A Free Flow Air filter (Ebay for around £10)

[mattiebabes]

hi just de reg'd the bike goes brilliant thanks to the info off billy green, one thing i am unsure about, it was suggested that you use 'A Free Flow Air filter (Ebay for around £10)' not shure what i am looking for can anyone give me a brand name or any photos or even a link thanks matti

[BillyGreen1973]

Hi

Glad to know you find the info useful.
You could try this ebay item.

cgi.ebay.co.uk/Monkey-bike-Dirt-bike-Scooter-Dax-Air-filter-35-mm_W0QQitemZ8002164865QQcategoryZ10460QQssPageN

This is what I was talking about as regards a 'free flow air filter'. If you do fit one you will probably need to adjust the mixture on the carb to get the best performance.

[mattiebabes]

thanks billy, i was able to do the simple de-restricting but not shure about messing with carb, if i fit the filter and get the carb done, how much faster are we talking...1,2,3, 4, miles an hour?

[BillyGreen1973]

Not quite sure, as it depends on a number of things, how your bike's set up, your weight, the roads, and even the weather!

However it should be quite noticeable on the acceleration.

Adjusting the mixture is quite easy really. Just run the bike until it's properly warmed up ( a couple of mins), leave the engine running, as you adjust the mixture screw it will alter the engine revs, so adjust the mixture screw VERY SLIGHTLY first one way, then the other until you get the engine revs as high as you can. That's the mixture set too about the best it can be. Then adjust the idle screw so your tick over revs are back to around 1800-1900 rpm.

You could take it to a garage, they will probably do it quite cheaply, and they will probably use a proper tuning machine to get the best mixture setting.

[chcknugget]

billygreen1973, have you done this mod?

You cannot just put a new airfilter on and adjust the screw, it requires upjetting your main jet. The screw just adjusts the idle mixture and nothing else. Maybe moving the clip on the pin would do the trick, but it would take time and plug chops. Just putting on a high flow filter would cause the engine to run lean and scorch the piston.

You can test this by removing the first part of the intake hose. You'll find the scooter runs like poo because the fuel mixture is different. Putting on a high flow filter would yield even worse performance.

I think that the "high air flow filter" suggestion should be taken off the main derestriction page becuase the carb needs modification and I have found no sources for new main jets! Just a thought.

[Gavin]

chcknugget said:

billygreen1973, have you done this mod?

You cannot just put a new airfilter on and adjust the screw, it requires upjetting your main jet. The screw just adjusts the idle mixture and nothing else. Maybe moving the clip on the pin would do the trick, but it would take time and plug chops.

What is "plug chops" chcknugget ?
I have never heard of this term before in the UK.

[Rave]

A plug chop is where you run the bike at full throttle for a bit before hitting the kill switch and stopping the bike + engine as quick as possible. Then you pull the spark plug out and have a look at it, the condition of the plug tells you how the engine is running. If it's sooty the mixture is too rich, I'm not sure how you tell that the mixture is too lean though

[chcknugget]

rave said:

A plug chop is where you run the bike at full throttle for a bit before hitting the kill switch and stopping the bike + engine as quick as possible. Then you pull the spark plug out and have a look at it, the condition of the plug tells you how the engine is running. If it's sooty the mixture is too rich, I'm not sure how you tell that the mixture is too lean though

Close! Remember this works best with NEW sparkplugs!
1) Allow the engine to warm up.
2) Run at full throttle for at least 1/4 mile
3) Immediately turn the scooter off without allowing it to return to idle (this is the chop)
4) Allow the engine to cool (so you don't burn yourself) and pull the spark plug out
5) Read the plug... I would google "plug chop" or "plug read" to get a picture of some example plugs (they're also in the back of haynes automotive manuals). But if the white insulator is burnt ashy white and not brown you're running lean, if it is black or covered with carbon you're running to rich, and if it is a light brown you're running at best main jet mixture.

[Gavin]

Thanks for the explanations.
I have used the condition of the plugs to diagnose engine problems with cars before, but never on bikes.

