Hi all,
After commuting on a Citycom for a month, I decided to start modifying it. I've done this a lot on motorcycles.
I've been running the modifications for around 800kms and all is good so I thought I'd share. When I got the scoot, she had under 4,000kms, and she's now almost 6,000 ready for a big service.
I've put all this info and other stuff on my blog if you're curious.
https://myl8test.wordpress.com/mbikes/sym-citycom-300i/I opened up the airbox and checked out the pipe connecting the airbox to the throttle body. It's long and twisty and has a much larger diameter (42mm) than the airbox air inlet tube (33mm). The pipe could do with a better flare into the airbox.

The inlet tube in the front of the airbox cover is removable so out it came. However, the circular hole this left was still much smaller than the 42mm pipe, so I trimmed out all the plastic and added some epoxy putty to smooth the new intake. This gave a similar intake area to the 42mm diameter pipe. Like this :

and the square ridges too

After that, I removed the tab of plastic on the inner half of the airbox, since this another way to restrict the air intake to less than the 42mm pipe.

And then finally, to smooth the intake area as best as I could, I added some foam filler and a layer of epoxy putty to the cavity. Like this :

It's very subjective, but the throttle feels like it has a slightly better response. For sure, there is now some induction noise which makes the scoot sound more like it has an engine. It isn't loud at full throttle, and sounds good to my ears.
When the air filter is due for replacement, I may consider fabbing my own using a K+N filter.
Exhaust
I didn't want to pay big bucks for an exhaust because the engine clearly isn't going to deliver significantly more power and the CVT means that power would only be noticed on top speed runs. The main reasons to change the exhaust were the looks and the weight.
So I got an exhaust for a Honda CBX 250 (?) and an interface from Taobao, figuring that they were so cheap (US$40 plus US$20 shipping to here in Hong Kong) I could give them a go and not be unhappy if they turned out to be trash.
The interface with sizes :
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.23.7fLR34&id=36930450577&_u=s10d5b0g8171The exhaust :

And the ad:
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z09.2.9.64.7fLR34&id=38369933258&_u=s10d5b0g60b7I was surprised to find they were good. The interface inner diameter was 1mm too tight so that got filed down to fit. The outer diameter was 2mm too small so I added some thin steel pipe split along its length for clamp tightening. The exhaust bolted on without interfering with the original exhaust mounts or sticking out from the side of the machine. It fitted very well in fact. I got very very lucky with that.

The exhaust sound is very deep but much too loud for me without the decibel killer fitted, and sounds kind of farty with it, and the exhaust didn't seem to make any change to the performance. That was really surprising - I'd expect that it would have less back pressure and that would either cock up the fuelling, or knock torque off the bottom end for a small gain at the top. But actually, no obvious fuelling change at all - just more noise.
However, the original with its bolts weighed around 8kgs and the replacement weighs 2.5kgs, so that's significant, especially since the 5.5kgs reduction is unsprung mass at at the back of an already back-heavy machine. It also looks much better to me, so it's a keeper.
I recently checked the spark plug, after about 750kms, to see if it was running too lean. Surprisingly, it's not. So that's great, although I'll wait until I've seen how a new plug colours to be sure. Fuel economy has averaged at a little over 32km per litre, which is a slight improvement, but I wouldn't assume that is only these changes.


Before :

After :

I've also been slowly re-spraying the silver parts with either black or graphite paint. The first things I did were the grab handles and side panels, and I've also done the rear clamp, rear shocks, front forks and I did the wheels with black spokes and graphite rims. I'm very pleased with the look.

EDIT Forgot to say - I removed the AISV stuff -it adds air into the exhaust below 3,500rpm when slowing down on a closed throttle. That caused some pops and it affects emissions, not performance, so off it came. And the pops stopped.


Air comes from inside a low frame tube on the spark plug side of the engine, through a rubber tube into an air filter can, and through another rubber tube into the Air Injection Solenoid Valve. When the AISV is open, the air flows through another rubber tube into the head where there is a reed valve. The output from the valve flows out of the head and through a metal tube to the exhaust port. So I removed all the rubber tubing and filter can, plugged the frame tube, plugged the AISV but left it electrically connected, and plugged the head entry to the reed valve. This came off :

So overall, I'd definitely recommend the airbox mod but the exhaust hasn't made much difference.
Cheers !