt hurt I guess.

I may stud one set for Winter...sort of semi seriously thinking about it.

[Weldangrind]

That's a great idea! You could easily stud the beast wheels, given the large knobbies. Do you plan on a plow for it?