Upgrading my Coleman Bt200x minibike

[hickory n Steel]

I bought this Coleman minibike about 2 years ago at this point and it's been great, it fires right up on the 1st pull every time and I just don't have many complaints considering what it is.

There are a few things that need to be addressed though.
The first thing I decided to take care of is the breaks, where I ride I keep having issued with fine dirt getting in the drum break and causing a very loud squeak.

The simple cheap solution was to upgrade the shoes to a pair of EBC 304G grooved break shoes which I actually found for $12 shipped.
Normally they're $15-$20 which isn't expensive at all, but I'm happy to save money.



The original break shoes.


And here's the new EBC, with it's grooves where moisture and dirt...ect can accumulate instead of causing issues.




The next thing to address is the HP, I'm not looking to add a bunch of additional top speed because I don't need it and the plastic fly wheel can't take the high RPM's and there's no aftermarket billet flywheel available for the 212cc Honda clone engines.
I just need to increase the pickup a bit, I just need to reach top speed a little sooner so I can get up hills...etc better.
To accomplish this I'll be adding the stage 1 upgrade kit from GoPowerSports.com, the kit is $130 which is cheaper than the HF ghost upgrade kit and it's a much better kit .
This kit includes a header pipe ( ordered the muffler too for $50) that's more efficient than the square exhaust box.
A better / more efficient air cleaner.
And it includes a replacement Carb with appropriate jet, because the factory carb has a " non removable " EPA jet in it with a 1-way screw slot.
This upgrade kit is supposed to give me a 3HP boost according to their website.

In stock form the bike does 20MPH, all I have done is backed off the throttle stop screw to get the full speed out of it.
From what I've seen online it may boost me up to 25MPH which will be appreciated.

I'll update more when I get everything else in.

[muddy]

I go with EBC on my Harleys have had good experiences with them.

Sent from my Twisted Mind Of The Mudman

[hickory n Steel]

I go with EBC on my Harleys have had good experiences with them.

Sent from my Twisted Mind Of The Mudman

They sure do seem a helluva lot better in quality than the factory brake shoes.

[stokester]

I use EBC brake pads on my Beemers with Brembo calipers.

Their pads and rotors are well regarded in the BMW motorcycle community.

[hickory n Steel]

I've gotta do some more riding with this and see if the squeaking issue has been solved.
I just cleaned the breaks really well about 2 or 3 weeks ago and it took a few days but the squeak returned.
I sure wish it was something I could notice right away, it sucks having to replace a part on the bike and not know if I've even fixed the issue until it either doesn't or doesn't return.

[hickory n Steel]

I'm so glad I have my old Dahon folding bike.
I never thought to check the gas in my minibike because I just filled it up all the way to the top about 2 weeks ago and didn't think I used much gas since then.

Well I took a ride down to the dry creek bed behind my neighborhood where everybody rides their dirt bikes and quads...ect and I ran out of gas.
I walked back home ( it was damn hot ) grabbed the 1gal gas can, rode over to the gas station down the street to my house to fill it up, then to the end of the Kuldasak street where I one of the trails down to the creek starts.
I folded up and stashed the bike then carried the can about 1/4mi and filled up my minibike, from there I picked up the Dahon on the way back and carefully rode home with the dahon on my lap.
It was kind of sketchy, but I made it back fine.
Keep in mind that at most I can maybe ride 2 miles from my house, and today I was maybe 3/4mi from my house when I ran out of gas.

I got a couple thorns in the front tube of the Dahon too, so I'll have to buy another 16" here soon.

[hickory n Steel]

I just got the muffler in,I didn't order everything all at once and should hopefully have the stage 1 kit in about a week.

[ron350]

  Good looking pipe.

[hickory n Steel]

  Good looking pipe.

Hopefully it was worth the $50.

As far as I know their header pipe isn't compatible with the cheap $10 Briggs hotdog mufflers or I probably would have just went with that.

[hickory n Steel]

ETA on my upgrade kit is Friday, so meanwhile I just replaced the tubes in my Dahon folder.
I had 3 holes in the rear tube, 4 in the front and it took me a few minutes with some needle nose pliers to pull every thorn out of the the tires.

Those goat horns sure are nasty buggers.

[hickory n Steel]

I don't know what's going on, but my upgrade kit is still in TX so I don't know when it'll be here.

[hickory n Steel]

I received and installed the kit this morning and I'm quite pleased with it.

As expected the top speed didn't change from 20mph, but it gets up to speed quicker ( I can tell, but can't test for it ) , and maybe most importantly it sounds cooler   

[hickory n Steel]

After having ridden it a decent amount since swapping them out, I'm pretty confident in saying that the EBC grooved break shoes have definitely solved the squeak issue.

Before I thought I could only go about 2 miles where I ride, but I was wrong.
There was a downed tree and it appeared to be a dead end just beyond that point,  well that downed tree is gone and it turns out I can go almost 5 miles till the dry creek bed merges up into a dirt road on somebodies orchard.

I rode the almost 5 miles both ways 3 times since completing my upgrades on Tuesday, and no squeak has returned like it definitely would have before.

[hickory n Steel]

I'm thinking about buying a 2nd rear rack and coming up with a way to mount it to the front.
I'll have to look into it more first, they aren't exactly expensive at least they were only around $30 when j bought mine.

[hickory n Steel]

I lost my gas cap out riding yesterday and had to order a new one, it was only $10 shipped at least.

[hickory n Steel]

I found my original gas cap so now I have a spare.
I also discovered that it wasn't my fault I lost the gas cap, it turns out the kill switch ground nut was loose ( came off on the way home today ) and since that nut attaches to one of the tank mounting studs Thomas tank was loose rattling the gas cap loose.
I guess it maybe was my fault for not regularly checking to ensure all the fasteners are tight.

I had an appropriate nut, in fact I had two so I added the 2nd one as a lock nut.
If I find a lock washer in my Bucket- o -stuff  I'll put it between the two.

[hickory n Steel]

The new gas cap doesn't really fit right, but that's fine since I found the old one.
It turns out the gasket in the old one was bad though which was probably the biggest cause of it coming off.
I was loosing gas out the cap and didn't think it was the cap because it was even doing it with the new one.
I tried everything I could think of to no avail, then I decided to try swapping gaskets and that did the trick.
I guess the new one just didn't seal because the fit wasn't great, but the gasket is a little thicker than the original on top of being good of course.
In the process I adjusted the carb a bit and eliminated some of the major vibration at idle, I'm not sure if I've got the fuel / air ratio where it should be but nothing I've done has effected how it runs so I may not have anything to worry about there.