XR200R Lifan 163FML Valve Adjustment Gap Specs and running rich

[FreyStarr]

Hi there,

It is not my picture, I searched a few times asking the pros and cons of each chain and a comparison and found it in google images. It worked well and I'm glad it could be of help

I found that some people think going to a 428 saves weight as a trade for the chain wearing faster than a 520.
This makes sense because even though a 520 is beefier, since the rollers are further apart than the 428, there would be less rollers for the same length on a 520 vs 428.

People said if you have a 520, it's better to go aluminum sprocket for weight as it saves nearly 12oz compared to a steel sprocket where as a 428 and 520 don't weigh much different.

The discussion was in the context of people with XR200R who are racing.

I don't think for this motor making what power it makes it matters either way, best to just stick with what you have. As this is a practical bike I'd like to have as little maintenence as possible once it's set up correctly, I am going to go for a steel sprocket.

http://www.amazon.com/JT-Sprockets-J...=JTR245%2F2.41

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I have the Keihin PD97A Carb which is the stock for an XR200R, a modified muffler (previous owner removed the baffle but I put in a DIY version of my own because it was way too loud).

I bought a carburetor rebuild and cleaned and replaced some of the parts that looked worn. I have the fuel screw 1.25 out and the clip on the second (middle?) position.

I would like to say that some of the tolerances of the rebuild kit were not as nice as the original items and if I would do it again I would have paid the extra money to get a rebuild that was made in Japan.
Many of the O Rings and screws worked as well and appeared identical but some of the screws fit a bit looser and the stock clip was loose on the needle in the rebuild, I decided to use the old needle and compared each piece and chose the ones I felt were the best.

As for jetting, I still feel like the bike runs a bit rough, It doesn't pull smoothly. I would have a tendency to think the bike is running rich as the exhaust looks sooty and there is soot on the white rear fender forming very quickly.

Can anyone weigh in on these motors, do they tend to be jetted about the same as an XR200? Do I need bigger or smaller jets?

Also my header looks pretty messed up, like it was welded, I don't know if the welds are blocking the exhaust and I plan to replace it. Should I look for a header from an XR200, an XL? or do I need a lifan specific header. I've compared on eBay and I can't really tell... The fact that this one is modified makes me wonder if the stock one didn't work?

Thanks very much for you all's continued help

[FreyStarr]

Here are some photos of the bike when I got it and how it's become. It had been in a fire and was really messed up looking. Trying to finish it up.







Got it in the truck with another cheap bike.



Yarn for my sister 'wrapped' for her birthday



Someone had cut the front brake attachment off, it only had a rear drum brake and a front wheel from a different bike. The fire had damaged the airbox, wiring, side panels, seat and tank.





Decided to put the front end from a DR350 on there, bike has good cartridge forks, larger diameter as well as a front disc brake.

DR350 triple is on the left, XR200 on the right



Here is the DR triple in the XR tree, bottom bearing is too big. I ordered new bearings using all ballsfork conversion. http://www.allballsracing.com/index.php/forkconversion

A great system that makes fork swaps the way they should be. You just put in the bike which frame you're using and the bike which fork's you're using and it gives you two bearings that make them work. Comes with new races which I didn't use. The top bearing seemed to be the same on both bikes so I could have reused it but I'd already ordered the parts.

It's worth noting that as long as the donor forks have the same length stem or longer it will work, I had to use some spacers (big washers that came with the bearings) on the bottom of the steering stem as the XR200 head tube is shorter than the DR350 head tube. It all worked out well though.



This is a picture of the top bearing and stem from the DR350 stem fitting in the XR200.



Pressing out the DR triple tree. That slot in the stem is for the steering lock.

If you've never done this before it's pretty scary, you can 'feel' the force going into the steering stem, like it's trembling so fast you can't see it, we put a board up in front of the press because we half expected it to slip out and kill us.



Anyway, when you press the steering stem DOWN through the bottom of the triple clamp, the bearing can't fit so it pops UP off the stem.



Front end from 95 DR350 with cartridge internals, white fork gators from 90s CRF, Scotts Applied Racing top clamp (allows fat bars). Painted the frame with duplicolor engine paint.

Note above the bottom triple clamp you can see the spacers. Without them even with the nut on the top of the stem tightened all the way, you run out of thread on the stem and the bearings are still loose in the headtube.

