Project scrappydogscooters TaoTao .vs Zuma 125

[90GTVert]

Aug 3, 2016 4:12:48 GMT -5 eclark5483 said:

Brent, you should consider doing a video on the install of the oil cooler.

I figured the pics/info I had covered it. It's really just a few steps and the hardest part is running hoses and finding a way to mount it. Both of those are kinda tough to tell someone how to do, since scoots, desired mounting locations, and hardware will vary so it all has to be generalized.

[eclark5483]

I guess one thing I forgot to mention, is this scooter will not be used primarily by me. It's for my wife. She just can't get shifting with the clutch on my Indian down. At first I thought of going the 150cc route for her, but then, like I said a couple pages back, the BENEFIT of buying something in the 49cc class and upgrading it, is that the rider doesn't need a motorcycle license. The testing station in my area closed down (budget cuts), so the nearest one, is like 60+ miles away. What I'm looking for is 35mph cruising speed instead of WOT. The plan is to have the ole' lady cruise around with me around town and AT LEAST be able to keep a decent pace. The fastest lane in town is 45mph heading out towards Walmart. I don't realistically expect the scooter to hit 50, but at a guess, 45 should not be an issue. If I can obtain 50 or more... better yet. The oil cooler, IMHO, is a good investment to extend the life of the engine. If I can get a minimum of 10,000 miles out of it... SWEET!!

[Thunder 50 Rider]

any update on how far through the process it is? if it will be ready this season or next? i know earlier in the post that you said you didnt give them any deadline to avoid a huge labor bill and just to have them do it when they could squeeze it in between other things but im definately curious about it.. i think this is a great build thread regardless if it is a comparison or not. i know me, i think if i got a zuma 50 or a ruckus i would be more hesitant about ripping it all apart and changing out parts inside the engine or cvt, i may not have modded anything at all if i got one.. this is a great way to show what you can do to a cheaper scooter to make it perform better than one of those 2 50's and still end up spending less money, it may or may not last as long, but i know i would be much more comfortable replacing a taotao engine than a honda or yamaha engine

[eclark5483]

I doubt they even started on it yet. Haven't been up there in a few days. Top priority for me is getting my Spree finished. I've been going at that since like April. Bought it for $75 at a farm auction for my (Autistic) kids. The deal was, they learn to drive the Spree first, then I buy them new scooters. Well my daughter caught on pretty easy so she has her new TaoTao, but my son is afraid of the bigger scooters but will drive the Spree. So my wife and I decided instead of buying him a new scoot, we would instead completely dismantle the Spree and have it restored just for him, so it's been a game of hunting down parts, tackling this myself, having the guys do that, etc, etc. We're just about to the finish line with it, and I'm pushing to have it done so I can put it on display at this years Polaris Victory Rally (Boji Bike Rally). The guys are working on other customer's bikes for the rally too, so no pressure for this TaoTao build. The Spree though, sure is looking sick!! Can't wait till my son sees it. The yellow is Hawkeye yellow, but he thinks it's called Pacman yellow. I told him that because he is a HUGE fan of anything Pacman.

[Thunder 50 Rider]

eclark im pretty sure i either messaged you or commented on a thread about how great that spree looks. i am impressed all over again. brings me back to growing up seeing spree's, razz's and my brothers Tomos all over the neighborhood when i was a kid. i wouldnt have been on this forum if i had been able to find a tomos that i felt i wasnt being ripped off on. people want more money now for them than they sold for brand new. they made great mopeds. i remember doing almost 50 on an empty running track around a football field learning to ride it. i think im happier with the storage of the scooter, and i think it works a little better for my build and requirements than a moped would have even if i have to change a lot of things to get the same performance out of it than a stock tomos.

