MiniMoto SX Action
MiniMoto SX 2011 went off this weekend at the South Point Arena in Las Vegas…what a blast as always! I finally got the monkey off my back and won the kids 9-12 stock mod class. Everybody knows how much I love riding stocker 110s, so this was a big win for me! Tons of people have been asking me about the bike and the work that went into it, so I thought I would give you a rundown.
All of the riding and testing in the mud/snow in Seattle paid off.
First of all, the rules are pretty tight for the stock mod classes at MiniMoto. So if you are building a bike to race there, make sure you read and understand the rules. Before and after the race your bike will be tech inspected to make sure it passes. It will save you a lot of time and headache if you don’t have to go back to change some part out you didn’t no wasn’t legal. You can check the rules out at www.minimotosx.com.
I am lucky enough to be sponsored by the BBR/MonsterEnergy/Motul factory race team, so I have access to whatever they can dream up. We started testing for MiniMoto just about a year ago and the first thing we wanted to determine was which 110 was better, the 2002-2009 or the newer but heavier 2010-2011. There are very few parts that will interchange between the two of them, even though they look similar.
Carson Brown’s BBR MiniMoto Winning Bike
The BBR guys lined up two bone stock 110s for me to start testing. One old style 2009 and one new style 2010. I felt more comfortable and faster right off on the older 2009 because I have spent hundreds of hours riding them and it felt noticeably lighter. The stop watch said something completely different though. I was consistently faster on the 2010. So what was making the difference? We started measuring everything. Length, head tube angle, seat height, width, all were basically the same. Then I noticed I could go through the whoops much faster on the 2010. We kept measuring. The swing arm pivot point was lower on the 2010. By lowering the pivot point, it changes the torque load put on the rear suspension. All I know is I could skim the whoops on the 2010 but not on the 2009. The choice was made to start with the newer bike.
The trick is to get the bike to fit you and your riding style perfectly.
There were a few things that had to be fixed right away. The stock rev limiter is low and is set at 10,700 rpm, that’s where the fun just starts to happen, so I needed it to rev much higher. I’m not happy until every dog in the neighborhood is howling with me. We switched to the BBR Rev Box, now I can rev the engine as high as I want to. The next thing we started working on was the air box and exhaust. I need the bike to make all of its power way up high. We bolted on the U-Flow filter setup and I noticed an immediate increase in power everywhere and the bike even sounded meaner.
I adjusted the break pedal, shifter and peg height so many times I wore them out.
The next step was to pick the right pipe. BBR offers a few versions. It got tricky because we would have to try to mix pipes, cams, and gearing. I would get a pipe I liked then I wouldn’t like the cam I had chosen any more. Or I would get the pipe, cam, and jetting right and the gearing would be all wrong. Now throw in piston size and you really have a mixed up puzzle. There are hundreds of different combinations to choose from and there is only one way to know if you have it right….the stop watch.
After I felt the motor was making the type of power I like, we switched to the suspension. The MiniMoto rules say you have to use the stock forks and swingarm, so it gets a little tricky to make them work. We started with the BBR shock and found the perfect spring for my weight and riding style. BBR has two different length shocks for the 2010 110. I ended up going with the short one. This lowered the rear end of the bike and flattened out the seat. It also made the bike steer a little slower. Those 110s are twitchy!Now to the forks. I switched to one stiff fork spring and then ran 15wt. oil to slow the rebound down. The suspension felt 100% better and the stop watch backed it up. The final trick was to switch to the BBR bars and clamps. The bars don’t have a crossbar, so they flex up and down. This definitely helps with the trail bike suspension. When you bottom hard, the flex in the bars take the sting out. BBR added black aluminum rims that felt way stiffer and some Dunlop Geo-Max tires. Fusion Hooked me up with the great BBR/Monster graphics and we were ready to race.
After all of the work, I had knocked almost two seconds a lap off of the stock bike times. Doesn’t sound like much, but those two seconds represent the hardest work I have ever done testing. The MiniMoto race is five laps. That’s ten seconds. That’s forever in a race. To see this bike testing in action, watch my video below.Thanks to everyone who has helped me go on this great ride I call “Carsons World.”See you at the races – Carson
2010 KLX110 parts list:
