Maintenance & Technical > KX450F / KX250F
KX450F vs. KX500
gwcrim:
You can have my two strokes when you pry them from my cold dead hands. I so glad that I'm so slow that I don't care about having a state of the art bike.
Kev:
You gentlemen left out two very droolable options. All you have to do is pony up the greenbacks and get either the CR500AF or the KX500AF. :evil: :-D :-D I should be able to afford mine when I'm 50. :cry: :cry: It is an option however. Or the increasing in popularity heart transplant. Does anybody have dollar figures as to the cost? I love my 2 smoke, but I also love the new chassis's. I'm also giving thought to getting a 450F (not replace my 500), but as Cam mentioned, I'm concerned about the maintenance. I don't mind maintenance, but I have only limited spare time and more time riding and less time maintaining is where I'm at. :-D
Kev
KXcam22:
Ride report:
I have about 6 hours on my 4-stroke now. I have been noticing some significant differences between the KX500 and 4-stroke power delivery, and some other items. First off when climbing slow, ugly hills the KX500 is far superior. With the KX I can set the throttle at a fixed 1/3 and modulate the clutch to crawl up almost anything - never stalls. The 4-stroke on the other hand does not like that and will stall at suprising times (and in the worst places). However, on the KX500 1st gear is unusable for hills, if I hit 1st I turn around right away since all the KX will do is dig a big hole in the hill. The 4-stroke will chug in 1st gear and traction up without digging a hole. With the 4-stroke you can apply noticeably more power in a corner, and it powers out of the corner faster with no fanfare, no spinning, just rocket forward motion, 2 rides and I can already corner faster.
Maintenance: did the the first oil change - was fast and easy, not as much of a pain as I have heard. My bike uses separate engine/trans oils with oil filter on the side. I used one of those "billy-who" funnels (a must) and calibrated my own tupperware oil jug (0.25 at a garage sale) for the fill amounts. Didn't even make a mess. On a 4-stroke it is much safer to use a pre-cal amount of oil rather than the level holes on the bike, which are generally innacurate. Now that it is broken in I will switch to Amsoil synthetic for the engine and Type F ATF for the transmission. Cam.
n2682:
i can give the new 4 strokes some credit here but not tons i had a yzf 426 with a few mods hot cams and had the head drilled so it would relieve pressure that builds on the top end but man that thing ran so hot that i was afraid to let it run 2 mins if i wasnt moving down a trail in 90 + weather and have u guys ever seen inside a new 4 stroke engine it looks like they dont even bother to clean slag off the molds it looked as if u was taken apart a chinese lawn mower motor. but that bike would run past any cr 500 i ever had but it constantly needed the valves re adjusted. and i agree with cam the thing thunders outta corners it just puts the power to the ground in a way thats are undecribable to a 2 stroke. i change my 2 stroke crank oil every day if i ride it more than 4 hours anyhow so i dont see much difference there but i let my buddy take the bike for a ride and he didnt do anything i wouldnt of done and it blew up hard would of cost me 2,400 to get it fixed better off just gettin a new motor i ended up selling the chasis to a guy that had a yzf 450 motor sittin in his garage was just easier to part with than to fix in my book and the 250 4 strokers blow up way more often than there big brother the 450 i have alot of friends that race the new not so bad *** 4 strokers and wow what junk i rode a ktm 300 the other day i got to give it to that bike its got alot of grunt for a 300 if i was to buy new thats what id buy!
ericac:
what could be done to make the 500 have the clean takeoffs of the 4 strokes? flywheel weight maybe, or different gearing? i would love not to dig 6 inch holes everywhere (at least not all the time!)
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