1971 cl100

Saw that as well. I would never run the oil provided with something like that lol. It was interesting to see that royal rn field was at the top of the list. I think I’d just as soon use something like a crf250 engine rather than a lifan. I’ve got no problem with lifan, but a 250 dirt bike engine in a cb or a cl sounds pretty cool to me. I don’t think I’d ever do the 750 piston thing. If I had the machines to do the work at my disposal, maybe, just for the fun of the project. I enjoy making things and doing things that could just as easily be bought. Guess I’m just weird that way. This is all irrelevant of course as I have nowhere near the amount of money it would take to do any of these things lol


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Saw that as well. I would never run the oil provided with something like that lol. It was interesting to see that royal rn field was at the top of the list. I think I’d just as soon use something like a crf250 engine rather than a lifan. I’ve got no problem with lifan, but a 250 dirt bike engine in a cb or a cl sounds pretty cool to me. I don’t think I’d ever do the 750 piston thing. If I had the machines to do the work at my disposal, maybe, just for the fun of the project. I enjoy making things and doing things that could just as easily be bought. Guess I’m just weird that way. This is all irrelevant of course as I have nowhere near the amount of money it would take to do any of these things lol


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Yep, Enfield has been really trying to shake their poor quality reputation and that article shows they are moving in the right direction. There are some Youtubes of folks doing the lifan swaps, not much needed to make them work and the increased power is nice. If we keep my sons for a while it may get that upgrade to give him more highway capability before needing a new bike.
 
Yep, Enfield has been really trying to shake their poor quality reputation and that article shows they are moving in the right direction. There are some Youtubes of folks doing the lifan swaps, not much needed to make them work and the increased power is nice. If we keep my sons for a while it may get that upgrade to give him more highway capability before needing a new bike.

It’s nice to see enfield stepping it up here. I really like some of the bikes they’ve been putting out lately, and stepping up their quality forces all the other big names to step it up. I like the idea of the lifan swaps for sure. Especially since they’re reasonably cost effective. Honda didn’t make a lot of thumpers back in the day over 125cc, at least not in the road bikes, so it’s nice to have a single cylinder option with some more get up and go


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and Lifan licensed the rights to the Engine from Honda and build it from the original 70's design just punching out the displacement but keeping the original foot print.
 
and Lifan licensed the rights to the Engine from Honda and build it from the original 70's design just punching out the displacement but keeping the original foot print.

That’s very interesting. I had no idea that was the case. Makes them even cooler!


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Unless you open up the exhaust, and maybe throw a hotter cam in I don't think a carb will make a big difference. The later 100cc motors do well with a bigger carb, but they also rev to valve float with no limiter.
 
Unless you open up the exhaust, and maybe throw a hotter cam in I don't think a carb will make a big difference. The later 100cc motors do well with a bigger carb, but they also rev to valve float with no limiter.

That’s kind of what I figured. If I come across a 24mm for cheap I might pick it up as the slide on my stock 22mm is kind of sticky, but I don’t think I’ll make it a priority. Hot cams for these things are tough to find too. I have no interest in going through the hassle to get one, or dropping the cash on it. By the time you get any decent power gains out of one of these motors your probably better off just doing a swap, from a money perspective.

In a minor update though, I am pretty much done with the 12v swap. I got to work on the bike for a little bit today for the first time since Christmas, and I got the new reg/rec set up, and added the resistor to the coil. I actually bought a new coil that I thought was suitable for 12v, but accidentally bought a 3 ohm instead of a 5 ohm so I had to use a resistor anyways. Whoops. Other than that I just need to put the headlight back together and get the blinkers set up and it should be all good


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Yeah, an xl185/200 motor would pretty much bolt in and be a bigger power gain than you could get out of the stock 100. Probably cheaper than hopping up the 100 too.
 
Yeah, an xl185/200 motor would pretty much bolt in and be a bigger power gain than you could get out of the stock 100. Probably cheaper than hopping up the 100 too.

Probably. Honestly I’d buy another bike before I swap this one. Swaps are cool for sure, but the little 100 in this thing is kinda cool. It’d get me most places too realistically so long as I avoid highways. Of course that’s irrelevant as I don’t have it registered for the road. I really want to but I’m pretty sure my parents would behead me if I spend the money on that and new gear instead of college lol


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Well I’m now confident in saying that the 12v swap has been a success. Today I got another half hour or so to work on the bike, and now I have fully functioning headlight, taillight, brake light, and dash lights, all led. The battery is charging at about 13v at idle and about 14v when revved. It dips to about 12.5v at idle when the headlight is on but jumps back up to 13v just over idle. I ended up with a pretty white light for the headlight but I’m fine with that because it’s nice and bright, although I do need to play with the aim. Now I just need to set up the blinkers and fix the exhaust and it’ll be a solid little bike. You can see in the pics the new battery, which I had to enlarge the battery box to fit, and reg/rec as well as the new coil mounted to the front down tube on the frame. I need to trim the mount and paint it still, but it’s fine for now. I think overall it looks quite nice, and a cheap alternative to buying something like a cb350 coil. I’ll make a little rock guard for it at some point to protect it.
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I had to remove the horn, but I’ll find a new spot for it, and I moved the ignition switch to the righthand side.
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The first pic here is the taillight when lit, second is the brake light.
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And finally, the new led headlight
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Thanks to all for the advice for the 12v conversation, it made everything go nice and smoothly


