1990 White Edition E2 Neighborhood Ride

[Neil189]

Just took a ride through the neighborhood on my original 1990. These are great bikes and, I realized there aren't any 2 stroke trail bikes available on the market anymore. Great bike to own and ride. This bike only has 1500 miles on it and doesn't get ridden much. On steep decents, its a little dangerous... the forks are so soft (as everyone here knows) the rear almost goes over the front and its almost sketchy! Guess Ill have to change the springs since I'm not 16 years old anymore!

 

[dirt bike dave]

Nice looking white KDX. I always liked the white ones, and also the red one (1984).

The stock springs are way too soft, even if you are 16, lol. The forks have too much high speed comprssion damping, too, so even with the lightweight springs they can be harsh on very sharp hits like rocks and roots. On mine, I stiffened the springs and put in Race Tech cartridge fork emulators. Much much better!

 

[Neil189]

Thanks Dave. Do the emulators help over just doing the springs? What do they do for the fork?

 

[dirt bike dave]

The cartridge fork emulators help a ton, but it may be hard to justify the expense and effort on a 20+ year old bike.

On your old fork, the damping is controlled by oil flowing through holes in the bottom of the damping rod. The clickers on the bottom of your fork control the opening, but even wide open, the oil can't flow through fast enough on a sharp hit, and the fork can lock up or be very harsh when the fork has to move fast, even with the soft spring. This is a real problem on roots and rocks.

With the emulator, you drill the holes in the damping rod out so they are much larger and can flow way more oil (this step requires complete disassembly of the fork, so that's a pain). The emulator itself is a device with holes in it that sits on top of the damping rod, and beneath the fork spring. As the oil flows up the damping rod, then it has to pass through the emulator. A plate with a threaded bolt covered by a spring sits over the holes in the emulator, and controls the oil flow.

You can adjust the tension on the emulator spring and tune the damping, but you need to remove the fork springs to fish out the emulator.

Your clickers on your fork do not work after you put the emulator in, and the only wat to adjust them is to remove the fork spring (no trail side adjustment at all). But when it is dialed in, it works way better than the old fashioned damping rod system.

 

[Neil189]

That makes sense. I think Ill keep this one stock and put that money towards a conversion. Anyone want to do another swap conversion? I don't have the shop or the skills.

 

[dirt bike dave]

Emulators or not, you do want to stiffen your springs, which will help on jumps and whoops.

FWIW, you can do this for free by cutting a few coils off and adding some length to your pre-load spacer. Cutting coils off will make the springs stiffer, but don't go too far as you don't want to coil bind before the fork bottoms out. Two or three coils should do.

Raising the oil level will also help improve bottoming resistance and make the fork stiffer as it gets further into the travel. Try about 4" from the top with the fork compressed and the springs out.

It's a good bike overall, but Kawasaki really missed the boat on the fork settings.

 

[mudpack]

The clickers on the bottom of your fork control the opening, but even wide open, the oil can't flow through fast enough on a sharp hit, and the fork can lock up or be very harsh when the fork has to move fast, even with the soft spring. This is a real problem on roots and rocks.

With the emulator, you drill the holes in the damping rod out so they are much larger and can flow way more oil (this step requires complete disassembly of the fork, so that's a pain). ..

I'm wondering if you could just enlarge some or all of those holes slightly, thereby increasing oil flow, and retaining the adjustability via the clickers. If my forks needed help, I'd try it.

By the way, nice white bike. :cool: