CPI SM250 & related banter

Question for all who have ridden the first generation CPI 250s (2008-10), compared to the current generation… any notable differences other than better wheel bearing seals, no flood damage, bold new graphics :roflmao: , and the addition of the “emission gizmo” on the bottom of the downtube?

Not really haha. CPI also changed a piece from the speedo cable down by the wheel hub. They changed it to some kind of electronic piece. They were always breaking and or getting damaged by water. Other than that, the bike is pretty much the same.

Also the new frame has a solid piece of bar in the bottom spar where it goes under the clutch basket, not sure why. The rear mudguard and light have been changed, along with the front light and cowl. The rear brake caliper has been changed to a two piston sliding unit I believe.

Thanks guys. I was hoping I had missed something, like EFI.

RK when you changed your body panels, can you remember if it was a set or individual parts? I mean, do you have to buy all of them? Because some of mine are totally rooted from the sunlight, but some are OK. I don’t really want to buy a full set if I don’t have to.

Thinking about what happened to mine, I reckon it could have been the little end bearing that went. The first ride I did on it with Dogma, we swapped bikes for a bit and he immediately said my bike made a whining sound that his didn’t make. It made a lot of top end noise that I thought was the camchain, but when they changed the tensioner adjuster it made no difference. When I saw inside it, the camchain was intact. Michael in Hsinchu told Pommes that mine sounded like a bearing was fucked last summer when I rode away from his shop. Putting all this together with a good dose of hindsight, I reckon there was a fault with the little end bearing from new and it finally went in December. Not very good after less than 14,000km. Anyway they fixed it so that’s something I suppose.

As for the excessive fork dive, I was thinking about that, I don’t know if anyone’s tried it. RK, I think yours have the cartridge emulators in yes? What about just putting more oil in the standard forks to make them more progressive and limit travel? I don’t want to put thicker oil in because they have too much high speed compression damping anyway, but more of the same weight oil should be an improvement hey? What do you guys think?

[quote=“jaame”]1. RK when you changed your body panels
2. more of the same weight oil should be an improvement hey?[/quote]

  1. as far as I know; he just put carbon foil on his orange panels.
  2. theoratically… at least if the inside looks like a Marzocchi 888 :slight_smile: We should just ripp one open and have a look…

[quote=“jaame”]RK when you changed your body panels, can you remember if it was a set or individual parts? I mean, do you have to buy all of them? Because some of mine are totally rooted from the sunlight, but some are OK. I don’t really want to buy a full set if I don’t have to.

Thinking about what happened to mine, I reckon it could have been the little end bearing that went. The first ride I did on it with Dogma, we swapped bikes for a bit and he immediately said my bike made a whining sound that his didn’t make. It made a lot of top end noise that I thought was the camchain, but when they changed the tensioner adjuster it made no difference. When I saw inside it, the camchain was intact. Michael in Hsinchu told Pommes that mine sounded like a bearing was fucked last summer when I rode away from his shop. Putting all this together with a good dose of hindsight, I reckon there was a fault with the little end bearing from new and it finally went in December. Not very good after less than 14,000km. Anyway they fixed it so that’s something I suppose.

As for the excessive fork dive, I was thinking about that, I don’t know if anyone’s tried it. RK, I think yours have the cartridge emulators in yes? What about just putting more oil in the standard forks to make them more progressive and limit travel? I don’t want to put thicker oil in because they have too much high speed compression damping anyway, but more of the same weight oil should be an improvement hey? What do you guys think?[/quote]

Actually I did buy brand new panels, but I bought the set. The reason I did that because I wanted to keep my original Redbull decals and have an extra set. I know you can buy individual pieces though.

I think I do have those cartridge emulators in my forks, but I have never checked. With our race bikes, we do a few things to stiffen up the front shock on a stock application. We do add more oil and usually go thicker, but you could use the stock fork oil and just add more. We also use stiffer fork springs and or we will put some pacers top of the fork springs too. These are usually washers. I just helped my friend with an FZR do this last week and we put about 4-5 washers on top of his stock fork spring. It feels ways better.

From my parts book for my Quannon Naked and Grand Dink 250, I see that I can order the individual body panel parts if I wanted to, so I don’t see why
you can’t with your motorcycle. If you feel comfortable doing the work yourself, I don’t see why you couldn’t order the parts you want yourself from a
parts distributor shop. You just need the part numbers. If you don’t know how to get the part numbers you need, the parts distributor shop may have the
book for your motorcycle, or maybe you could go to the CPI warranty shop and ask them for it.

As for adding more oil to the forks, I’m not so sure that’s such a great idea. There’s a reason why the manufacture only put so much oil in your forks. I’ll
admit that I can’t exactly tell you why, but I like the suggestion of adding washers, as I’ve seen that done before. What my friend did was use a bolt, added
some washers to it, and secured the washers with a nut. Of course the nut and bolt was small enough to fit inside the fork spring and the washers were just
big enough to completely cover the fork spring. As for how many washers you need to add depends on how much “stiffness” you want in your forks. Just
remember that the head of the bolt will also add to how much the fork spring is compressed by the washers. I don’t know if that’s the way rk1951 did it.
When I saw how my friend was re-adjusting how many washers to use, and having to put the cap back on his forks. I could see how much a pain in the ass
it would be to deal with loose washers and having to push the fork spring down with the cap, and try to screw the cap on properly.

[quote=“johnledoe”]
As for adding more oil to the forks, I’m not so sure that’s such a great idea. There’s a reason why the manufacture only put so much oil in your forks. [/quote]

You just have to be careful as to how much you add. With most 150cc bikes you can add a little more than what the manufacture recommends. Yes if you add too much you can blow your seals, but it is very rare to have this happen.

We just used washers that are the same diameter as the fork spring, but you can do many things.

I like the idea of changing to stiffer springs but I don’t want to buy any. I’m sure lowering the oil height would be ok, I mean, you don’t need ten inches of travel to ride on the road do you? Five would be fine, that’s what my old Ninja had.

My bike still has the fast idle problem. I stripped the carb down today and cleaned everything up but it hasn’t made any difference. I didn’t clean the choke though as I didn’t know what it was until I looked on the internet after. According to the message boards, the main reasons for a fast idle are dirty carb, dirty or improperly adjusted choke, and an air leak into the carb. RK, I know you think the carb is fucked but I can’t believe it is. There’s nothing on the net about Keihin CVK carbs being unreliable or having short lifespans. It’s not a shit carb, at least it shouldn’t be. 8000miles, it can’t be worn out. Plus I’ve barely used it for three years. Hopefully it’s just gone out of whack or the choke is dirty and it can be fixed. I had two guys looking at it a couple of weeks ago, they revved it up and it sat at about 3000rpm. If I dial the idle adjuster out, it drops to 1700rpm. I prefer to have it set a bit higher though, about 2000-2100 so it doesn’t brake as much when I shift down. Unfortunately I have the choice between 1700 or less, or 3000 or more.

I promise, those carbs are junk. If you change it, all your problems will disappear. :slight_smile:

Mine is still stock and one of the few things working properly… :smiley: You have a 32now? I wonder if I could feel a difference if I’ld change…

I found a great video on youtube about restoring colour to UV damaged plastics. First, you take a stanley knife blade and scrape all the degraded plastic layer off the top. Then you clean it with alcohol. Then you use a paint stripper heat gun to melt the surface to restore shine. I haven’t got a heat gun so I just used the hob in the kitchen. It’s worked a treat so far on my headlight surround and front mudguard. They look like new if you squint a bit.

When I turn the engine on, even when cold, the auto choke doesn’t work. The revs stay at about 1700 until I rev it up. After that, it idles at 3000 but some times drops again. The auto choke thing is really corroded and the wires into it look tired. Next time I go to the shop I’m going to get them to change that part or test it with the voltmeter.

I picked up a CPI 250 two days ago. It’s the much lauded Russian Roulette version, aka 2008. It’s got about 15K on the clock and all stock except for fugly stickers, no mirrors, and reddish pink handlebar grips/ends. I don’t understand the Taiwanese obsession for making handlebar grips ugly. From the 4 CPIs I rode, it felt the tightest and best mechanically, and the least likely to spontaneously combust.

Am going to put on some mirrors, swap out the handlebar grips, considering the Frando front brake upgrade, and start to get comfy with the bike. I’ve mainly ridden supersports, so the position and riding style is a bit of an adjustment. Afterwards I’ll probably take down the stickers and spraybomb it or resticker it in something more sober. Probably look into painting the rims as well down the line. I am renting an apartment in North Taipei so it’s a bit hard to work on the bike without a proper garage, which takes out some of the fun of it.

I pretty much read most of the 97 pages on here when trying to get an idea about the CPI. Would love to join up for mountain rides on weekdays (less traffic!) or weekends with other CPI owners. I also want to thank feropont for sending me the user and service manuals in English, and Jaame for loving his bike so much that he couldn’t part with it; made me realise the CPI is great for the money even if it sounds weak on paper :slight_smile:. Hope to see you guys on the road soon. Cheers!

[quote=“jaame”]I found a great video on youtube about restoring colour to UV damaged plastics. First, you take a stanley knife blade and scrape all the degraded plastic layer off the top. Then you clean it with alcohol. Then you use a paint stripper heat gun to melt the surface to restore shine. I haven’t got a heat gun so I just used the hob in the kitchen. It’s worked a treat so far on my headlight surround and front mudguard. They look like new if you squint a bit.

