fl_strom
05-21-2007, 11:58 AM
I became interested in dualsport motorcycles about 5 years ago. Up until then, I was a cruiser rider. However, my right hip degenerated and had to be replaced. One day, after my surgeon gave me clearance to drive – which to me was the same as riding – I rode my Vulcan Classic 1500 to a follow up appointment. How did that go over you ask? Not too good.
My doctor told me that I had to give up riding motorcycles because of the new hip. I immediately informed him that he should schedule another surgery to re-install the old hip as I could ride a motorcycle with that hip in place. Then I told him that prior to the surgery, I asked, “What limitations would I have with the new hip in place?” and was not told anything about having to give up riding. We came to a compromise, he gave me a set of rules for the position of my hip and knee when riding that I needed to follow to avoid dislocation of the new joint. When I looked at those requirements, it was obvious that I needed a new style of motorcycle to ride. The position of the legs directly under the rider and the knee below the hip brought me into the dualsport world. Little did I know what I was missing! No longer do I have to ride down a rural road, see a dirt road leading off into the distance and have to say to myself, “H’mmm, I wonder where that roads leads to?”
I went out and bought a KLR650. What a bike! I loved it. However where I live, we have a thing called “Sugar Sand” where the sand is deep, has no traction in any direction and is quite a chore riding through with a heavy bike. The KLR650, in the “Ready to Ride Mode”, not the “Japanese Dry Weight” weighs 400 pounds. I could ride it, but at the end of the day I was plum tuckered out and I found it rather hard to pick it back up at times. So I went in search of a smaller dualsport bike.
Next came my 1985 KLR250. A great running bike, but one without electric start. I found out very soon that it and my new hip were rather non-compatible. I needed something with electric start. I went in search of the elusive Super Sherpa. I was getting close, but could not get to one soon enough. Seems as though they sold quicker than you could find them.
Well my search had ended. Kawasaki introduced a new for 2006 model, the KLX250S. I saw the bike and knew that was what I was looking for. A nice lightweight bike with electric start and was still for a tall person. I went down to my local dealership and told them the first KLX250S in was mine. I got a call in November of 2006 to come down and pick up my KLX250S, so I did and brought it home.
http://motorcyclistonline.com/newsandupdates/xl+2006_kawasaki_klx250s+left.jpg
http://motorcyclistonline.com/newsandupdates/xl+2006_kawasaki_klx250s+right.jpg
So why did I call my bike “Caspar Milquetoast”? Here’s the reason: It’s an eponym, named after a fictional cartoon character named Caspar Milquetoast, invented by the American illustrator Harold T Webster in 1924. The strip was called The Timid Soul and appeared every Sunday in the New York Herald Tribune up to his death in 1953. Mr Webster said that his character was “the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick”.
Well my KLX250S as delivered by Kawasaki surely did fit this description. It was quiet – kind of sounded like a Briggs and Stratton powered lawn mower, not a fierce motorcycle! It was fun to ride, but kind of lacked in the power department. But there were a lot of things to like – really good suspension, light weight and great handling off road. I really liked the bike, so I decided to make it into what I wanted and set off down a long path.
I guess you could call it “Phase-I” of the change. I did a bafflectomy on the exhaust can, drilled the slide, put in a #40 pilot jet, a #128 main jet, removed the smog plumbing, uncovered the pilot jet adjustment screw and set it to 2 1/8 turns out and went to a 13 tooth countershaft sprocket. The bike really woke up and it was so much more fun to ride. What sort of power increase did this give me? I found a site, www.hmfengineering.com where they did basically the same modifications and found the power output went from 18.3 rwhp to 20.8 rwhp. Well, that 2.5 more horses at the rear wheel sure felt a whole lot stronger! Mathmatically it’s about 14%, but in real life it felt a whole lot more. The bike was now responsive and sure did feel a whole lot quicker.
Here’s a picture that shows the HMF slip-on probably does flow more air than the stock muffler.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/14014263.jpg
There was an opportunity to race a friend’s box stock KLX250S one day. We were out riding and came to a stop sign that lead to a long, lightly traveled road. My friend looked at me, smiled and took off. I did the same and by the time we were in 3rd gear, he was but a small, bright light in my rear view mirror. Well, I immediately was asked 2 questions. “What did you do to your bike?” and “Will you do the same thing to my bike?”
I was having a ball with the bike, but there was just something calling to me – and I listened. Here’s where Phase-II starts.
