mas2de said:MX guy,
I Love my 4 strokes. I don't do much racing, but as long as you take some care of your 4-stroke it will take care of you. My dad has an 81 Honda XR 500 that has been run for probably a years worth of hours (if not more like 5 digits) by now and he has never gone into the motor at all and it still pulls his 280lbs up off the ground up to 3rd gear. The 4-strokes that I've ever seen never need any difficult maintenece. Just clean 'em, tune 'em and ride 'em.
I have not been in the 2-stroke world very long but alot of my friends are. For the ones that like to race, they spend half their time rebuilding their everything and fine tuning and twiddling. But the 2-strokes have most always been lighter (fewer parts), more powerful(power on every down stroke as opposed to every other down stroke like 4-strokes), and therefore faster(also more responsive to throttle because of the cylces). But today's 4 cycle bikes are just as good as 2 strokes as far as I've heard. The 2stroke power is usually less managable and more abrupt. The power valve in the exaust helps to control the power curve but can be finicky and difficult at times. They are also hard to work on.
For any beginner I would say 4 stroke because of the reliability and ease of operation and maintenance.
BTW MATT90GT, NO valve should EVER make any kind of contact with the piston. That would extremely damage the valve and it won't seal right, and also extremely damage the piston and gouge it. If you have any valve hitting any piston you need to tear that motor apart.
Good luck MX guy,
Mike
RM85rider123 said:We are talking about MX 4 stroke racing bikes, and you are talking about trail bikes such as your dads xr500. You are right, the 4 stroke would be easier to ride, but a racing 4 stroke is still more unreliable than a 2 stroke. I am not saying the 2 stroke is 100% reliable, but it beats the 4 stroke.
Mike_JOE_ said:Find a nice clean 125 2 stroke, the newer the better. If you plan to do MX you really shouldn't buy a trail bike. The MX bikes are higher maintenance so you'll want to take advantage of any offers from people to show you how to take care of it. The 4 stroke MX bikes are more costly to maintain but if you can afford it they are great bikes. The power is super smooth and has great pull where a 125 is more peaky and really only strong in the top end. The 125 2t is a hoot to ride though. Good luck with finding something.
mas2de said:MX guy,
BTW MATT90GT, NO valve should EVER make any kind of contact with the piston. That would extremely damage the valve and it won't seal right, and also extremely damage the piston and gouge it. If you have any valve hitting any piston you need to tear that motor apart.
Good luck MX guy,
Mike