23jayhawk, in fact the piston speed is 22m/s, it means the engine is on the maximum performance without puting in risk the reliability.
About the clutch, we used special strengthened springs, we were afraid that the clutch wouldn't hang on such power, but this Kawasaki engine surprised us very much :)
Like the 3 KIPS valves, mechanical centrifugal ones, are very useful for this kind of top-end racing engines, because they give a very good low/mid torque.
About the connecting rod life, i must say that it's new like when we bought it 1 year ago lol :)
The only bad things I noticed on this KDX 200 model, are:
- high stroke (58mm) that doesn't permit too much rotation, because of piston linear speed.
- The "T's" of the guide, had been transformed to assure the reduction of the height of the front side.
- The gears aren't good for a velocity preparation, because the diference between 5th and 6th gear is always about 29 km/h, and if a person wants to prolongate the final transmission too much, if he doesn't have a very powerfull and precise top-end engine mod's, maybe he couldn't put the 6th gear lol
The air filter doesn't exist because we want the maximum volume air-fuel to get the maximum horsepower with 13,5:1 compression ratio with 98 octane gasoline. (the same process in the 2-stroke GP bikes)