I've got a 2015 KTM 250SX engine and the 5 speed has a larger, instead of smaller, % drop from 4->5. I can put an entire 6 speed from an XC (not the XC-W) in and it would be an improvement but the 3rd through 6th % drops are kind of wide, all of them more than the typical Ducati (and 5->6 looks to be about 25-30% wider than would be appropriate for higher speed track use).
A complete new XC box is about US$900 for the gears/shafts/clips/shims plus the drum/forks add another $100-200. I looked at the 2013 250 SX-F fiche and that 6 speed seems possible on the ratios but it has a few bushings and I don't know if it is a drop in. The 2T 250/350 share transmissions with the 350 4T but I can't find any significant interchange with the 250-F, and later Fs are 5 speed.
FWIW, the 250SX 5 speed drops are 20, 16.7, 14.3 and 16.5% from bottom to top.
A 350 Bultaco/AJR is 25, 17, 15 and 8.
The XC has 24.4, 20, 16.4, 15.8 and 12.6% so 6th could be closer to 5th.
The "small" Duc standard street 6 speed (not the high first gear Corse) is 32.3, 20, 15.2, 11.5 and 7.7. The Duc Corse is pretty much the same but with a 28% drop when shifting to 2nd.
I have a 2003 TZ250 as 25.6, 16.1, 11.9, 8.3 and 7.4%
Those Ducati ratios look pretty good to me and are used in a good 10+ years of recent models and are plentiful on eBay. But that means making new crank cases, which could be a fun project and also let me see about adding a balance shaft, but it pushes a running bike even farther into the already hazy future.
Yes, it may well be that for the few times it gets run as a track day bike (if I get it built) the 5 speed with a fairly standard MX tune (I bought a Pro Circuit chamber that is supposed to maintain the 50 hp peak for another 1000-1500 RPM) will be fine for my mediocre riding skills, and the XC would be better. But even though I'm transitioning to "former racer" I still like to have things the way I think they ought to be. I wish I'd known more about KTM when I bought this engine, and was clairvoyant so I could see that they'd be adding an effective balance shaft in the major engine redesign for 2017. Neil's transfer port injection which is on some new KTMs would be nice to have too.
Greg, I was surprised when I looked at late Yam/Kawa/Suzuki 600 part fiches as they were my first though on possible donors. Not only are the idlers generally running on a bush (separate from the gear) but some of those bushes have internal splines to keep them from spinning on the shafts, which I'd never seen before. I looked at some photos of the parts on eBay to verify it wasn't just needle bearing details being left off the drawing. In some you can see the internal oil grooves and drillings to let oil get out to the bush/gear interface.
The TT Industries parts do have a good reputation, but isn't everything they do for pre-unit British stuff?
An XC 6 speed with tighter custom 5th and 6th gears would most likely be fine, if it was possible to get those gears designed and made at an affordable price. But for the price of those gears (and probably for less) I can get a complete Duc lower end and have clutch and primary gears too, as well as no special replacement parts.
A pal sent some primary gear parts to Ellis Moore at Moore Engineering in England to get some parts made but he told me that Ellis had a race crash last year that left him paralyzed from the chest down and he's closed his shop and his parts are coming back. Ellis was keen on one-off stuff (which Nova is not) and appears to have supplied high-quality parts at reasonable prices so his accident is a loss to the industry (as well as being tragic, I know other racers who've ended up in wheelchairs).
A friend who purchased a TZ125 last year has been telling me of some major parts that aren't to be found as NOS, and now that I'm done with vintage bikes I'd like my remaining projects to not involve massive part searches. It is difficult enough to finish things without getting hung up on "wish I could find a new one of these" issues.
So when I saw various cool 125-250 shifter kart motors of modern manufacture it had me wondering what they are doing for gearboxes, and this seemed like the place mostly likely to have someone who knows.
cheers,
Michael
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