[eclark5483]

Just a quick update. The guys FINALLY found some time to get the work on it done. Stan is slapping all the parts in as we speak, should probably be able to wrap this all up by Monday or so, maybe even tomorrow if I have time to run out there, but I doubt I will. The labor bill from Shawn's estimate, shouldn't be too bad at all. The hard labor part is the BBK and oil cooler. Everything else only takes a few minutes. There will be a slight bit extra charge since I'm also having the MotoGlo helmet module installed too, but again, that will only take a couple minutes. Once they are done, I'll give it a nice run with GPS for top speed with my fat ass on it, with an official parts breakdown and cost.

[eclark5483]

Brought it home today for it's first run. Didn't try pushing it too hard as it's a brand new engine, but with my fat ass on it, I got it up to 42 on the TaoTao speedometer. Interesting to note, on the 2016 model year TaoTao, it looks like they have changed the instrument panel. Instead of having the KPH on top with MPH on the bottom, your MPH is now the dominate reading with KPH on the bottom. An improvement that was badly needed. Don't know how accurate it is yet, as I just got it back today. I'll find out later this weekend when I attach mirrors, trunk, GPS, etc. One thing I did notice, is my idle needs a bit of adjustment. The guys never drove it much except in the parking lot at the shop and it idled great, but after warming up a bit and riding into town, I noticed it would die at stop lights. It would start right back up again, though I had to give it just a tad bit of gas. I'm not sure what the pilot jet size is on the scrappydog performance carb but it seems it could be a bit better, but then again, I haven't adjusted the idle yet, and it DOES start right away with a bit of gas, so I won't complain about it at this point.

[tortoise2]

Interesting to note, on the 2016 model year TaoTao, it looks like they have changed the instrument panel. Instead of having the KPH on top with MPH on the bottom, your MPH is now the dominate reading with KPH on the bottom. An improvement that was badly needed.

[eclark5483]

I do have some criticisms and some buyer beware info to go over concerning both scrappydogscooters parts and with TaoTao and their ATM50-A1. I'll go into detail later this week, right now we are on overtime so I don't have the time to go over everything. It's nothing scathing mind you. Overall I am very happy with how it is performing so far. But a few things needed pointed out before someone decides to just slap all the parts I've listed into their basket and put them on their 139QMB.

[eclark5483]

So now that I am home... Points I want to make

TaoTao:

The Blue ATM50-A1, while being probably the cheapest scoot one can afford, has a couple of downfalls that you might want to take note of. The paint job on it, is absolute shit. Perhaps I am a bit biased here since I work in the paint department at Polaris and part of my job is finding defects, so when it came to the TaoTao, I was able to spot at minimum 7-8 paint defects right off the bat without even really trying. These consisted of mainly dirt spots and a couple of fish eye. I also saw some shit painting on the lower front fairing where it looked like they just hit it real quick with the sprayer and missed some spots for an uneven paint job. Quality for just the body plastics alone was quite low, but then one should expect that out of a $650 with free shipping scooter. The front fairing covering the scooter also had paint missing. While for someone like me, fixing these defects will probably take about 20 minutes of my time with a 1500 grit wet sand with a nib sander and some K211 finesse compound plus a bit of paint touch up work, for average Joe consumer, this kind of defect repair can probably cost you a couple hundred at a body shop if your picky about your paint. At a distance, you probably wouldn't see these flaws, perhaps you wouldn't even care. But I feel I need to point out that this is just one of the disadvantages of buying cheap Chinese shit. Another problem was the oil cooler. I am not going to place this problem into the scrappydogscooters info because the oil cooler is a universal product. On the ATM50-A1, you will be pressed to find a mounting location for it. Unlike Brent's example Roketa for the oil cooler, the TaoTao is all plastic up front. The guys at SS C&C beat their heads over figuring out how it would work. It's actually NOT installed yet, though I still want to use it. The main reason, was fabrication. Shawn quoted me a labor cost of about 2 hours with fabrication of the TaoTao body just to get it on. Were gonna dwell on this when the riding season is over and see if he can figure out an optimal way to mount it for best performance. The oil cooler is NOT a job to be taken lightly. It's not the assembly of the unit itself, it is the mounting that will be a bitch depending on your application. Since it was a luxury item that I wanted, scrapping it for now just made the most sense and gives more time for careful planning. Like I had mentioned before, the 2016 model year ATM50-A1 now sports a better instrument cluster over previous models. We can assume this change came because of customer demand like most changes do, so credit to TaoTao for listening a bit more to what American customers want.