The carb on the KLX250S was the next thing to undergo a bit of massaging. The CVK34 carb is a good design for a smooth running motor that is not altitude sensitive. However, it does not have an accelerator pump and that is what gives a bike immediate throttle response. I contacted Bill Blue, whom I had met over on another forum and had him build me a drop in Mikuni TM33 pumper carb for the KLX. When I got the carb, it was jetted a little lean, but the difference was immediately noticeable. I upped the jetting several sizes and the bike was running very strong. Once again, my friend with the now modified by me KLX250S challenged me to a race. Once again I just walked away from him. For an old drag racer, that is a very satisfying thing to do.
The CVK34 carb operates on airflow. When you open the throttle on the CVK, the carb senses a need for fuel, then it opens the throttle plate, not the throttle. On the Mikuni carb, when you open the throttle, it is directly coupled to the throttle plate. It opens right up and squirts a small amount of raw fuel into the intake tract. Makes the bike very responsive to throttle movements.
Here’s a picture that shows the “business end” of the Mikuni TM33 carb. If you look at it, you will notice a tube sticking up from the bottom of the carb. This is the “squirter” that, when you open the throttle, adds a bit of raw fuel to the intake tract to make the motor immediately respond to your desire to go faster.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/88902165.jpg
Well now I had a bike that was running quite respectable, but the stock 1.9 gallon tank kind of left a bit to be desired. I live next to 400,000 acres of national forest and there are not a lot of gas stations to be found when out riding. I needed at least another gallon of capacity. I found Acerbis made a 3.7 gallon tank for the KLX300 and the earlier KLX250. I contacted MotoSport and asked them if I bought it and it did not fit, would there be any restocking fee. I explained what I was going to do and they told me I would only need to pay for shipping the product back to them. I ordered it, got it in and tried to fit it to the bike. It fell right into place. As a matter of fact, the Acerbis tank is easier to put on than the stock tank. I did have a bit of interference with the choke and the fuel supply valve, but that was a minor irritant. I now had almost 200 miles of range on my bike and loved it.
When I ordered the tank, I also ordered a new front fender. The stock green fender just did not do a thing for me. So I ordered a black Acerbis SuperMoto front fender for the bike. I love the way it looked.
Since the bike spends the best part of it’s life riding in the sand of the Ocala National Forest, I decided the stock handguards had to go and replaced them with a set of Moose Barkbuster Handguards. Since I spend a lot of time standing up when riding, I wanted a taller set of bars, so I have a set of Moose ATV “Raptor” Aluminum Competition handlebars on the bike.
To accommodate a size 14 MX boot a bit more comfortably, I also added some IMS supersport footpegs to the bike.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/12973558.jpg
My doctor told me that I had to give up riding motorcycles because of the new hip. I immediately informed him that he should schedule another surgery to re-install the old hip as I could ride a motorcycle with that hip in place. Then I told him that prior to the surgery, I asked, “What limitations would I have with the new hip in place?” and was not told anything about having to give up riding. We came to a compromise, he gave me a set of rules for the position of my hip and knee when riding that I needed to follow to avoid dislocation of the new joint. When I looked at those requirements, it was obvious that I needed a new style of motorcycle to ride. The position of the legs directly under the rider and the knee below the hip brought me into the dualsport world. Little did I know what I was missing! No longer do I have to ride down a rural road, see a dirt road leading off into the distance and have to say to myself, “H’mmm, I wonder where that roads leads to?”
I went out and bought a KLR650. What a bike! I loved it. However where I live, we have a thing called “Sugar Sand” where the sand is deep, has no traction in any direction and is quite a chore riding through with a heavy bike. The KLR650, in the “Ready to Ride Mode”, not the “Japanese Dry Weight” weighs 400 pounds. I could ride it, but at the end of the day I was plum tuckered out and I found it rather hard to pick it back up at times. So I went in search of a smaller dualsport bike.
Next came my 1985 KLR250. A great running bike, but one without electric start. I found out very soon that it and my new hip were rather non-compatible. I needed something with electric start. I went in search of the elusive Super Sherpa. I was getting close, but could not get to one soon enough. Seems as though they sold quicker than you could find them.
Well my search had ended. Kawasaki introduced a new for 2006 model, the KLX250S. I saw the bike and knew that was what I was looking for. A nice lightweight bike with electric start and was still for a tall person. I went down to my local dealership and told them the first KLX250S in was mine. I got a call in November of 2006 to come down and pick up my KLX250S, so I did and brought it home.
http://motorcyclistonline.com/newsandupdates/xl+2006_kawasaki_klx250s+left.jpg
http://motorcyclistonline.com/newsandupdates/xl+2006_kawasaki_klx250s+right.jpg
So why did I call my bike “Caspar Milquetoast”? Here’s the reason: It’s an eponym, named after a fictional cartoon character named Caspar Milquetoast, invented by the American illustrator Harold T Webster in 1924. The strip was called The Timid Soul and appeared every Sunday in the New York Herald Tribune up to his death in 1953. Mr Webster said that his character was “the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick”.