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I also did some work on the seat pan last weekend. At some point in the last 50 years, the back 3 or four inches of the seat pan either broke, or rusted away. There was no metal behind the rear seat mount at all, which also meant that the back of the seat cover wasn’t secured to anything, which you can see in a few pics I’ve posted. I finally got sick of it so I took the rear seat mount off and cut out the bad metal and welded in new good stuff, and then riveted the seat cover to the seat pan. There was also a tear in the back of the seat so I took the cover off and bought some vinyl to repair it, and grandma saved the day with her sewing machine lol. I think it turned out nicely, besides setting the seat foam on fire once or twice‍
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I ordered some custom pcb’s tonight that should allow me to create a custom electronic ignition. I didn’t want to shell out an arm and a leg for electronic ignition for a bike I paid so little for, but I am having some issues with it breaking up at higher rpm and I think that is points float. My design (not really my design, I found the schematics online and just customized a pcb to fit my bike) uses a Hall effect sensor to send the signal to the coil. The magnet for the sensor will go where the cam for the points goes. The standard mechanical advance will still be used. I also put in provisions for a second hall sensor that would act as a pickup for a arduino controlled tachometer, but I haven’t started that project yet. I have bench tested the setup I will be using for the ignition system and everything seems to be working well. In total all of the electronics and the pcb, including extras of both, cost me about $15. Not 100% certain that this is going to work, but a fun experiment nonetheless


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Ignition circuits are fun to experiment with. I tried one to use Ford TFI modules to fire the coils, but still used the points to trigger them. The modules adust dwell automagically. Worked great until I damaged the modules with too-high supply voltage due to a failed regulator. I designed it so that switching back to standard Kettering ignition could be done in 30 seconds. That was on a four-cylinder GoldWing. If trying it with discrete components, I think photo encoders are the way to go.
 
Ignition circuits are fun to experiment with. I tried one to use Ford TFI modules to fire the coils, but still used the points to trigger them. The modules adust dwell automagically. Worked great until I damaged the modules with too-high supply voltage due to a failed regulator. I designed it so that switching back to standard Kettering ignition could be done in 30 seconds. That was on a four-cylinder GoldWing. If trying it with discrete components, I think photo encoders are the way to go.

Cool! I considered doing a system that was fired off of the points, but that obviously wouldn’t solve any points float I may be having, and this seems almost as easy as doing something like that. In theory I should be able to swap back to the points very quickly, the pcb just takes the place of the original points plate. I’ll keep a set of points under the seat or something so that if something is to fail so I can hopefully limp it home. What I’m not sure about though is dwell. I read somewhere that dwell shouldn’t matter with electronic ignition but that doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. Should I try to make the dwell close to original? I should be able to adjust it by changing how close the sensor is to the magnet wheel


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Dwell is just coil saturation time. I think electronic circuits like the TFI sense the current flow into the coil and cut it off when it has dropped off (nearing saturation). Honda ran points in the 60s on bikes that reved well over 12k, so it is possible with points if you have the necessary current available. I would use heavy wiring if the electronics are in the point cover, so it can shove the necessary current to the coils. If you just run pickups in the point cover, the wiring from them carries little current so small wires can be run to the switching circuits mounted near the coils.
 
I am having some issues that I hope someone here might know how to fix. I always try to get the bike up to temp before taking it for a ride, and it always runs very well. Steady idle, and it will idle for as long as I let it with no issues. But after I ride around for a while and come to a stop, it usually won’t idle very well and will die if I’m not paying attention, but sometimes it’s totally fine and idles well. I’ve used brake clean to check for head gasket leaks or leaks somewhere in the intake tract, but everything seems to be fine. I’m wondering if maybe the mechanical timing advance is getting stuck? Maybe it’s a heat thing? I took temp readings after about ten minutes of hard riding today and came up with around 270f on the exhaust side of the head and around 240 on the intake side, is that about right, or am I overheating? Saw around 450 at the header just out of the head. I’m kinda stumped. Any ideas?


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I would say your not 100% tuned on the idle circuit. You need to set that when the bike is at full temp. Like after a good ride. just idling it for 10 mins doesn't always get it to "Full" operating temperature. I'd go for a ride and get it nice and warm then come home and do the procedure with the pilot screw and idle screw and see if it then idles fine.
 
I would say your not 100% tuned on the idle circuit. You need to set that when the bike is at full temp. Like after a good ride. just idling it for 10 mins doesn't always get it to "Full" operating temperature. I'd go for a ride and get it nice and warm then come home and do the procedure with the pilot screw and idle screw and see if it then idles fine.

Hmm, hadn’t considered that. Guess I should look at the simple things first. Thanks!


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