SCRAPPYDOGSCOOTERS

They are a great all in one resource for the parts to make your scooter perform better. They have even made efforts to create another website called chinesescooterparts.com which is a bit easier to navigate and use. They have a nice selection but what they need to improve on, is descriptions of their products. This is where I ran into an issue that needs discussed. For the product labeled as "139qmb performance intake manifold" they do not list the size of the hole for the carb. While it did indeed fit onto the 139QMB engine itself, the carb did not fit (according to my mechanic Stan). He had to revert back to the stock intake to fit the performance carb. Otherwise, AWESOME parts!!

SS Collision & Cycleworks

While this is an exclusive that pertains just to me here in Spencer. I have nothing but respect for these guys. I threw Shawn, Drew & Stan at the shop a curve ball when I requested they use their motorcycle skills to make me a hopped up scooter. These guys are used to Harley and Victory and Indian and bigger Honda and Kawasaki and what have you. Doing a scooter was a whole different ballgame. Like for instance when I was unpacking parts and Stan picked up the variator.. he was like "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS??" So I did have to give them a crash course in scooter 101. The new piston, cam, carb, gear swap were nothing.. child's play even for the motorcycle pros. They had a bit of a bitch of a time with the clutch since it was a tighter clutch, variator was pretty straight forward. After it was done, Stan had to flip me some shit an say "OK, WE TOOK OUT THE QUARTER SIZED PISTON AND PUT IN THE 50 CENT PIECE SIZED PISTON, SHOULD DO LIKE WHAT.. 150 NOW??" Yeah... HA HA!! But the labor rate was reasonable enough. Normally they charge $60 an hour, Shawn gave me a rate of $55 an hour because I was in no hurry. With the added MotoGlo helmet unit I had them install, total labor came to about $460, subtract the MotoGlo, it was about $420. Whether someone thinks this is overpriced or not doesn't matter, it is what it is. Consider they changed the piston, installed a new cam, new variator, clutch, belt, adjusted vales, carb, intake (then remove it because it didn't work), pressed the new gears and installed those, new cooling fan, coil, spark plug. I'd say the labor cost was probably just about right. I did not have them do any tweaking what so ever. I'll do that on my own. I wanted this to be a pretty much straight off the crate build with what you got is what you get.

Performance

Now I haven't really got to run the scooter much so far as I am busy at work. On the initial run from the shop, like I said before, I took it up to 42 mph on the way into town (short trip). After I got into town, I stopped at the nearest gas station to fill it up with some 91 octane premium and grab me a soda. So I get on to take off, and I'm at the stop sign... 35 mph traffic coming from both directions. On my daughter's TaoTao, this is one of those situations where before you go, you make sure there is plenty of space between you and oncoming traffic, then pray that you cross the intersection and live to tell the tale. So I make a left hand turn, and punch the gas. Much to my enjoyment and surprise, no empty throttle response like my kid's, and it zoomed right into traffic and hit 35 like nothing! Not as fast as my Scout of course, but still zippy enough that keeping up with traffic in Spencer is a breeze. I let my (115lb skinny ass)daughter cruise around with it for a bit too. After she got home I asked her how she liked it. She said she turned the corner by the store to come home and went WOT and that she was doing 30 before she even got to the end of the first block. She said it was AWESOME and now wants me to take hers in for the same treatment I gave her mom's. Also wants to know if she can use it next week to drive to school with. I told her we will see.

