My new to me 2011 KTM 300 XC

[rholbrook]

I am looking at lighting options for my bike. I have looked everywhere in my manual and on the old interweb. I can not find what my stock wattage is. Does anyone know what my stock stator puts out? Caleb, Paul, Greg, Bueller, Bueller?????

 

[Corban_White]

100 watts according to baja designs

http://www.bajadesigns.com/products/motorcycle-lighting/motorcycle-stators/chart

 

[rholbrook]

This came today from Slavens. I can change head inserts if I ride above 6K feet. I will probably just keep the low altitude head in it

 

[Tonkaman]

Oooh pretty

 

[Corban_White]

I hate you Russ. I need one of those for my snowbike. High altitude in the winter, low in the summer. And the SX ignition and a headlight, and some fork springs, and a digital gauge.........

 

[Tonkaman]

Tonight I went from this

Don't leave me hanging Russ....

 

[rholbrook]

I went from this

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to this

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I need to clean this thing really good.

Cant wait to try it out. I am thinking of heading to St George Sunday afternoon with the gang to ride on Monday.

 

[ChestonScout]

Fancy!

 

[rholbrook]

I have been thinking about going the Trials Tire route for the last several years and have just not been able to do it. All my riding buddies have chucked the MX tires all together, even on the fronts because of how well they hook up in the corners. The only complaint I have heard is that the back will wash out on hard cornering so I have kept with the full on MX knobby.

Well, a little while ago I was looking at trials tires again and ran across an article on the new Mountain Hybrid by MotoZ and was intrigued so I told my local shop (Layton Cycle) to get some and when they did they called and I went and picked one up along with a Tubliss setup for the rear. I have yet to install it but here it is. It has some really big lugs and it feels heavier than a normal MX tire. What sold me on it was the big side lugs. Normal trial tires don't have any side lugs. I'm not going to have any time to ride coming up on the install and testing will have to wait for a couple of weeks but I will report on it when I do.

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[glockman]

Thanks for being the gineau pig Russ.

 

[ChestonScout]

Looks awesome

 

[Greg]

Very cool, MotoZ tires are impressive on their own... I ran a rear MotoZ my KTM 690. Seems like it would outlast lots of other knobbies, but it HOWLED on the street.... stupid-loud. :wtf:

That Mountain Hybrid w/ the Tubliss will be like a One/Two Punch, the tire ought to hook up very well... but dropping your tire pressure to 3-4 PSI with the Tubliss will let you damn near idle up and over stuff that guys with traditional knobbies will spin out on.

It'll be interesting to see if that tire is any better in the sand versus a traditional trials tire.

 

[Caleb]

Very cool, I first saw these a couple weeks back when Thumper Talk did a write-up on them. I'm very interested to see how these do for you.

 

[anderson750]

You will like the Tubliss. I have been running them since last October and they have performed flawlessly. At the Rhino Rally I cut my front tire on the first loop and ran the rest of the race with a flat but the Tubliss kept the bead on. My rim was hammered with a bunch of "hooners" after the race. I mounted up a new tire last week before the race and it still sealed up fine.

 

[rholbrook]

Had a great ride with my boys last Saturday. Its been 2 1/2 years since we have been together riding. My oldest, Jaxon, just got back from his mission two weeks ago. He was shocked at how fast Harrison's gotten. Jaxon says I have to find me a new 300 now because he is taking over mine. Harrison's CRF150RB will go on the block this winter and be replaced with a KTM 250 XC. We will have the suspension redone with shorter springs and he will be ready to go and as he grows, we will raise it back up. At this point, he is ready for a bike with larger wheels to get over obstacles easier.

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[Tonkaman]

That's one proud dad right there!

 

[rholbrook]

Finally had some time to work on my 300 this last week to get ready for our ride out near Chimney Rock. I had purchased the Mountain Hybrid trials tire and Tubliss for the rear about a month ago, just havent had time to get them installed. When I pulled the wheel to inspect it for sharp stuff on the rim I found this.
There were actually two cracks on the rim. I was in a hurry so I threw the tire on without Tubliss so I will get another rim between now and the next time I need a new tire.

Opinion on the tire:
When I started out the day, I had 15lbs of air in it and it wouldn't stay planted, seemed to like to slide out so I dropped the air to 9lbs and it made a big difference. I really liked the traction in the dirt. In sand it wasnt as good and I never got to do any mud but I did like it better in the dirt. I did however notice that on turns is liked to slide out more than my Maxxis Desert IT. I had a Dunlop 606 that liked to slide out as well so I really dont have enough time on the tire yet. I only put 50 miles on it yesterday and it hardly looks like any where is on it. It has to be atleast 2lbs heavier than my Maxxis.