[Botanic]

These filters are completely unnecessary on these bikes. The only thing thay will do is to make them sound a lot more. My opinion is to remove this hint from the guides. It is misleading information.
You need to get more fuel into the engine if you get more air. The easiest way of doing tihis is to change the main mouthpiece in the carburator ( maybe wrong english term?) and then instead of paying for such a filter, you can just remove the black plastic air restrictor in the air box. After this you need to adjust the air/fuel mixture screw.
Pictures here:
www.yttertavle.se/160/moped/Bajan/baotian_start.htm#luft
The first picture is the air box that you open. Thats the box with the filter.
The second picture is the part that you just remove.

If you remove this piece without changing the mouthpiece to a bigger one, you get the same effect as buying one of these filters.

[Botanic]

Sorry for hijacking this thread. But since I started here, I will continue.
Maybe this should be a new thread or something...

A couple of things that would make the bike faster are:

A Free Flow Air filter (Ebay for around £10)

A Sport exhaust. (No source found yet)

And changing the engine and gear oil for a good quality synthetic oil will make things run faster. Changing the oil should be done after the first 300 miles and then again after a further 300 miles. Doing these oil changes are cheap, but VERY essential.

The above information is false atleast for the Baotian Classic, Retro and Sport models.
Free Flow Air filter and Sport exhaust does no good for these models. Atleast not derestrict them.

The oil changing should be done more often in the beginning. This is according to manuals that you get when you buy a scooter here in Sweden and according to experience in the Swedish forums.
The manual says that the engine oil should be changed:
300, 1000, 3000 and then every 3000km.
The gearbox oil: 300km and then every 5000km.
Note that these are kilometers and not miles!

In my experience and many others on the Swedish forums, the engine oil that comes with the scooter is very bad. It could/should be changed almost immediately.

Also the sparkplug that comes with the scooter is of bad quality.

I would recommend to change the guide. It is not good for the engines to run 483 km with the original oil.

[chcknugget]

I agree, the air intake and pipe aren't derestrictions, but if you could install them and adjust the fuel mixture to compensate, you would go faster... The original oil is bad and should be changed as soon as possible.

Can you understand Swedish? It would be great if someone could translate this page:

www.yttertavle.se/160/moped/Bajan/baotian_start.htm#luft

From the pictures, it looks like it has a lot of stuff, including adjusting the timing and plugging off the head breather valve.

[BillyGreen1973]

You can use this website to translate Swedish to English

www.systransoft.com/index.html

You just need to enter the address of the pae to translate and the language to translate from and away you go. It's not perfect but you get the idea of whats happening.

[Botanic]

www.baotianforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=946
This is a very good FAQ. Someone could translate this with systransoft. It is a very good FAQ about Baotians. I think it is readable with systransoft. Maybe 80% of the words get right.

[BillyGreen1973]

Chknnugget wrote

...but if you could install them and adjust the fuel mixture to compensate, you would go faster...

This is the point I was trying to make when I wrote the guide about derestriction. I just said they were ideas on how to gain a little more performance.

[Botanic]

It is not true according to the FAQ and what I have understood from the Swedish forum.

From the FAQ:
Måste jag ha sportluftfilter ?
Nej, det går lika bra med en originalburk som är avstrypt.

Translated:
Do I need to have a sport air filter?
No, it's the exact same thing as having an original air box that is derestricted.

[chcknugget]

botanic said:

Translated:
Do I need to have a sport air filter?
No, it's the exact same thing as having an original air box that is derestricted.

And I do not think that is necessarily true. The original airbox is an overcomplicated jungle of hoses. At least you would save on the weight and "bulk" of the factory airbox by getting a performance filter. There would be considerably more power with a high flow filter and a sport muffler but fewer gains if these mods are done by themselves.

K&N and UNI do not sell lies, their filters are great! The ebay ones (cotton or other) give similar performance at a fraction of the cost.

[Botanic]

I have not tried such a filter. So all I know is second hand information.

The sole purpose of these airfilters is to get more air into the fuel, right?
This you can achieve with removing the black plastic restrictor inside the box.
If you do this however, you get too much air in the mixture. No matter how much you screw the mixture screw.
So you need more fuel if you get more air. In order to get more fuel you can drill or change the intake (mouthpiece). The original is 0,86 mm. I think. You can go up to 0,92 what I have read. If you make it bigger say 1,00 mm the performance increase is very very minimal, if not negative.

One reason to buy these filters is if removing the air restrictor would not be enough. But it is enough.

Here is one thread with people that have tested: www.baotianforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=868&highlight=sportluftfilter

One again I could be wrong. I have not tested this in practice.