Hi,
I have a 220 and I’m looking for a carb upgrade. RB did not want to sell me one or mod one for me since I am in Canada (!!).
So plan B will probably be a 35 mm air stryker.
I see a lot of incoherent info about the slide. If I get a brand new PWK 35 AS, do I have to change the slide in it? #7 slide? The slide from my original PWK 33 would not work?
Or, any better option for a carb upgrade? Even better, anyome has a RB’d one for sale?
When I did my slide I called Sudco. Those guys are awesome and will get you exactly the right part you need for your bike with no faffing around. They know all about the KDX carbs.
~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ Let the good times ROLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ‘99 KDX 220 / '03 KDX 200 - @%@'18 Trek Slash 8 @%@ ‘22 Rieju MR300 Racing
In my experience, a new 35 air striker carb with the 4.5 slide is all mine needed. After setting the float to 18mm I was able to jet it without a problem and it was perfectly reliable and predictable. I ended up buying a #7 slide after reading about it and it didn’t end up being any better. I still have it on there but had to increase the jet sizes significantly. In the end it runs great like the 4.5 slide but has a 50 pilot instead of a 40 pilot. 42, 45, and 48 would all lean bog down low and the air screw was 1 turn or less. I also had to richen up the needle clip 1 notch. Now with the 50 pilot it’s at 1.25 turns out. With the 40 I had to almost run the air screw closed. Every bike is different but the air striker out of the box for me was excellent.
The slide from your 33 is a direct fit on the 35 air striker. My 33 slide ran richer down low than the 4.5 due to it being old and worn out. Not bad but not as snappy as the brand new 4.5. Next time I have the carb out I’m going back to the 4.5 and jetting I used to have. It was less finicky for years the way it was set up before.
I've been talking with a guy who has been riding and tuning KDX's for 18 years now, and he says that the # 7 slide or the popular CEK, DEK, CEL, & DEL needles never left him fully satisfied, and he finally has settled on a #5.5 slide in a PWK33 on his 220 (#5 is stock, FYI) with a CCN needle. He's very quick to tell you that this is the best slide and needle combination he has ever ran on his 220. He and another person had said that those four other needles mentioned above always were too rich off the bottom regardless of what slide was ran.
I'm really liking the Lectron Billetron Pro Series, but since I'll have two different 220's up and running here in the near future, I'd love to play around with the PWK33 & these specs. I've also got the older 34 mm Lectron power jet carb, and a Ron Black 36mm PWK 35 Air Striker Quad Vent.
I'm not so much in love with only the Lectron that I would deny the greatness of a well-tuned PWK, so I don't want to sell any of my carbs at present, but I really think the Lectron Billetron Pro Series + the optional Xcelerator metering rod + a Boyesen RAD Valve is probably the best setup out there. The PWK35 A/S setup + #6 slide (thinking theoretically this may be better on a 35 if the guy says the 5.5 is best for the 33) definitely will cost considerably less though, as the Billetron Pro is quite expensive. Even the standard Billetron is $$$.
SmartCarb sent me an SC2 36 from their scrap bin for test fitting on my KDX, as they knew there was some sort of significant frame interference issue with the H-Series, but I was willing to try and do some machine to the carburetor to get them to fit better. Well that was pretty futile, as it really would take some frame modifications much more extensive than the older electrons require, to get it to fit. I got back to them right away with a brief summary of that, and did not hear back from them, but I now have learned that they're working on a carburetor specifically designed with the KDX in mind, an SC2 35.
The reliability and longevity and functionality of the KDX is proven quite well through the fact that smart car says they have anywhere between one request per week and one or two per day for smart carbs to fit a KDX, so they were quite eager to find a solution to tap into this market and provide their carbs for KDX owners. I'm seeing a whole lot of Billetron use now on KDX's since someone mentioned here that they appeared to potentially be an excellent fit on our bikes, which motivated me to reach out multiple times to multiple people at Lectron until I found one who was interested in helping figure out how they would fit a KDX, enter Matt Denecke the Lectron Fuel Systems Engineer and founder of Apex Technical Innovations who make two-stroke cylinder heads.
Once that SmartCarb comes out, the Billetron will have some fierce competition for KDX owners, but the adjustability on the Billetron Pro Series is one thing that Smart Carb does not have. If you need adjustments for lower throttle or wide open throttle only, and your mid-range is fine, there's no adjusting that on the Smart Carb unless you do a complete metering rod swap, which costs probably $50.