Cost

So I guess to start out with I need to subtract a couple things from my initial parts list and add something else... the Kevlar belt. So to break it down, the Scrappydog parts list for the new TaoTao is:

• Performance roller polygon sliders 16x13 (5 grams) $19.95
• High performance variator $69.95
• Performance exhaust system $114.95
• 80CC BIG BORE KIT $69.95
• 20mm Big Bore performance carburetor $59.95
• Red hot high energy GY6 ignition coil $29.95
• CR7 Iridium Spark Plugs $9.95
• Erlandson 669 drive belt $34.95
• Turbo cooling fan $14.95
• HOCA Performance clutch/pulley/bell $117.95
• Performance A9 Camshaft $39.95
• Performance transmission gear set $39.95

Grand total for parts was $622.40
Scooter itself $649.95
Labor to have installed $420

Grand total $1692.35

Cost of 2 identical scoots setup this way $3384.70

Cost of just 1 Zuma 125 $3390

As you can see, even with labor from a mechanic factored in, it is VERY possible to buy 2 awesome performance scooters for just the price of 1 Zuma 125. Will they perform as well as a Zuma 125?? Well DUH, of course not. But they will kick the crap out of most any brand new 50cc class scooter sold today. And, in many states, you DO NOT need a motorcycle license to drive them. My 330lb fat ass has hit 42mph with it so far, so YOU TOO will without a doubt be able to get going that fast and probably quite higher depending on weight with this setup.

I'm pretty happy with the new scoot. Just need to adjust the idle a bit, kinda looking like I need to take the snorkel off too. I know that is one of those things that sometimes you do need to, sometimes you don't. Seems from the initial runs, I might be running a bit on the rich side, so I'm thinking I need to. I'll figure it out more this weekend when my wife and I have time to drive the countryside around town.

[eclark5483]

OK, here's a video with GPS. Looks like the TaoTao is off by about 5mph. With GPS, I'm showing my top speed was 40. So I'm guessing I need to do a bit of tuning. I do have the snorkel removed, set my idle up a bit. I'll probably break in the engine a bit more and let those springs break in a bit more too before trying different slider weights... I'm guessing maybe heavier sliders?? What do you guys think?

[90GTVert]

Knowing RPM would help you make a more educated decision on which way to go with the weights. For a new setup, IMO it's a good idea to try moving in both directions to see how it responds. If you have a tach and do some trial and error tuning, then it's easier to adjust later if anything changes in the CVT.

[Deleted]

I have a 139QMB, the only mods besides stripping it down to the minimum frame are the Glixal 80cc BBK and a Glixal 20mm carb with a 90 main and my top end via GPS is 39-40mph. How did I get to 39-40mph with just a bbk/carb, did I lose that much weight stripping the body and extra frame pieces?

[Deleted]

Oct 17, 2016 17:12:14 GMT -5 peascreek said:

I have a 139QMB, the only mods besides stripping it down to the minimum frame are the Glixal 80cc BBK and a Glixal 20mm carb with a 90 main and my top end via GPS is 39-40mph. How did I get to 39-40mph with just a bbk/carb, did I lose that much weight stripping the body and extra frame pieces?

My stock 139QMB (actual 49cc) does 41 mph on gps on level ground and all I did was exhaust, jet swap, cone filter and variator tuning.  I am sure that the BBK scoots get there much faster than I can though...it takes a little while.  To go much faster, one would have to change gear ratios and, of course, I do not have the power for that...you guys do however.

Bill

[eclark5483]

Oct 17, 2016 17:12:14 GMT -5 peascreek said:

I have a 139QMB, the only mods besides stripping it down to the minimum frame are the Glixal 80cc BBK and a Glixal 20mm carb with a 90 main and my top end via GPS is 39-40mph. How did I get to 39-40mph with just a bbk/carb, did I lose that much weight stripping the body and extra frame pieces?

A BBK will not give you higher speeds, it will just get you to your top speed faster. It's all in the transmission.