 

[Greg]

Rear trials tires are notorious for sliding out when leaned over and they do tend to suck in the sand. I'd drop it even further, 5-6 PSI and see what you think.

I had to have the rear wheel on my 250 welded up after finding cracks in December!

 

[rholbrook]

A little while ago I purchased an OX-Brake Left hand Brake from Ox-Brake in Colorado (http://www.oxbrake.com/). I have liked the brake and have had zero issues with it. Well, about 3 weeks ago I get a package in the mail from OX-Brake and in it is a new throttle tube. Chuck, the owner of OX-Brake asks me to give it a try and then give him feedback on it because he is trying to decide if he is going to sell them.
What he told me was the advantage of this new throttle tube over the stock one is that his throttle tube would give you precise control at the lower end of the throttle range while providing the same throttle response in the upper throttle range. He also went on to say that it will be especially desirable in technical areas such as Moab. He wanted me to give it a try and provide him with some feedback on it. The throttle tube is made for KTM 2 strokes from 1998-2014 and is literally a replacement.
I haven’t had much time the last few weeks to try it out so I knew I was headed to ride the Chimney Rock area and thought I would hurry and install it. I pulled my grip off of my old throttle tube and then removed the old tube and compared them side by side. What I noticed was the initial incline of the plastic ramp the throttle cable went in was substantially steeper which would really pull on the throttle cable during the initial throttle twist. Once the old one was off and before I could put the new tube on, I had to cut off the end of the tube so my handguard could be mounted inside the handlebars. Once that was done, I glued my grip back on and then safety wired them. The installation was just like putting on a stock throttle tube. No big deal there.
When we got to the area we were riding, my oldest son wanted to ride my bike so I decided to ride a friends KTM300 for a bit while he rode his YZ450. After a while I decided I wanted to ride my KTM300 so we did some bike swapping and I wound up back on mine. I used to ride a WR450 and that bike was really smooth and the weird thing is my KTM was running really smooth as well. I kept thinking in my head that it was abnormally smooth. Every 2 stroke I have ever ridden sputters right when you get on the throttle until you get to the power band and then it smooth’s out and takes off. My KTM sputtered just like everyone else’s does. I put an S3 head on my 300 to try to clean up the bottom end which it helped some but just like every other 2 stroke out there, it still sputters. After a few minutes of riding my KTM I remembered that the only difference between that day and any other day of riding was I had put on the throttle tube from OX-Brake. I had one of my other friends with me that day who has a 300 set up almost identical to mine ride it. I didn’t tell him what I had done, I just asked him to ride and tell me if he noticed anything with it. He got on and took off and about 50 yards later he stopped and then started again. He did this like 5 times and then he went and slowly climbed a hill and then started and stopped a couple more times. He then came back to me and asked me how I changed my jetting because the sputtering was nearly gone and that it was so much smoother than his. I told him that I had not changed the jetting and he took off again. This time I followed him and we ended up on a dirt road where he got it up to 40+ mph for a little bit and then started the whole start and stop bit and then back up to high speed for a while. He then stopped and said that the high speed sputter that you have with a 2 stroke was gone when you are just running in high gear between 50 and 60 mph. I hadn’t ridden it that fast so I didn’t notice it but I then got on it and rode it down the road and sure enough, the sputtering was pretty much gone.
In the last day or two my friend and I have talked about this new throttle tube and have decided that because the initial cable ramp is so steep that it quickly pulls the carb past the sputtering into the power band smoothing the power out immensely. Its crazy what a difference this can make. I’m sold on the OX-Brake throttle tube as well as my friend. We can’t wait to get more and try it on my friends 300 and his son’s KTM 250. I am glad I was asked to try it out because I now have an incredibly smooth KTM300.

 

[rholbrook]

My starter has been pretty much non-existent for the last few rides so I toyed which rebuilding my current starter at a cost of $70, buying new with a cost of anywhere from $100 up to $300. My options were to source out rebuild kits off of Amazon or Ebay, cheap chinese starters of of Ebay, new supposedly OEM stuff from Ebay, Amazon or direct from RMATV or a dealer. I started seeing Ricks Starter motors popping up with some good reviews on both the rebuild kits and new starters. I opted to go with a new starter from Ricks and also opted to go for a 410 watt that is what comes on the newer 300s. My starter is 350 watts. Ricks is back east so it took nearly a week to get here but it showed up yesterday so I tossed it on and while I was at it, cleaned and greased the gears with some water-proof grease. My 300 already has the breather hose mod done to it so everything should be ready to go.

I got everything buttoned up and gave the button a push and the 300 started in a split second. Could not believe how fast it fired. I dont even think the motor completed a full revolution before it fired. I am excited to get it out on the trail and ride it with my new starter. Even though it fired first kick, its still nice to push that magic button.