Dazon Suspension Upgrade/Misc. Mods

Posts: 13 · Newbie Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 13 Pictures: 0

Well, I picked up a 150 single a few months back and have been tinkering with it ever since I got it. I was actually pretty surprised at the performance of the little 150cc engine.

I recently ordered a few pairs of shocks with the intention of gaining a bit of height and having overall better suspension. Here's some advice if you're looking at doing the same...

The geometry of the front suspension and limits of travel on the ball joints of the 150 Single really can't be worked around with any easy mods. The stock front shock length is pretty much the longest length you'll be able to get in there. I pulled off the front shocks thinking I'd have around another inch of travel before the ball joints limited out, but it turns out to be 1/8" to 1/4". It would be unwise to stuff a slightly longer shock in there since you'd be pulling stress on the ball joints at rest...these things already get enough abuse, so don't stress them out more than they have to be.

For the back, do to the "dog bone" links that tie into the upper motor mounts, you're also limited. What I ended up going with were Yamaha Blaster front shocks. They're about 3/4" -1" longer than stock, and, for the most part, are able to fit. The eyes on these shocks are wider than the mounts which are really the only problem. In my case, I have a small mill at home and I milled down the eyes so they would fit. The mill is just a really clean way to do it...others have grinded them down, bent the mounts just enough so the eyes fit, or made new mounts. I didn't remember to take any measurements to check how much clearance I picked up with the Blaster shocks, but it's not a whole lot...probably in the neighborhood of 1". More important than the ground clearance is the fact that the Blaster shocks have adjustable preload, where the stock rear shocks have zero adjustability.

I noticed a good difference with the Blaster shocks just taking it across the lawn and hitting the usual bumps...definitely more damping and a more enjoyable ride.

As far as other mods go, I put in 10g rollers, 1500# spring, a red clutch (can't remember the RPM it's rated for), uni filter, cdi, coil, and rejetted the carb. It had a White Bros. pipe on it before I bought it.
It's definitely got lower gearing due to the rollers and spring, but the clutch engages a little high for my taste. I'm debating a HIT clutch, but in the mean time I'm going to swap out the red clutch and put the stock one back in.
Between the CDI, coil, and UNI (with rejet) I also noticed another step-up in overall power. When doing ingnition, I always consider the coil part of the overall package (i.e., I don't like putting on a CDI without doing a HO coil). There was a noticeable difference at the low end with the 20deg. timing advance and it's more than the "dyno results" people have mentioned...however, it didn't start shredding the back tires with this mod either...just a noticeable bump. I also imagine that the UNI added to this extra bump that I feel with these mods. As for the UNI, I'm still trying to tune the jetting. I started with a 130 post-mods and the engine started bogging at the top end (rich). I went down to a 125 which gave less bogging at the top, but it was still there. I put in a 120 and still notice a slight bog, but definitely not as much as the 125 or 130. I did change out spark plugs just before putting the 120 in and the plug was black (another sign of running rich).

The last of the mods will be tires...21's up front, 22's out back. Currently it has 19 (front) and 22 (back). I just scored a set of front tires tonight at CycleGear for $43 for the pair. Someone had ordered them and never came to pick them up...after sitting around for a couple months, they decided to slash the price...normally $50/each. I just couldn't pass up a deal like that. Hopefully those will be on by the end of the week and I'll be out riding this weekend...look for an update to follow.

Posts: 189

Sounds like you have an awesome buggy going for you, keep us updated on how it works out. Do you still have the white bros pipe or no??? I heard the Dazon 150 had some pep to it, you should feel how much pep the 250 has Wink

Posts: 6290

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. I really appreciate it.

Posts: 2577

That's a nice little write-up. Keep up the good work.

Posts: 4286

good job on the review of the mods. if the clutch has the red springs in it, they are around 4000-4200 rpm, the yellow clutch springs are around 3200 rpm. they work great for trails and hills

Posts: 13 · Newbie Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 13 Pictures: 0

Well, I got a chance to take out the buggy over the weekend to some trails behind a buddy's property. It was in the Foresthill/Auburn area of California. This area is in the lower elevations of the Sierra Mountains (~1500ft)...basically elevated forest trails. The cool part about the area is that it's peppered with old gold mines and I got a chance to check one of them out and some of the abandoned equipment left nearby. The downside of riding this area was that there was only a few trails that I was able to take the buggy on. The other trails definitely were territory for the 4x4 utility quads...especially when trails/access roads haven't been maintained in over 100 years and a slip on the trail could mean tumbling down the side of a mountain.

