reepicheep

Member
Apr 3, 2009
670
2
Better late than never?

Too late for the original poster no doubt, but I worked this out so I figured I might as well post it for future use.

If you measure the shortest distance eye to eye on the stock kx85 links you will find them to be about 99.3mm.

I cut then welded additional material to make them 126.5mm.

The result was a bike that rode and handled fine for basic trail riding, and got my kid through a full season without issue. That is about as low as you would want to go (and maybe even a little lower than you want to go). No rubs on plastics or frame, but the ground clearance got very low, and the bike looked squatty.

Before his first day at the MX park, I popped them off again and shortened them to exactly half way between, which seems to be a great setting for his height and the bike. It looks natural and has great ground clearance. He was only doing 3 foot or so high jumps and weighs maybe 80 pounds, but I didn't hear him bottom out and he said it was handling great.

So 112mm is a pretty good target for lowering the bike without making it look weird and loosing a lot of ground clearance.

FWIW.

(Note this is a 99 KX-85 I think... measure your "pre-cut" link length and make sure it matches mine before you go cutting and welding. YMMV, not liable for anything horrible that happens if you do this, etc).
 
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