If you look I put the forks as high in the triple clamps as possible because they are much longer than the XR200 forks. I left a small gap, any higher and they would touch the bars. The bike actually handles pretty well, it's a smaller bike anyway so the steering doesn't feel sluggish and the increased rake probably help the bike feel more stable.



Front headlight from a CM250. Rear fender from one too, I didn't end up keeping it because the chrome piece was really heavy. I put a battery in there above the airbox, the XR200 is normally just a dirt bike so no electrics. Luckily since the Lifan engine is electric start I trust the stator to be adequate.



Here is the 15 tooth counter shaft sprocket, covered in grease and silver marker. I ordered a XR200R 15 tooth sprocket and although the size were very similar it didn't quite fit. I not only had to file the inside of the sprocket down a lot (the marker is there because of the filing) I also had to cut away some of the aluminum engine case with a chisel. You can see here it barely fits.

Note: When I filed down the inside of the sprocket, I figured out which side the counter shaft would be pressing against, then I filed the other side, this way the motor is pushing against the factory cut edge and not my ghetto filed part.




Wiring and fuses, this was the most difficult part. I consulted several LIFAN wiring diagrams and drew up my own using 3 relays, two triggered by the key switch to turn on the lights and a third to control the hi and low beam headlight wired from the battery. I installed two 15 amp bladed fuses, one for the headlight and one for the rest.

Relays are great and everything was available at autozone although you get better prices online. I got a generic regulatar/rectifier and I was confused about which wires go to which but it seems to be working. I hope it's large enough, you can see it in the photo above the motor.



Many parts from different bikes, you can see the speedo drive from the DR350, headlight from CM250, here you can see the welded header. I put high temp epoxy over the welds to make them look cleaner (the bands)

The tank was really messed up with lots and lots of paint and melted spots, parts where the black paint had melted into the red tank and couldnt be removed. I spent a few hours sanding from 100 all the way up to 1500 grit sand paper and it looks a lot better. Some years of XR200 had metal tanks and I think one of them with some polished bare steel would look cool on this bike.

You can see how dirty the white gets just from being touched, I like to grease many bolts and things as I put it together so as my dirty hands put finger prints on everything it looks kinda crappy. I might regret the white paint as black spray paint tends to look better than white, if I was going to sand blast and powder coat it might be different. We'll see after a good wash.




Rear fender which is a cut DR350 front fender, generic XR/DR tailight, bicycle rack riveted and modified.



Recovered the seat with marine vinyl, and cut the foam down so that it's good for my sister's height. I left the back bump so if she's cruising for awhile she can slide back and be comfortable.




Quick beauty shot, this was taken at night. I wanna get the bike a little more cleaned up. You can see I still haven't aimed the headlight, cut the zip ties holding it, and the side covers have been left off because I'm still tinkering with it. Have a few wiring bugs and the rich running etc but here it is.

[SpudRider]

Wow! You did a great job! Thanks for taking the time do document your work with such excellent photographs.

[FreyStarr]

Thanks Spud!



This is my wiring harness, I plan to redraw it a little neater to give my sister so she can consult it. The wire colors match real world wire colors.

If anyone needs to use it, it should work. I can help explain the relays, they are bosch style relays and are all essentially the same...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-PACK-12V-D...939559&vxp=mtr

At autozone they are $10 each and not at every store. Might as well buy some now and have them on hand

They are useful for most motorcycles as it's common to run the headlight energy directly through the headlight handlebar switch. The problem with this is not only does the energy dissipate from traveling a long distance, but if you put too much energy into your headlight you will melt the small handlebar switch wires.

Better to have the handlebar and key activate the relay and have the energy flow with a larger wire from the battery, through the relay, to the headlight.








You can see here the funny three part header. I tried to paint it and cover up the welds with high temp epoxy. It turned out kinda weird and so I'm looking for a replacement header, again, does anyone know a good header for this motor?

And I know I posted all these photos but I'm still looking for feedback on jetting, see my previous posts.

[Weldangrind]

Excellent write-up! Thanks for sharing your project.

[FreyStarr]

Did a few things on the bike today, new spark plug, valve adjusted and changed the oil. The oil was quite a surprise, it had no viscosity at all, it wasn't even that burned. I'd read about chinese engines coming with fake oil in them, maybe the previous owner never changed it. It was the consistency of chocolate milk, it didn't drip out like oil just splashed out.

