gixxerdims
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Hi everyone
We finally got our 2015 DHZ Outlaw Motards!
We looked around for motards for a few weeks, reviewing different brands etc, and finally decided on the DHZ. There wasn't any other motards available, but our intention was to buy a standard pit bike and throw motards tyres on it and off we go.
The TMX from what I've read, is just rubbish, so stayed away from that. The Atomik Nitrous was the other contender and build one of those up, but settled for a DHZ in the end. More on pricing towards the end of the review.
We stayed away from the PisterPro as that had a linkage rear end, and on Motards hard acceleration out of a corner it will bog down too much.
So DHZ Motards it was. Two mates and myself all bought them together and after a few shipping delays we finally got them and built them!
For a china bike, I was quite impressed with the quality.
The swingarm looks VERY heavy duty, machine welded too. Nice.
Comparing it to the frame though, it seems as if the frame is hand welded, but it still looks very sturdy.
All the engine bolts and quite a few other bolts all have spring washers too. Not sure if previous bike have had these or not, but makes a bit of a difference in preventing bolts rattling out whilst riding.
When it came to assembly, this is where the 'quality' of what you pay is what you get, started to show through a little. A few of the dust seals on the headstem bearings were non-existant. This is why we crammed a LOT of grease in the area to hopefully prolong the life of the bearings.
Swingarm bearings and rear shock, same thing. Some people recommend to disassemble the whole rear end and grease it all up, we just used Lithium grease in a can and applied it to EVERY moving part, without disassembling the back end. This included the chain, brake & clutch levers, rear shock and swingarm mounting points, just anywhere where there was movement.
The wheels we used high temp grease on the bearings and got those sorted.
A couple of 'build' issues, one of the bikes out of the 3, was missing a triple clamp bolt, and the other bike one of the front forks at the bottom which clamps onto the axle, the hole wasn't lined up correctly, and the bolt was missing. The other bikes already had the bolt in there, with this one missing, when we put another bolt in there, it didn't fit correctly. This is where we realised they must've drilled it VERY slightly off centre and back in china they were unable to put the bolt in themselves. A rattle gun and 10 seconds later and we got this fixed anyway.
The barkbusters / handguards were a bit of a pain to fit. The clamp closer to the triple clamp is at a weird angle, but we managed to get this on. On the throttle tube however, we needed to slightly cut the plastic and grip back about 3-5mm just to prevent the throttle from sticking once the hand guard was tightened to the bars.
One of the biggest pains however, is fitting the front wheel. It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but to try and get the wheel in place, lined up with the brake calipers, the brake calipers need to be 'inside' the rim. To get this in, you have to basically undo 3 of the front disc bolts, leaving the disc to swivel, and undoing the brake caliper and then fitting it all at once then doing all the bolts up after.
On all the bolts we put loctite except for the axle bolt/nut, and the triple clamp bolts that hold the forks as they lock under tension. The top of the triple clamp to the frame we used loctite.
The only other issue was the front forks made a griding noise when pushing down. This had us bothered as two of the bikes did it and the 3rd one hadn't. We later realised it was the brake line rubbing against the plastic, as the clamp that holds it in place was too tight on it. A pair of pliers and we loosened this up a bit.
For the price, if you take an Atomik Nitrous, add a catch can for the petrol and oil catcher, hand guards, compression and rebound adjustable front forks, and frame sliders on the front and rear axle, you will be up in the ball park of $2000 anyway, so may as well buy a DHZ as their reputation from other people on here made it sound as if they're better quality and sturdier! Oh and definitely go for a 160cc motard. Need that power.
So, how does it run??
First of all, gave it about a 5 minute maximum run in the street, took it home and dropped the oil. Put in some Castrol 15W-50 Mineral Oil from Super Cheap and finally took it to the track yesterday.
Front forks felt pretty good, brakes felt ok, the engine, down low, not much power but once you start to rev it up a bit a I reckon will be enough to have fair bit of fun on it. Didn't rev it too much as still running in the engine.
MAIN ISSUES!!!!
Tyres - WTF. Haha, the CST's first of all, were pumped up to about 42PSI. We dropped these down to around 16PSI or so, which made them feel a LOT better. But still, very very bad tyre and you don't have much confidence leaning it over. Just feels like they want to give.
Also the Rear shock. Only rebound is adjustable, so compression is pretty soft and you get a bit of pogo stick action going on.
One of the boys ended up modifing and welding a new bracket to his bike, and put his ZX10 shock in haha.
But this is something I need to action and get a new rear shock.
Same as the tyres.
Oh, also the stock chain stretches a fair bit, and its been recommended to swap these out, just waiting on some DID chains.
So overall - for the price and quality of what we get, I'm pretty happy with it. Its a good fun bike, looking forward to getting the wifey on it too to learn, and can definitely see us having a lot of fun at the track with these.
-Dimitrios
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