What mod next??

[yankeefan4life72]

Hi everyone.I have got alot of good advice on this forum thanks to all of you.I have an '05 kdx 200 with a fmf gnarly woods pipe,new fork springs .40 and a good renthal o ring chain.I am looking to spend around $150 on another mod.Someone told me to get a v force 3 reed cage.What will this do?I want to re-jet as well.I live in maryland and my bike is hard to start (about 10 to 15 kicks) and bogs down in mid to higher range rpms.Any advice on jetting would be appriciated as well.Thanks

 

[yankeefan4life72]

oh yeah i also took off the airbox snorkel

 

[89kdx200rdr]

get the vforce 3, you can safely go down two sizes on pilot and main 42/155, my friend has the woods pipe and vf3 and thats what he's runnin and he's still rich. could probably go 152 or leaner. the kick starters on the new kdxs suck. i noticed him kicking his alot and i said let me see that thing. you gotta get the thing on a compression stroke to get it to start easy.

 

[nrvs-nelly]

Defiinitely do a reed change. And if you didn't rejet after the pipe change, which you should have, I would do it now. It shouldn't take more 3-4 kicks to turn it over cold.
Speaking of kicking, spend the extra cash on the Fredette kick starter. It has a shorter, more compact design and makes starting it soooo much easier.
If your riding tight technical trails you might want to think about regearing it also. I went up 1 tooth on the rear and down one on the front. I aso installed a Steahly flywheel weight to help with the slower more technical trails.
There is a ton of mods available that won't cost you a whole lot of money. :cool:

 

[2wheeler]

Well they are not porformance mods but you need. Bark Buster(pays for thereselves after a couple of cluth/brake levers. Next a pipe guard(keeps that pipe in the same shape as when you bought it. Also new handle bars I hate the stock ones.

 

[john hubbard]

607 boyseen reeds (read canadian Dave's comparions between the delta v force and the boyseen reeds and how to rejet), acerbis hand guards, a fresh spark plug or 2 to rejet, and in additionn to removing the snorkel drill some holes in the airbox lid (free)-- all for less than 150.00 combined. Funny thing though when I owned my 02 kdx I added a PC (rev) pipe/silencer, airbox mod change, fresh plug, fredette torque ring, 607 boyseen reeds, 44:1 with Golden Spectro, adjusted the air screw as recommended and it seemed like these changes alone compensated for the factory richness the bikes came with when new. No real jetting changes needed. Never fouled a plug, nice color, and the bike ran strong and crisp...and I live in maryland too..never had a problem starting bike...maybe 2 kicks when I had ridden for a month or so, but otherwise everything was fine...good luck man...

 

[Fred T]

I'd get the suspension done.

 

[canyncarvr]

It's kind'a like adult diapers....

...it all depends. Everyone has their own opinion, I'm sure. At $150, the DF3 fits the bill pretty good.

CDave does mention the Delta Force reed cage..but doesn't specifically say DFI, DFII, which tension reed/reed stop on the DFII and doesn't mention the DF3, either. A whole lot of different opinions on all of them.

Nothing you do as far as bolting on anything will benefit you (and your bike) as much as proper jetting.

A lot of making your bike work as well as it can is a matter of putting together pieces that match and then tuning for each change.

An example: 200 riders commonly use a -35 pipe to help the 2-hunny out on the bottom end....it needs it. BUT with a good reed valve system, a modified carburetor and decent jetting you can get the bottom-end you need (better than the -35 bottom-end you have now) AND run a -30 for the top-end grin factor!

I went from oem reeds to boyesen to a rad-valve to a DFII (several different iterations of that) to a DF3. The DF3 is hands-down the best of the lot. Yes, that is my personal opinion...but at least I've tried each of the others.

The best bang for your buck would be to properly jet your bike. The knowledge gained thru that process will be invaluable over the course of your riding 'career'. You can get some excellent starting points on CDave's site (stickied to the top of this forum...you have that bookmarked, right??).

You didn't mention having tuned your suspension. That's free...and will, like learning to jet, be of terrific benefit to you over time. If the .40 choice works for you, the oem shock spring is probably OK. But...have you set the sag on your bike? Do you know the difference between a 'packing' effect and not enough rebound control?

No adjustment to the rear suspension is going to matter a whole lot if the whole thing is stuck together with rust and crud. Can't happen on an '05 you think? You would be wrong.

Again, CDave's site tells you all about new bike prep...and if you haven't done it yet, you should have. It'll cost you that $150 easy just to replace the failed parts a short time from now if you don't service that stuff now. That's just the cost of the parts. If you pay someone else to do it you're way over $150!!

Do you ride in your Nike tennies? Put your $150 toward a pair of Tech8s! ;)

Like they say...just like some body parts...everyone has an opinion........

Cheers!

 

[Feanor]

I'm with CC on this one and since you didn't mention what kind of safety gear you're wearing when you ride, if you're light in that department I would spend the money toward quality riding gear.

I just had a recent test and affirmation of the value of good riding gear (boots) I bought Tech8's (I had to choke back tears because of the cost) but I was intent on not having poor safety equipment as the root cause if i got injured , since that was something completely under my control. I was riding a streambed trail and on a hard right hander the rear end got loose the bike leaned over suddenly. Not enough to drop, but enough so that a small boulder on the inside of the turn knocked my foot off the peg with a jolt.

When I stopped for a rest, I looked more closely at the steel tip of the boot and the previous gentle curvature was bent flat-nose and "deformed" the front of the boot a bit... I'm thinking if I didn't have riding boots on, or maybe lesser riding boots that I would have a couple of broken toes easy! I've since replaced the steel toe guard and kept the old one on the wall as a reminder.

If you've replaced the front springs to be more appropriate for your riding weight, 150 would cover th cost of RaceTech gold valves. No use in adding more power to your bike if all it does is scrub the front in a corner and push you off the trail :)

Have a good one!

Feanor