$3,000 Bike Test Extras!

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Marty's '99 KX250
Story by Marty Estes
Photos by Marty Estes, Pete Peterson and Drew Ruiz

It was a lot of work to rebuild this bike, and I took a chance when I bought it sight un-seen on eBay that it would be OK. Jimmy Lewis instilled a little fear about the many possible consequences of lack of maintenance, which this bike clearly suffered from. I was definitely worried when I went to pick it up. I think I got a bit lucky though, in that the bike actually was low-hours and pretty fresh under all that thrashed/broken plastic. The low hours saved it because the original owner did nothing. NOTHING. Ever. Except change the tires once. And even that was too difficult - the bike came with no rim locks.

It was a rush deal for sure to rebuild this bike in time for the test, and unfortunately I was up until midnight the night before just trying to get it all together. Having never ridden the bike before, I was worried about how it would perform. Mostly, would the suspension pummel the lesser men in this test? Would it handle, would the brakes work? Would the brand new motor stay together? Answers: Yes. Kind of. No. And yes.

Now, with three rides since the test, I've got the bugs worked out. My KX is better balanced, broken in and working well. Most of what I've done is tune the suspension. It had been revalved by K5Suspension with Race Tech springs significantly stiffer than stock. I needed to set the sag a few times to compensate for the new spring breaking in, and turn some clickers. The shock is surprisingly good. Both magazine shootouts I read agreed it was the best shock in '99 and even by modern standards it's pretty darn good. The forks are on the stiff side, and I need to lower the oil height a bit to get a little more compliance, and to allow the bike to settle into turns better. Currently the front end is riding a bit high, and even with compression on full soft it's not quite soaking up the small hits as it should. The bike is solid on the big hits though and the valving feels good, just a tad stiff for my tastes.

The brakes were a real problem on the day of the test. I spent most of the day trying to get the front to work better. The rear was OK-A little weak, but decent enough to ride on. The culprit was a missing piece in the adjustment mechanism of the front brake lever, and I wasn't familiar enough with older KX brakes to even know something was missing until Brad Banister pointed it out. It kept backing out and engagement was moving towards the lever. I was never really able to get the free play out of the lever (didn't engage early enough). Not good, especially with weak power even with proper adjustment. I fiddled with different brake pads, bleeding and many adjustments. Nothing really worked until I got it back to the garage. With the proper part ordered and installed, some thoughtful blows from a mallet on the Tusk brake lever (which was too spread out even for my big paws), proper adjustment and yet another bleed, it's passable now. Kawasaki brakes from this era weren't particularly good, and compared to modern bikes they're downright questionable! Next step - throw in the towel and find a CR master cylinder on EBay. They're pretty cheap...$30-$40 but I keep missing that winning bid.

Yes, I am a cheap ass.

The wheels were in rough shape when I got the bike (no mention of it in the eBay listing!). Nobody ever tightened the spokes - they were seriously loose and/or missing and the rear wheel in particular was out of round. With new spokes and my modest truing skills, they're decent now, but not perfect. Who knows what the previous owner did to scar the swingarm. Though 100% functional (all bearings were in great shape), it's thrashed looking.

The motor was solid from the start - crisp, reliable and fun. The revised jetting specs I got out of the Dirt Rider 1999 250 Shootout were spot-on and the bike runs super clean. I must have gotten the power valves installed right - bit of a learning curve for someone who had never rebuilt a KX250 top-end before. It definitely needed rings at the very least, and it was gratifying pulling the old piston out and replacing it with a fresh Wiseco setup. With the new FMF Fatty pipe and fresh packing in the stock silencer, this old warhorse runs and sounds fantastic. I like it more and more. It's snappy, not so fast that it pulls your sockets out and barks like it should. But even completely fresh and running properly, there's no avoiding that I'm giving it up against diesels and newer 2-stroke 250's. Especially at corner exits, where the bigger bikes positively leap a few bike lengths ahead of me unless I execute the turn perfectly and come out on the pipe. Down the straightaway, when the bike gets percolates it's fast and can hang. But at the next corner exit, I lose another couple lengths...and so on and so forth. Riding it back to back with Pete's RM was a shocker. The RM has so much more bottom and mid than this KX that it made my bike feel positively 125-ish! Clearly the Japanese OEMs made great strides with the 2-stroke motors in their final 5 years of development.

Since the test, I haven't needed to do much: just routine stuff like transmission fluid changes, chain adjustments and the like. I found some really cool carbon fiber Berg Racing "wings", which remedy boot-hanging-up-on-the-side panel problem I've read about but never experienced! I found them on eBay for cheap, and just had to buy them. Also, I swapped out the bars for my favorites - Fasst Co. Flexx bar. The Tusk bars that I received had more sweep than I like and I had the Fasst bars in the garage - really straight the way I like them. These units soak up those hard hits that try to make it through the front end to your wrists. They demand a little time to grow accustomed to but they feel normal before too long.

To mount the larger 1-1/8 bars I bought some Turner mounts from Motosport Outlet that fit into the stock clamps and open up from 7/8 to 1-1/8, effectively raising the whole bar assembly even higher. If Pete hated my ergos the day of the test, he'd positively despise it now. I don't expect people to like my set-up, but I do point out that if they were 6'3" like me, they'd probably do the same thing. It takes getting used to, especially when cornering, but the tall/straight bar, combined with higher overall bar height and taller seat allows me to crawl around the bike like a 1999-era David Vuillemin. It forces me to ride over the front of the bike (both sitting and standing), which is where I need to be to save energy, weight the front tire and stay lower off jumps. It also encourages me to stand more and ride smoother. I'm not losing any sleep over "normal-sized" riders who don't dig it.

I've also since installed some Factory Effex graphics. For the original test, I had ordered some cheap, close-out graphics on eBay. But the picture didn't show it...and the seller didn't list it. They were Flo-Green, clashing horribly with the stock green KX frame paint and plastic. Oh well, it allowed more room for my "sponsors" stickers.

I like the bike. I have fun on it (especially out in the desert where I prefer 2-stroke power). I think for a less experienced rider, a 2-stroke 250 of this era is a great buy, especially if it was taken care of and doesn't need much money pumped into it. But I've been riding dated bikes for a few too many years now, and I'm feeling the need for a truly competitive bike for the track. I can't ignore it any more - the 450 is the perfect bike for me. As a 2-stroke die-hard, much as I hate to say it, I think I'm going to put the KX up for sale to help fund a 450F. I'll look for a very clean, low-hour '05 or '06 450F and try to find somebody who'll sell me one for around $3000. In looking at used 450 prices and it's clear that there is significant supply and prices are low. In a couple year's time, I'd like to get another 2-stroke, something newer than 2005 because 2-strokes are fantastic bikes. So lightweight, reliable, flickable and fun. But what I learned was that power-wise, maybe I went a little too far back on this one.