Exciting news today! Just send my head off to RB Designs and my cylinder to Fredette Racing. Pretty excited to see how she runs when I get everything back!
I guess I can provide some updates since I last posted like 2 years ago. I also wanted to write some stuff for anyone who is on the fence thinking about building a hybrid...hope to help push you over the edge and build one too!
Its almost 4 years exactly since I finished the bike, well, since I started riding it, its never really finished. I must say, it has been an absolute delight for me. I'm no expert rider or racer or anything, just your typical weekend rider, so take my opinion as you will.
Compared to the standard KDX (I had a 97 KDX220 at the same time to compare the two side by side) it is so much easier to throw around, both turning and while navigating tricky obstacles. It feels better balanced from front to rear and is definitely easier to wheelie, which also makes it easier to get over tall obstacles like fallen trees or big rocks. The bike isn't physically much lighter, but it just feels like it is. The suspension works so nice, I hardly ever feel like I'm going to get bucked off it. It soaks up everything I throw at it and tracks beautifully. Just a respring and re-valve for the woods from my local suspension guy. I also put in a Tubliss in the rear which just further helps traction, being able to run 10psi or lower at all times. I really like it. I do need to add air to both air circuits every time I ride....but o well, I have to do that with pretty much any other tube as well.
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It revs soo low, its almost hard to stall, as I am sure most of you are already aware lol. I've went between the FMF woods pipe, desert pipe, and the PC pipe. The Woods pipe felt weird and the loss of top end power was very noticeable, did not like at all. The PC pipe was nice, around the same bottom end power with some more up top. The Desert pipe feels like no loss down low, with the most up top. Still feels like it has some to be desired up top, so hoping that will improve with these coming machining mods.
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The bike ran very well with the stock carb and proper jetting... but I had a Lectron on my dual sport and didn't really want to sell the bike with it on there...so I got a new ring machined for it and installed it on the hybrid before I sold that bike. I already knew what to expect with it from the dual sport, its just awesome. The bike revs so clean. Definitely felt a more crisp throttle response and peppier all over (maybe the previous jetting wasn't quite as good as I thought? lol).
Working from home and being bored has me tinkering with it again. When I was doing the top end the first time, I installed new head studs. When I put them in, I double nutted them and ran them into the cylinder. This resulted in a there being like a half a thread on the head nuts not being engaged by the stud. I kept an eye on them and would check the torque every so often. Nothing ever loosened up or anything, but it always bothered me. So I said OK, enough is enough, I'm bored, I'll fix this. Led to me pulling the cylinder to clean out the KIPS (all was a little black, but no bad build up or anything) and re-installing the studs. Ring gap is still within spec of new. No scoring on the piston or anything. Plug is a nice mocha color. Cleaned everything else up real nice. Now I'm just waiting to get the head and cylinder back to fully reassemble.
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Two things I had to fix from the original build. My lower pipe mount needed some correcting, was a really bent piece of rubber to make up for severly misaligned holes. My mistake during the fab phase, didn't want to grind the powder coat to weld and have to get it re-coated. I didn't get a photo of the new solution, but it lines up nicely, basically just offset a standard pipe mount with a little bracket. Second thing was the head stay brackets. I made them out of aluminum diamond plate that I had laying around. It cracked at the bend. This time, I'm having a friend cut me some new ones out on his CNC plasma table. We will have reliefs along the bend that will get welded in the end, preventing the same failure mode. Just waiting for the material to come in for that
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I've been wanting a good torque wrench, one that was primarily designed with Nm units (to read directly from the KTM and Kawi service manuals). When I was in Germany for work recently, I spoke to some guys in our factories to find a good one. I ended up getting quite a few recommending the Wera brand. I went with an A5 I got on Amazon for small duty (2-25 Nm) and plan to also get a 3/8" one at some point as well. The readout is freaking awesome. I hate that style like the HF and other low cost ones are that I can never fully trust if its set to the right value. Can't wait to use it to put the bike back together lol
https://products.wera.de/en/torque_tool ... e_a_5.html
Anyways, all of that to sat that shes doing great. I absolutely love this bike, it makes me so happy every time I ride it. It is exactly everything that I want and I would have to say that the only thing better in the woods that I've ridden would be the modern 350EXC's or the 250EXC (2-stroke one)... basically the same for me but the KTM's are a bit more snappy, have a bit more on the top...BUT....they can't rev quite as low, are several thousand more and don't give you the satisfaction of building your own bike. If you are thinking about building one...i can't stress this enough....DO IT!