Maintenance & Technical > KX500 Steel Frame Conversion (SFC)

Going to take a look at a KX500SF tomorrow - What should I look for?

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jcm3:
One thing I forgot to take into account with the engine swap between bikes is that the cases on the engine in the SF would have already been bored for the KX250 bolt/shaft.

If I was to try to put that engine into my current KX500 to sell it, could I bore out the swing arm hole and frame of the KX500, use KX250 bearings and install the engine into the KX500?  I don't know how much material there is in the swing arm for that, although I know it wouldn't need to be enlarged much... :?

jcm3:
Bump...Still considering the bike but curious what I'd need to do in order to retrofit the old motor into my K5 to sell it.

Kwackerman:
Hey jcm3,

I just saw your thread and All American patch and wanted to say - THANKS FOR SERVING, AIRBORNE! 

Are you putting your K5 motor in a KX 250 frame?  I'm building a KX500AF right now, you can look at my thread - It's in the 500 AF section (1990 KX 500 to 2006 KX450F).  I'm almost finished with mine.  I hope to get it running by this weekend. 

I served a few years (33) in the Army too, and was deployed to AFG under the Eighty-Deuce in 2007.  I was in Kabul at Camp Eggers.  That was a fun year!!!  I did get to ride a KLX 650 the US was providing to the Afghan Border Police.  It's was funny, the screening criteria to be a rider was that you had to be able to pick the bike up off the ground unassisted.  They had 10 gal. fuel tanks on them and weighed a ton.  Most of the Afghans couldn't lift them off their sides... 

Anyway, when I was stationed in Germany in 2004, I rode MX with the lead R&D rider for Kawasaki Motor Corp. (KMC) Europe, Alex Michael. He was a member of my club and we got to be good friends.  He helped me a lot with my bike.

I bought a complete 2001 KX 250 roller off Ebay and asked him to help me make a SF conversion with it.  He told me not to do it because they had tried many different set-ups using that frame and they always broke.  He said the 250 frame is just not made for the brutal vibration and torgue of the K5 motor. 

I'm sure there are guys on here who will disagree, and there are ways to gussett that frame to make it work, but I wanted to share that with you before you dive in and spend a lot of hard earned money.  That's why I waited and went for the AF.

Keep your feet and knees togerther!!!  Howie

jcm3:
Hey Howie,
Thanks for your response and for your service as well!  Funny about the feet and knees together, it's been a while since I heard or said that.  lol  I was in from '86-'89, great times and memories.

Good call on the AF, but in the Communist Republic of CA we can't go the AF route since the bike would not be green sticker legal.  Look that up sometime if you want to read about bogus environmental rules and regulations.  The average parking lot full of cars probably puts more pollution into the air than all of the old bikes putting around the state parks on any given weekend.  But, it is what it is.

I'll probably have to go the SF route 'if' I still decide to go that route.  The better thing to do is to buy a track-specific bike and keep my K5 the way it is, but I think the SF bikes are cool and still allow me to have a track bike that handles ok while keeping the green sticker registration so that I can ride whenever I want to.  A bit of a conundrum...

If anyone knows how to deal with putting the engine from the SF conversion back into my frame so that I can sell the current bike, I'm all ears!

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