Making it my own.... |
They say KTM's are race-ready, right out of the crate. Well, hogwash I say. This is only true if you don't mind replacing banged up parts every couple of races. Here are a few necessities for my kind of racing. |
Pipe guard and skid plate: must have'em both. The pipe guard is an Eline carbon fiber protector which is very strong and light. The skid plate comes from Enduro Engineering. KTM did a great job with the water pump, placing it well out of trouble. |
Next up: radiator protection. I chose Enduro Engineering's guards because of the way they protect from side impacts. That's where most of the beatings take place on radiators, and Enduro Engineering has got it covered. The guards retain the stock radiator louvers. |
Here's something you don't want to see. That's the broken end of a tap inside one of the radiator mounting holes. The Enduro Engineering guards require the radiators to be removed in order to install them. KTM's threading of the radiator mount holes bordered on pathetic. The bolts would not thread back in properly, which is why I decided to clean them up with the tap. Apparently when the tap met the frame (this is a blind hole), the frame won out. |
Once I ground out the broken tap with a Dremel tool (and a very hard coated grinding bit), I went straight for the Heli-coil on both of the mounting holes on that side of the frame (the other side was much better). |
Here's another interesting product I tried for the first time: threaded inserts for hand guards. The inside ends of the handlebars are tapped and the silver thingies are threaded into the bar ends. The inserts came from Emig Racing, which also supplied the handlebar top clamp for the Scotts Steering Damper and the bolt-on steering damper tower. |
The supplied tap cuts fairly easily through aluminum bars. A little red Loctite keeps the insert in place. For the past 10 years or so I'd used hand guard mounts that bolted directly to the top triple clamp. I usually had to buy a new top triple clamp, however, because most stock triple clamps these days are not made to accept clamp-mounted brackets for the hand guards. I didn't really mind, though, because usually the aftermarket triple clamps were of better quality than the stockers. But KTM put some nice ones on the 250EXC and I saw no need to toss aside the clamps just because I wanted hand guards that never rotate around the bars after a crash. The threaded inserts are said to greatly reduce these hand guard rotations by keeping the guards firmly planted to the handlebars. They've worked as well as advertised. |
Enduro Engineering clutch slave cylinder guard. These types of guards have been part of every KTM I've owned. Enduro Engineering made them just a little better by including a metal piece that runs above the countershaft sprocket. No mud buildup from the stock plastic guard - that's a good thing. |
And of course, no bike of mine would be complete without a Scotts steering damper. I can't count the number of times these things have save me from pain. |
I decided to go with a bolt-on tower this time. Never had much luck with these on past bikes, but this one, from Emig Racing, was much better. It did come loose once, but it does stay put fairly well. |
The handlebar clamp is also from Emig Racing. It comes with four different sets of damper mounting holes for various bar clamp positions. |
The Scotts shark fin rear brake rotor protector. It's the best there is. Period. |