None the less, I was able to really put the buggy to the test. The rollers and spring worked great...definitely kept the buggy geared a bit lower compared to stock and well within a good power range. There were quite a bit of hills/inclines that were surprisingly taken at ease. After riding for a bit, I had a mishap...a flat tire. I just picked these tires up and mounted them, so I wasn't really happy when I heard the hissing sound as I came around a corner. Turns out that the valve stem core came loose and popped out of the tire. The 10" rims I mouted the tires on had the opposite offset to the stock 8" rims, which means that the valve stem goes on the inside. I figured that the core coming out was due to the valve stem tapping the caliper on one side of the buggy, eventually vibrating it loose. No big deal, we squeezed a pick-up through the trails, threw the buggy in it, and carried it out. As soon as I got it to the top of the trail, I dropped the spare tire on my Ranger and pulled the valve stem core...I was up and running again in no time.

After the tire fix, a few of us traded off ripping it around in a more accessible area. I say a few of us traded off because everyone else had ATVs and just had to get some time behind the wheel of "that thing".

As far as the mods I've done helping me out over the weekend, there is a definite increase in performance with all of the mods I've done. I did realize that the larger tires helped out when I peeled over a rock I didn't see sitting in the middle of the trail. It definitely woke me up when I went over it and I would have been in trouble if I had the stock 19's on the front (which actually measured 18").

The blaster shocks on the rear were set to the second level of preload. Although it's a definite improvement over stock, it's still pretty stiff. When watching other people shoot across an open field, it looked like the back end was hopping a bit too much. It was the general concensus that it was a pretty bumpy ride, yet definitely fun. I'll be taking the preload down to the lowest setting when I get a chance and want to see how much it'll help. There is a chance that the shock itself is over damped for this buggy application. Over-damping would make the shock really stiff when rapidly compressed. If the preload doesn't really resolve the issue, I may find another set of Blaster shocks on ebay to take apart and drill out the damping holes a bit larger. If anyone knows anything about doing this on Blaster shocks, now would be your time to chime in...if not, I guess I'll have to make another report.

I kept the racing clutch in, since I wanted to get some trail time with it and I also didn't get a chance to change it out before heading out for the weekend. This will get changed out soon and the stock clutch put back in. The racing clutch just engages at too high of an RPM than I'd like and I also want to see how much of a variable the clutch is in the whole powertrain equation. I'll definitely want to see how well it takes hills/inclines compared to the racing clutch. My guess it that it should do just fine as long as I'm not stopping on any steep hills, but at that point, the racing clutch would also probably be having issues, too.

A couple of the next mods/upgrades I'm planning on are new brake lines and fabbing up a cover to go over the exteral reverse/chain. The brake lines were botched together by the old owner. He bought it with a hand brake set-up on the steering wheel and replaced it with a footbrake...in the process, he used brake lines he had laying around that seemed to fit. The lines on the front turn out to be about 1"-2" too short and are now leaking when the wheels are turned at full chock and the brakes are pressed. The cover for the external reverse/chain will be fabbed up to keep grease from the reverse backgear and chain lube from getting all over the UNI.

Posts: 1889

Posts: 2577

Nice write-up. Sounds like you had fun.

Posts: 13 · Newbie Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 13 Pictures: 0

As far as I know, the only area really open to the public in the sacramento/folsom area is Prarie City. When I lived up there for a few years during college that's the only local place I made it out to.

I think a couple years back I heard that they closed down a lot of the public lands around the dam...worried too much about 9/11 stuff.

Posts: 13 · Newbie Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 13 Pictures: 0

Well, the last two days I got the chance to get some more work done on the buggy. The two main things I changed were running new brake lines (as well as giving them a good bleed out) and changed the clutch back to stock.

First off, I definitely noticed the impact of both when I got it all back together and took it out for a spin.

The brakes finally feel like they should and the lines are all the proper length. The lines that I took off were rigged and my front right brake line was too short and began leaking at the joint. I did spend somewhat of a mint of brake lines (russel stainless braided lines), but I figure it's worth it when I need to stop in a hurry.

With the stock clutch back on, the buggy now engages again at a normal RPM. I can feel a slight loss in torque because it's not engaging farther up in the RPM range like the race clutch did, but I'm happier with a more instinctive RPM engagement. The race clutch was like revving my Ranger up to 3K on the tach before I started engaging the clutch...it would give more torque, but didn't seem natural.

I also adjusted the preload on the shocks (blaster) down to the zero setting. I'm hoping that this will give a little more cushion but I didn't get the chance to take it out in the dirt yet. My guess is that the preload adjustment will have little effect. I do have a pair of banshee shocks that I might give a try at, but since they do not readily fit between the stock mounts, it was beyond the scope of work today. I definitely would like to get something with a lighter spring rate, so if anyone knows of anything that is the same length as the blaster (or stock) shocks with a lighter spring rate, please chime in.

One last, very simple, thing I did was add a hose to the vent on the gas cap. I have noticed, whether riding on the street or the dirt, that gas tends to come out of this little vent. Adding the hose will hopefully prevent this...or at least prevent it from splashing out of the tank.

The next upcoming mod I am looking into is a catch-can for the breather tube coming out of the valve cover. I'll probably just T off the line going to the vent and add some sort of collection container. That way I won't have oil sitting in the vent line and can also keep an eye on the amount that comes out of the valve cover.