When I turn the engine on, even when cold, the auto choke doesn’t work. The revs stay at about 1700 until I rev it up. After that, it idles at 3000 but some times drops again. The auto choke thing is really corroded and the wires into it look tired. Next time I go to the shop I’m going to get them to change that part or test it with the voltmeter.[/quote]

youtube.com/watch?v=0WS14Jnyf5Q

This is a great solution if you want to make it look new, change colors without gaining the wrath of the Taiwanese modification rules. If they give you trouble for changing the color, just rip it off in front of their eyes. This is probably what I’ll do with mine. There are a couple brands out there and I think one spray can goes for about $30 US.

At least in the weekends, you have to be back home before 10am IM O - no fun riding in traffic.
Would you send those english documents as well pls?? Thx!

At least in the weekends, you have to be back home before 10am IM O - no fun riding in traffic.
Would you send those english documents as well pls?? Thx![/quote]

Yeah, I figure weekdays are the better way to go. Actually there’s a nice little road just 5 minutes up from my place. It goes to some hot springs. Just did a short 30 minute rip up and down to get a feel for the bike. Bloody beautiful, and surprisingly the drivers and bikers seemed to stay mainly in their lane and allow easy passing.

That’s too bad about Yangmei, from the 97 pages you seem like an eager cat to get mountain rides in. Do you ride around Taoyuan/Yangmei? Mountains there? Far from Taipei? Very new to Taiwan so forgive the ignorance. PM me your email address and I’ll send out the manuals to you.

Heck, either turns or track. Why would anyone ever ride a motorcycle in traffic???

this reminds me that I didn’t have a chance yet to remind you all to be carefull and wear your leathers :smiley:
My slutty whore took quite a beating a couple of weeks ago - it refreshed my respect for small roads+white lines+gravel…
I came from the right;

stayed extremely right for the next left (similar to here)

but was down before even starting the turn;

First checked the bike;

you can see the trace into the berm, there the bike rolled 2-3 times. Where you can see it parked, that’s where both of us came to a halt - luckily it didn’t go over the edge. Thanks to the leathers I got away with some bruises and some road rash.

open for modding now;


Guess I’ll stay on “normal” roads again for a while :slight_smile:

Not crash-related; “shaped by asphalt”

While repairing I had a 200mm front disc installed. Which was probably the main reason why I broke 2 spokes within 2 k last sunday… back to the pit. :cactus:

I can’t say I’ve ever wiped out like that on my scooter/motorcycle (knock on wood) before. Damn, looks like you lucked out there on that one.
I can see why on that road you’d stay on the right, but I can’t bring myself to do that. Even though on a road like that it’d be the safest place to
be if there was an on coming car. However, even if there was an oncoming car, it’s doubtful that the car would hug the corner and would most
likely take you out anyways, as it would be on the far right to take the corner fast as it would be going down hill.

Ever since I owned my first motorcycle, a Honda 1978 CX500, I’ve learned to stay out of the right side of the road when making a sharp left turn.
The reason being is I was still learning how to ride and I took a week trip to Salt Spring Island, B.C. with a couple of my buddies on my motor
cycle. Still had my learners license at the time and I took a ride out by myself and was enjoying the ride, going fast when I could. Well, when
riding and going too fast I found myself coming up to a left turn that I knew I was going too fast for. Two thing popped up in my mind. I could
test my luck by going straight into the woods and try and come to a stop there, or turn left and try and brake and slow down that way. I decided
to turn left and try and slow down at the same time. I ended up off the road and on the side road gravel still trying to brake and get through the
turn and I swear I heard the sound of a tire slipping on gravel and thought it may have been my front tire. It certainly didn’t feel like my back
tire slipped out. The whole event freaked me right out, and I rode real chill for the rest of my ride. When I got back and I told my friends about
what happened they said it couldn’t have been my front tire that slid, because I would have went down if that had happened, but I still think it
did. Anyways, because of that, I won’t let myself be on the far right of the lane when I’m turning left.

I’m a more or less happy owner of a TU250 grasstracker. I like it, but sometimes I’d like to try something different and… perhaps more powerful. I know that CPI SM is not much powerful than my suzuki, but… how does it fit for a 1,73 guy? the one I’ve tried was kind of tall for me, but the owner had put some padding in the seat. Also I don’t know if there’re different models or adjustments that affect its height.

How about quality? I remember I read once some nick “sandman” saying that TU doesn’t make any sense in Taiwan and that SM CPI is the only good option. Then the story led to other conclusions…