Increasing speed on my kymco super 8 150

[Quaz69]

Okay so i bought my 2013 kymco super 8 150 about a month ago and i love it everything is great on it and about it i am however wondering if there is anything i can do to increase my speed from around 62ish up to around 70 or anything more than 60. Im looking at exhausts and everything but cant really get a good feel for what to do any suggestions?

P.s. im not the most educated person on engine's so yea.

[ophelia]

Are you willing to pay for someone to install and tune for your upgrades? Or do you have lots of free time and a spare vehicle should something go wrong while you fine tune yourself?

Otherwise, it's probably a good idea to keep your bike stock. Keep your tires properly inflated, and try a windshield to cut through the wind more easily.

[PeTroL42]

Okay so i bought my 2013 kymco super 8 150 about a month ago and i love it everything is great on it and about it i am however wondering if there is anything i can do to increase my speed from around 62ish up to around 70 or anything more than 60. Im looking at exhausts and everything but cant really get a good feel for what to do any suggestions?

P.s. im not the most educated person on engine's so yea.

I'd also like to get a few more MPH out of my Super 8 but I don't want to void the warranty but I'll probably mod my Super 8 after a year.

There are 2 ways to gain more top speed. 

The first way is to get your motor to spin faster.  Since the Super 8 doesn't have a Tachometer, we don't know how many RPMs the engine is spinning at WOT but lets assume at 60 MPH that your engine is spinning at 8500 RPMs.  In this scenario,  the engine can't go any faster because the scooter is hitting an aerodynamic wall and the engine doesn't have enough torque to overcome the aerodynamic drag  OR at 8500 RPMs, the engine is starting to lose power because the engine has reached the end of it's powerband.  You could potentially get more top speed by switching out the camshaft to one that moves the powerband to a higher RPM so the engine could spin past 8500 RPMs.

The second way is to change the Final Drive gears and finding a way to boost the engine's mid range to top end power.   2 Bros. Racing claims that their full exhaust system for the Super 8 increases mid range by 2 Horsepower.  They have a Dyno graph on their website which shows a side by side comparison of a stock vs. 2 Bros. Racing exhaust and it shows that their exhaust has more Horsepower throughout the engine's powerband. 

I'm probably going to go with option 2 first since it's a pain in the butt to do stuff to the engine's top end.  Swapping out an exhaust system and the gears is much easier but that 2 Bros. Racing exhaust is a little over $300 bucks.  Ouch!

Btw, if you're not mechanically inclined or/and don't have tools, then I highly suggest you find help because it's real easy to mess something up if you don't know what you're  doing.

[Quaz69]

Okay cool thanks to both of you!! but to the second responder! i have someone who can work on this at my disposal so that is not a problem but if i were to do both of what u said the exhaust and the upgrading power band could this get me from 60ish to 70ish?

[PeTroL42]

Okay cool thanks to both of you!! but to the second responder! i have someone who can work on this at my disposal so that is not a problem but if i were to do both of what u said the exhaust and the upgrading power band could this get me from 60ish to 70ish?

I wouldn't count on getting close to 70 MPH.  Maybe 60-62 MPH is all you could hope for.

Since there aren't many people reporting what their mods have done, it's hard to say what the results would be if you modded your Super 8.  To get the most out of modding your scooter, it's going to be by trial and error.  Also, pushing the motor hard could have catastrophic results.

And I'm going to assume that any mod to the top end of the motor would void the warranty.

Btw, when you say you're getting up to 62ish stock, is that what the speedometer says or is that speed from a GPS?

[ginger cat]

speedo 72 , gps 64. That's on a motorway and i got there in about 70 seconds , last 2mph it gets really slowly.
I would say you wont enjoy that speed , the sound of the engine will become annoying and it will vibrate a lot.

[klaviator]

My motor stays smooth even at top speed, and the scooter is stable.  I can usually get 65+ on the speedo on level ground.  It doesn't seem to go much faster downhill.  I believe it just runs out of power at high RPM.  Perhaps a set of DR Pulley sliders will decrease top speed RPM and allow a little more speed.  If you need a lot more top speed, get a bigger scooter.

[ophelia]

Sometimes a variator upgrade can help a little bit, depending on how well the stock variator is optimized. An aftermarket variator might allow the belt to travel a little higher on the pulley, making the top gear ratio a little taller.

Be careful at higher speeds if it is windy. Smaller scooters don't have much mass and get pushed around easily by wind or turbulence.

[tjupille]

My $.02 worth: if you want to go faster, get a bigger/faster bike. Mid-60 mph is all you will get with a *reliable* engine. The S8 is basically a GY6 engine, and the 150 is essentially a big-bore kitted 125. As such, it's pretty well maxed out already. 

Go to one of the scooter boards that deal mainly with Chinese scooters and look at some of the stories about upgrades:
http://itistheride.boards.net/index.cgi
http://scooterdoc.proboards.com/index.cgi

If you decide to go that route, check out some of their sponsors who sell performance parts,

[PeTroL42]

My $.02 worth: if you want to go faster, get a bigger/faster bike. Mid-60 mph is all you will get with a *reliable* engine. The S8 is basically a GY6 engine, and the 150 is essentially a big-bore kitted 125. As such, it's pretty well maxed out already. 

Go to one of the scooter boards that deal mainly with Chinese scooters and look at some of the stories about upgrades:
http://itistheride.boards.net/index.cgi
http://scooterdoc.proboards.com/index.cgi

If you decide to go that route, check out some of their sponsors who sell performance parts,

I eventually want to get a bigger scooter but isn't part of the fun of owning a motorized vehicle is to try and make it go faster or handle better?

And actually, 163cc would be maxed out like the Kymco S200 and Kymco Like 200 have.  Those scooters I mentioned use a 60mm piston as opposed to 57mm pistons that the 150s use.

I use to go on Scootdawg when I had my Chinese scooter but I've learned everything I need to know from those forums and the new posts are usually just re-hashes of  older posts.

Oddly enough, I find the Total Ruckus forums pretty informative because a lot of those guys swap out their Honda 50cc motors with GY6 150s and some of these guys do some hardcore mods to their GY6s and like to talk about them.

[ce]

I took out the stock variator that weighed 330 grams without the ramp, and the stock 13 gram rollers. They were replaced with a Koso variator that weighed 240 grams, and 14 gram rollers. So 90 grams lighter on the vario, and 6 grams heavier on the rollero's.

This was after many trials of different rollers and sliders, and combinations to get the best balance overall.

That kept the RPMs lower at WOT, but still was pretty snappy off the start, and edged into 65 MPH, but like the dude said, it got kinda hairy on such a light machine, and it's much more comfortable a little slower.

[PeTroL42]

I took out the stock variator that weighed 330 grams without the ramp, and the stock 13 gram rollers. They were replaced with a Koso variator that weighed 240 grams, and 14 gram rollers. So 90 grams lighter on the vario, and 6 grams heavier on the rollero's.

This was after many trials of different rollers and sliders, and combinations to get the best balance overall.

That kept the RPMs lower at WOT, but still was pretty snappy off the start, and edged into 65 MPH, but like the dude said, it got kinda hairy on such a light machine, and it's much more comfortable a little slower.

If you're feeling adventurous, you could install a higher rate Torque spring in the Clutch.  This will allow your scooter to accelerate a little better by slowing down the variator from opening allowing you to stay in a lower gear for longer.