Well my KLX250S as delivered by Kawasaki surely did fit this description. It was quiet – kind of sounded like a Briggs and Stratton powered lawn mower, not a fierce motorcycle! It was fun to ride, but kind of lacked in the power department. But there were a lot of things to like – really good suspension, light weight and great handling off road. I really liked the bike, so I decided to make it into what I wanted and set off down a long path.
I guess you could call it “Phase-I” of the change. I did a bafflectomy on the exhaust can, drilled the slide, put in a #40 pilot jet, a #128 main jet, removed the smog plumbing, uncovered the pilot jet adjustment screw and set it to 2 1/8 turns out and went to a 13 tooth countershaft sprocket. The bike really woke up and it was so much more fun to ride. What sort of power increase did this give me? I found a site, www.hmfengineering.com where they did basically the same modifications and found the power output went from 18.3 rwhp to 20.8 rwhp. Well, that 2.5 more horses at the rear wheel sure felt a whole lot stronger! Mathmatically it’s about 14%, but in real life it felt a whole lot more. The bike was now responsive and sure did feel a whole lot quicker.
Here’s a picture that shows the HMF slip-on probably does flow more air than the stock muffler.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/14014263.jpg
There was an opportunity to race a friend’s box stock KLX250S one day. We were out riding and came to a stop sign that lead to a long, lightly traveled road. My friend looked at me, smiled and took off. I did the same and by the time we were in 3rd gear, he was but a small, bright light in my rear view mirror. Well, I immediately was asked 2 questions. “What did you do to your bike?” and “Will you do the same thing to my bike?”
I was having a ball with the bike, but there was just something calling to me – and I listened. Here’s where Phase-II starts.
The carb on the KLX250S was the next thing to undergo a bit of massaging. The CVK34 carb is a good design for a smooth running motor that is not altitude sensitive. However, it does not have an accelerator pump and that is what gives a bike immediate throttle response. I contacted Bill Blue, whom I had met over on another forum and had him build me a drop in Mikuni TM33 pumper carb for the KLX. When I got the carb, it was jetted a little lean, but the difference was immediately noticeable. I upped the jetting several sizes and the bike was running very strong. Once again, my friend with the now modified by me KLX250S challenged me to a race. Once again I just walked away from him. For an old drag racer, that is a very satisfying thing to do.
The CVK34 carb operates on airflow. When you open the throttle on the CVK, the carb senses a need for fuel, then it opens the throttle plate, not the throttle. On the Mikuni carb, when you open the throttle, it is directly coupled to the throttle plate. It opens right up and squirts a small amount of raw fuel into the intake tract. Makes the bike very responsive to throttle movements.
Here’s a picture that shows the “business end” of the Mikuni TM33 carb. If you look at it, you will notice a tube sticking up from the bottom of the carb. This is the “squirter” that, when you open the throttle, adds a bit of raw fuel to the intake tract to make the motor immediately respond to your desire to go faster.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/88902165.jpg
Well now I had a bike that was running quite respectable, but the stock 1.9 gallon tank kind of left a bit to be desired. I live next to 400,000 acres of national forest and there are not a lot of gas stations to be found when out riding. I needed at least another gallon of capacity. I found Acerbis made a 3.7 gallon tank for the KLX300 and the earlier KLX250. I contacted MotoSport and asked them if I bought it and it did not fit, would there be any restocking fee. I explained what I was going to do and they told me I would only need to pay for shipping the product back to them. I ordered it, got it in and tried to fit it to the bike. It fell right into place. As a matter of fact, the Acerbis tank is easier to put on than the stock tank. I did have a bit of interference with the choke and the fuel supply valve, but that was a minor irritant. I now had almost 200 miles of range on my bike and loved it.
When I ordered the tank, I also ordered a new front fender. The stock green fender just did not do a thing for me. So I ordered a black Acerbis SuperMoto front fender for the bike. I love the way it looked.
Since the bike spends the best part of it’s life riding in the sand of the Ocala National Forest, I decided the stock handguards had to go and replaced them with a set of Moose Barkbuster Handguards. Since I spend a lot of time standing up when riding, I wanted a taller set of bars, so I have a set of Moose ATV “Raptor” Aluminum Competition handlebars on the bike.
To accommodate a size 14 MX boot a bit more comfortably, I also added some IMS supersport footpegs to the bike.
http://klxrider.lenzus.com/content/11359020/12973558.jpg