So new oil, new spark plug, new air filter as the cloth one was a pain in the butt and choking up the bike (wouldn't start until I removed it), and valve adjust.

Here's some more photos.



These are what you need for valve adjustment, it's very easy. These are the motion pro tools. The wrenches hold the lock nut in place and the little post looking things move the adjuster. I had this kit from doing valve adjusts on my DR250/350 and it makes life so easy, it's definitely worth the price. You only end up using one wrench and one adjuster per bike so if you're traveling or something you can carry those two in your tool kit. It's nice to have the whole set as I didn't know what size they were going into this valve adjust but was confident I'd have the right stuff.

Another thing is a feeler gauge, you need one that goes thin enough. Available at harbor freight and pretty much anywhere...



When you use them they get some grit on them, can wipe them down and put new oil to make them last. I am going with .1mm valve clearance, the .102 will be fine...



Take all the plugs off, the rocker covers are 24mm, the same size as the oil plug. There was plenty of room to use a wrench. An adjustable wrench could be used if you're careful.

The cover bolts are 8mm and the rotor port plugs with the big slot can be opened with a tire iron or large screw driver. Another thing that works well is a coin of appropriate size held in a pair of vice grips. Just be gentle on them as they strip and become useless if they're mistreated.





Once you have all the plugs off you'll put a 14mm socket on the nut that is inside the hole where my thumb is. Get ready to look through the hole where my pointer is



As you rotate the engine with that nut clockwise, you'll see two lines like || and then shortly after you'll see this | with a T above it. If you look close in the picture you'll see it. This should be top dead center.



The cam should look like this with the marks level or nearly level.

The reason for doing this is so that you move the cam into a place that they are not pressing down on the rocker arms which are pressing on the valves. You can't measure valve clearance when the rocker arms are pressing on the valves because there won't be ANY clearance. duh! they're touching.

An easy way to know you're in the right spot is grab the rocker arm with your hand and wiggle it. If it moves you know you're in the right spot. I had to move the adjustment back to the || lines for the exhaust valve because it wasn't moving at T.

The reason for this I assume is the decompression system hold the exhaust valve slightly open. However it works it is going to be pressing on the valve to hold it open so you'll run into the same problems.

I just did the adjustment on the intake side at T and when I was done I rotated the engine and did the exhaust at || worked the treat.



This is the pair that matched the adjusters on this bike



They go here. The little square headed thing is what you're actually adjusting when you do a 'valve adjustment' the nut there is the lock nut that keeps the adjuster in place.



What I do is I loosen the lock nut with the wrench part. Then I back out the square adjuster until I can slide the feeler gauge of the size I need in.

Then holding the lock nut in place with the wrench, I use the finger tool and tighten the square-headed-adjuster down on the feeler gauge, as you get it tight move the feeler gauge and make sure it can slide freely, if its too tight, loosen up, if its too loose then tighten it a little more.

This tool is accurate and you can get within a 1/8th or less adjustment and find where the adjuster is just barely still letting the feeler gauge move freely.

Then you simple tighten down the lock nut with the wrench, locking your settings in place, pull the feeler gauge out and youre on to the next side.

When you do both sides you're done!

I took this opportunity to wipe down all the gasket surfaces, clean the threads on the bolts and plugs. I put moly grease on the bolts on the cam cover and put it back together. Remember the case is aluminum so go easy on the torque for all these bolts...



New air filter is nice



UNI air filter. Came with it's own inner cage as the XR200R stock is a cloth K&N style. I like the feel, well made. I wish the inner cage was all plastic as the expanded metal drags on the foam a bit and I feel like it will cause premature wear... with all the plastic they used already I don't really see the point of having the metal there anyway...


I put the bike together and started it up. It idled better and I had to adjust the idle speed a bit. The exhaust was much louder. Which surprised me. The tapping of the valves greeted me as well letting me know they were loose and happy.

The bike still didn't pull amazing like I'd hoped. It definitely felt better but I think carb settings are wrong. It just bogs when I give it gas and feels very under power in first gear, like no torque is being produced. It's not until I'm riding along about halfway through the rev range in second that it starts to gain momentum and pull. I thought at first that my gearing was asking too much and that the motor is just weak but you all say you run higher gearing than me so I wanna figure it out.

Unfortunately I think I have to bite the bullet and buy a replacement exhaust and header as I don't know if I'll ever be able to get these sorted out with the modified pipes.

