klx maintenance

[Rupe]

a mate wants to get a bike to plod round the trails on. I know a bit about the kdx, but not the klx and there seems to be a few about at the moment. People have said that it can be expensive owning a 4 stroke, but would a klx 250 or 300 be fairly cheap? Anyone know how often they need piston rings etc?

Oh and it will prob be a mid to late 90's model.

Thanks

[merv]

The older style 4 strokes go and go and don't wear out very quickly.

The stories around about 4 strokes relate to the newer breed of hard-out race engines found in MX and enduro bikes where they say fit a new piston and rings every bugger-all hours of riding. That's because they have very small piston skirts, super short strokes which means quite sharp conrod angles and therefore side forces of the piston against the bore, but they are built to rev like hell (13,500rpm at least) and make great power.

A KLX is not one of these (e.g YZ/WR, CRF/CRFX, RMZ, KXF) and probably would rev to 9,000. You haven't told us exactly what year and what condition coz that depends on what he can get but I'd expect them to give a good 10 years use without an engine rebuild.

[Rupe]

The older style 4 strokes go and go and don't wear out very quickly.

The stories around about 4 strokes relate to the newer breed of hard-out race engines found in MX and enduro bikes where they say fit a new piston and rings every bugger-all hours of riding. That's because they have very small piston skirts, super short strokes which means quite sharp conrod angles and therefore side forces of the piston against the bore, but they are built to rev like hell (13,500rpm at least) and make great power.

A KLX is not one of these (e.g YZ/WR, CRF/CRFX, RMZ, KXF) and probably would rev to 9,000. You haven't told us exactly what year and what condition coz that depends on what he can get but I'd expect them to give a good 10 years use without an engine rebuild.

Probably be around 10 years old, and everyone would buy one in good condition if they could, so hopefully it will be.

Also would a klx250 be a bit small height wise, and lack any real power?