XR350 Opinion

[dooner]

This fall I bought a 1983 XR350. Before that I had a 2001 XR200 and I wanted more power. I only got to ride it a couple times up and down the road due to winter weather. By far a much more powerful bike. Just wanted to know if anyone knows how reliable these bikes are. Any common problems or performance gains. It has a Cobra pipe, barnett clutch and wiseco piston.

 

[dirt bike dave]

My buddy had an '84 back in the day - same bike as the '83 except with a front disc brake. Good old trail bike. His was always very reliable. If I recall correctly, the '85 got a slightly different displacement and a single carb.

The motor is noted for running hot, so frequent oil changes are a good idea. Hot starting can be difficult if you crash - not sure if the twin carbs are to blame. It was common for owners to disable the automatic compression release, but I've heard this is a bad idea as failure of the kickstarter gear can result. The 17" rear wheel was a bit of a fad, so your tire choices might be limited.

The motor should run good with adequate power everywhere. It is a good hill climbing motor - unfortunately, the bike has a high center of gravity and a short wheel base, so its not a good hill climbing chassis. Pretty good handling on a level trail, though.

Not sure if Race Tech offers a cartridge fork emulator for XR350 fork, but if they do you should look into it. The emulators made a huge improvement on my old KDX200 fork.

 

[dooner]

Ok, perfect. This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanna know.
Thanks

 

[Ol'89r]

Xr350

dooner.

I've got one of those. Great little trail bike on tight technical trails. Not recommended for dunes or extended desert rides due to the lack of oil cooling. Like dirt bike dave said, change your oil often.

The '83 had a very steep head angle so, it handled great in the tight stuff but, has a little head shake at high speed and makes it a real handful in deep sand. They changed it in '84.

I installed a '88 CR250 fork assembly on mine with the disc brake and it made a huge difference. Bolts right on. :cool: You can usually find these fork assemblies for a couple hundred bucks.

Good luck.

Ol'89r

 

[cujet]

Ditto for the info about the engine running hot. Try to use a good quality full synthetic oil and change it often. Keep in mind that a major problem resulting from heat is loss of piston ring tension. This causes excessive oil consumption and loss of compression.

Chris

 

[fundgh]

I rode a '84 once and it seemed to have some good power and handled the trails pretty well. I was test riding it with the option to buy it, but decided not to because of a knocking noise in the engine. I was told that it was normal, is this possible? I thought it could throw a rod at any moment, does this noise sound familiar to anyone?

 

[robl]

I've got an 85 XR350, and I don't know if I'll ever part with it. It's a bit clumsy and mellow compared with newer bikes like my KDX, but you should enjoy yours. I've ridden mine many many hard miles on some pretty technical trails. You can do quite a bit with the front forks. Check out what's available from XRsOnly. You can get the fork emulator thing along with upgraded springs. Or just take the forks into a suspension tuner. Or, you can perform the late 80s CR fork conversion thing which is what I'm doing now. They will not just bolt on though. You need the triple clamps, and an axel converter from fourstrokesonly for the XR axel (I'd put the URL, but this dumb thing wont let me). They make one for this conversion. The CR forks and the axel are both a slightly larger diameter. As long as it's still mechanically sound, it will be alive and kicking for a long time to come.

 

[Ol'89r]

I've got an 85 XR350,
Or, you can perform the late 80s CR fork conversion thing which is what I'm doing now. They will not just bolt on though. You need the triple clamps, and an axel converter from fourstrokesonly for the XR axel (I'd put the URL, but this dumb thing wont let me). They make one for this conversion. The CR forks and the axel are both a slightly larger diameter. QUOTE]

robl.

On the '83, the front wheel uses a drum brake. When switching over to the late '80's CR 250 forks, you use the entire front end, forks, triple clamps and wheel. In this case, it is a bolt-on application.

On an '85 that already has the disc front brake, then you will need the adapter in order to use your original wheel.

fundgh.

There should not be any knocking noise in the top end. On an older engine you may hear some piston slap and some valve noises, but no knocking. Some of these engines will wear out the small end of the rod if they have been ridden hard. This will produce a knocking noise.

Just my $ .02