I have about $600 in it now and even if it is kind of a Frankenstein of different bikes and parts I think it has the ability to be a very reliable simple good running little dual sport for my sister to learn to ride and enjoy.

Hope this helps someone, thanks for reading, ride safe!

[FreyStarr]

What muffler and header go to this engine?

Thank you

[Adjuster]

You mention your lack of power issue then you mention you had to move the crank out of spec to get the valves in the right place for adjustment. Is it possible your not timed correctly? Maybe someone has been messing around in there before you???



/

[Adjuster]

Great pictures by the way. I would be interested in knowing what camera you are using.



/

[FreyStarr]

Hi Adjuster,

I don't think so but you're right I should check/

The camera is a Lumix GX1 with 20mm F/1.7 Aspherical Pancake Lens.

Best camera I've ever had. It's doing all the work. Sometimes the short focal length of this lens makes it hard to document stuff but it makes beautiful photos. I just put it on on the fastest setting (aperture priority) and never mess with it, just switch between manual and autofocus occasionally.

Great black and white, low light and video. I highly recommend it, I'm very pragmatic and I'd pick this camera over an SLR just because of size for anything less than professional photography.

If you don't know about Lumix it's Leica and Panasonic collaboration. They make smaller and large cameras. I like this one, someday I'll pick up a zoom lens. I like the size of this lens. It has a removable lens cap but I couldn't be bothered keeping track of it, so I just got a clear filter that threads on and when that is too scratched up I'll just replace.



Here's what it looks like with the lens... not my pic, I just pulled it off the web...

[Weldangrind]

Excellent write-up again.

You have a decompression device? Please show us.

[SpudRider]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Excellent write-up again.

You have a decompression device? Please show us.

Indeed, thanks for posting another excellent write-up, with your usual superb photographs.

[FreyStarr]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Excellent write-up again.

You have a decompression device? Please show us.

Not that I know off

I had a KLR650 with auto decompression. It would hold the exhaust valve slightly open so when you checked the exhaust side valves (shim over bucket style) you had to make sure the decomp system wasn't pressing against the shim or it would give a inaccurate too tight reading.

I assumed this little bike would need it too., as well as it's electric start. Maybe a 200 doesn't need a compression release and the starter motor just chugs through the hard spot.

It seems like the timing is fine by the way. If you look at the cam gear when it's at "T" it's around level. If you moved it a tooth forward or back it would be off. Since there is only one cam it's not like the exhaust and intake could be set off from each other.

As for my exhaust issues...

I've done some searching on this forum and found it's the FMF Turbine Core 2 that people use, with the 1 1/4 mid pipe. Does anyone have a header recommendation that meshes with this pipe and this bike?

Thanks for the help and words of encouragement.

[Weldangrind]

I'd use the stock header, but an XR200 might do the trick. It depends on how closely it matches your configuration.

[FreyStarr]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

I'd use the stock header, but an XR200 might do the trick. It depends on how closely it matches your configuration.

Where do I find a stock header? I searched lifan exhaust and found these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EXHAUST-MUFF...5acf00&vxp=mtr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-BILLET-E...7c4523&vxp=mtr

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EXHAUST-PIPE...d581d8&vxp=mtr

The shape looks wrong

Here is an XR200

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1990-HONDA-X...e8bd31&vxp=mtr

Here is an XT225 which I saw spud used on his bike...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1999-2003-Ya...91ecbb&vxp=mtr

Here's what I have



The weird header off my XR, below is a DR350 header...





It's weird how it looks like it's from 3 different pipes you can tell by the metal texture. The end is also useless because it gets bigger instead of smaller...



DR350 pipe



It won't fit inside like it should. I could cut it up more to fit but frankly with it leaking and being so crappy I think it's better to just find a new one.



DR350 fits in the head snugly but the bend is wrong.



Even if I somehow bent it, It's also pretty snug fit. It's hard to clear the clutch cable, the carb, and the frame.






This is the end of the DR350 header, it is 42mm outside. It fits snugly in the head of the 163FML. A 42mm end header with the right bend would work.

So right now I'm considering XT225, XR200, and a stock one? Where do I buy stock headers for this bike? Are there any other bikes that might work?

I think the XT225 header looks nice, I know that longer headers tend to build power at the top end in exchange for bottom end.

Thanks for continuing to help with my project.