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Kawasaki MX & Off-Road Dirt Bikes
Turning a KX-60 (MX) into an Enduro bike
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[QUOTE="reepicheep, post: 1386092, member: 104942"] Update... We now have the following modifications to the stock 1990 KX-60... 1) PSI header and what looks like a straight through FMF exhaust can (came with the bike, and seems well made and seems to work well). 2) Minor jetting tweaks (again, done by whoever put the PSI expansion chamber on the bike, they seemed to have done a good job). 3) Carb cleaned, and float height adjusted properly (with no help from my Kawasaki (Suzuki) service manual, which showed a totally wrong diagram for the carb). 4) Moose torque spacer for KX-60. 5) 48 tooth rear sprocket. 6) Bark busters. 7) Pirelli Scorpion rear tire (don't get the IRC tire from Dennis Kirk, the picture is all wrong and the tire is junk). 8) Eric Gorr suggested groove in the base of the jug (I think he called it a transfer port). 9) New clutch cable 10) New seat cover (a purple-ectomy). 11) Boyesen reeds. 12) Renthal Aluminum bars (taller then stock). I also got to hear a stock KX-60 about a week ago. My ears are *still* ringing. It is beyond obnoxious. So now I am less annoyed at the seller of this KX-60 about misrepresenting the age of the bike by almost a decade :whoa: . This PSI exhaust (and presumably the FMF exhaust, and I wouldn't be surprised if my unmarked can was actually an FMF can) is much quieter then stock. Note, the exhaust will make the bike run badly if you repack it and stuff it tight with insulation. If you put in the insulation loosely, it runs great. Thanks for that tip... I think somebody posted it here. Up close and at idle, the exhaust is louder then a stock XR-50. Quieter then a stock CRF-450x. As soon as the rev's climb, and still up close, the KX-60 is about the same loudness as the XR-50. Interestingly, from about 100 yards away, and with revs higher, I think this KX-60 is *quieter* then a high revving XR-50. Probably because it is a higher frequency noise, which don't carry as well. Anyway, from a noise perspective, I think this is now a solved problem for an enduro bike. It isn't loud enough to be an annoyance to everyone around, and won't be any louder then stock 4 strokes. :cool: The gearing was a huge improvement as well. Stock gearing the bike is set up to crack 60 MPH. My first step was to change the rear sprocket from a 44 to a 48. That made starting from a stop for a new rider and little flywheel MUCH easier, and also made it to start from a stop in awkward positions (like half way up a hill). Our first exploratory trip on the bike right after Christmas with a badly running carb (float height wrong, and exhaust packing wrong) and too tall gearing showed the bike to be a mess in the woods... The tall gearing made the bike impossible to even get out of first gear when it started getting packed with mud or was on any kind of a hill. Very frustrating to the rider. We haven't been back in the woods yet to fight the mud, but we spent a lot of time climbing snow mounds and riding around the house, and the bike is clearly much easier to control, and Jack says it is a LOT less frustrating. I was happy enough with the changes that I got a 12t front sprocket to replace the 13t and take it even further. I didn't do that originally because I have heard that going from a 13 to a 12 on the front dramatically accelerates chain wear... but I thought about it, and thats a little chain on that bike (410? I forget), a low horsepower motor to begin with (15 HP tops?), and a reasonable quality non o-ring chain for it was only $25 or something in the first place. This isn't a street bike, I'll just keep a spare chain in the truck. I'll post updates after Jack gets a chance to do some back to back testing with the 12t versus the 13t, but I think it will be a slam dunk. He's like Dad, he is more interested in going more places then just top speed. The moose torque spacer went on fine, and appears well made, but does create some problems. It moves the carb back, at which point the choke post is blocked by the airbox. You could solve this with a cable choke conversion, or do like I did, and just get a hot knife and carve out a hole in the airbox for the choke post to operate. The hole is outside the filter element, and not that big, and almost as high on the bike as other already existing airbox holes... so I don't think it is any net lose of anything. The bike will still drown at about the same depth, and the intake volume has not changed much, and the hole is inboard of the airbox and under the tank so it's not likely to accumulate a lot of debris. If you are going down this road, I'd do the torque spacer last though... I'm sure it's helping, but I doubt it's enough to justify the fuss for mounting. The Eric Gorr groove thingy is also an unknown. It's not like you can "un-groove" it practically, so I didn't bother to try and do a rigorous "before and after" test. I trust Eric's advice and expertise, so I just did it. It was a very easy thing to do with basic hand files, looked great, and was a lot of fun anyway. I always wanted to do hand porting anyway... it's fun to shape aluminum. So this is probably worth doing, particularly if you have the jug off anyway. The other mods Eric suggest are also no doubt valuable, but they require tools I don't have. If we need to replate the cylinder before Jack outgrows this bike, we will get it cut down and bored out. For now we just have those ports. Bottom line is the bike is running really well and isn't fussy about temps and starts well and has great throttle response and pulls hard all the way up to the rev limit... so at worst this is a harmless mod, and I suspect it helped significantly. The Boyesen reeds are the same... the stock parts are a wear item anyway, and the Boyesens are at least as good, likely much better, and aren't any more expensive. So drop them in and know that at worst they didn't hurt anything, and likely are helping. The bark busters were cast off Acerbis plastic units from a friend... they survived on his XR-650 for years, and even survived a 30 mph low side on the street with only minimal scratches. So of course my 9 year old broke them on his first ride on them after we put them on the KX-60 :nener: We have the Rocky Mountain $39 aluminum ones in a box ready to go on this weekend. The previous owner had put on a nice set of Renthal aluminum bars as well, and they are taller then stock, which seems to help Jack quite a bit to stand up and be smooth. So that's another good mod I think. So it's close to done now... I'll put on the 12t sprocket this weekend and post some "before and after" opinions. If I can get my KDX jetting *really* dialed in, I may get bored and see if I can dial in the KX jetting any better, but I think it's pretty good as is. Then we just need to get in some time on the trails and see how it works. A lingering problem that I may have will be range. Thats a little fuel tank, with no reserve, and I am guessing that 2s isn't very fuel efficient. So we will have to see how far it goes on the trail between fill ups. Maybe I just swap out the petcock to one with a reserve, maybe it's small enough that the small tank will go plenty far for the kind of riding we do (all closed trail systems with gas station or truck close by). I'm on a 2 stroke as well (KDX-200), so while we try it out I'll just make sure I bring a siphon in case he runs out before I do. We are doing the MSF Dirt class this sunday, where Jack will probably be riding an XR-80 or even a 90... that'll be a good data point for him to decide if he is a 2s or a 4s guy. Here is Jack doing the best technical stuff we can find within 100 yards of the house with the bike modded as described above... [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEZZkcNQ5qk[/url] I expect both Jack and the bike will do well on trails, and in a father / son funduro event. It'll be fun! [/QUOTE]
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Turning a KX-60 (MX) into an Enduro bike
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