21J ...King of Bike Projects!

Part 2 of #217 of 21J’s new projects

Went to the Chalk Bluff area along with 13 other NCWR members to work on the trail system, Nevada county Woods Riders has a contract with forest service to do trail maintenance, we divided up into groups each one of had a least one rider with a chain saw. Five hours later we had made huge progress they estimated we removed around a hundred trees in that time. We couldn’t get to parts of the trails because of the snow.

Well how did the bike perform, well good and not so good? The bike feels very comfortable with a little speed, but when I’m trying to negotiate slow switch back turns in the trees it feels very heavy in the front end and not easily turned. It’s a big mystery to me. The 2020 Husky TE300TPi I had which only weighs a couple of pounds lighter than the 350 I felt right at home. The 350 also flamed out on me a lot at very slow speeds and I remembered the last 350 trail bike I had did the same thing, shit.

So I cleaned it up and I’m back to the drawing board. I have a few things I needed to fix first before I tackle the main issues, my OX Hydro left hand operated rear brake started hanging up (Not good) the little screw that hold the spring for the kick stand came off and disappeared. The six mm screw that helps hold the frame guard snapped off when I tried to remove it. You know I’m beginning to see a theme here.

Going to look at the settings on the fuel programmer and maybe add some more fuel in the low down RPM range.

I talked with Bucky at SBB suspension about the low speed turning issue and he thinks the springs are too soft. I picked up a stiffer shock spring and Bucky ordered stiffer fork springs hopefully he will get them before this weekend so I can try it out.

Bucky installed the heaver fork springs and revalved the forks a little, in time for me to ride it this weekend doing more trail work at Chalk Bluff.

We had 24 volunteers show up for last weekend’s trail work which didn’t amount to much, so Stan and I didn’t go with the group instead we did a 34 mile trail ride about 3 hrs of run time on the motor, that works out to be about 14 miles per hour average. That certainly doesn’t sound very fast and you would be right, but it’s mostly 2^nd and 3^rd gear riding and we are old and not as fast as we once thought we were. And for those who ride in that area know 34 miles up there is a lot.

So how did the bike work this time, well I sent Bucky (SBB) a big thumbs up. It was a huge difference and now I can learn to ride this bike and gain confidence on it. How about the flame outs? I had less this time but still had too many. I’ve read a few articles about how they’ve tried to stop the stalling by putting this or that gadget on the bike; I don’t think anyone has been able to stop them completely. I watched a video on why the 350 is more prone to stalling more than any of the other KTM/Husky four strokes and I think what he had too say made sense. Basically its inertia the 350 has a very small light weight crank, flywheel and clutch so it can reach those 13,000 RPM’s and when you turn the throttle off and right back on there isn’t enough motor inertia with those lightweight parts to pull in the next gulp of air and fuel ergo flame outs and I’m a notorious off/on throttle jockey which doesn’t help. I added more fuel to the low end and that seem to help.

One thing I did notice was when I shifted into third which brought the RPM’s down and I came to sharp turns and thought I had enough inertia to pull through the corner that’s when it would mostly stall. I think the other thing that contributes to this is I have a Rekluse and I believe there may be a small amount of freewheeling that goes on when off the throttle taking away from some motor inertia, all speculation on my part. One thing I do know is the 350 seems to be more prone to flameouts than the rest of the KTM/Husky four strokes.

I installed a WC Hr meter, RPM do-dad, I found the factory set RPM at 1640 to 1670 which based on all the information I’ve ever heard in the past is too low. It’s been my assumption 350’s need to be around 2000 RPM in order to operate the EFI properly. I’ve increased the RPM to 1850 to 1900 and will try that to start with. When razing the RPM’s I will have to adjust the Rekluse to compensate for the increase in drag.

I will say this if I can’t cut way back on the stalls I will be selling this bike. I don’t blame the bike for my poor throttle skills. And at my age it will be easer not cheaper to find something that doesn’t have a reputation of stalling in the first place; in this case this would be better than trying to teach really old dog new tricks.

I thought I was done but, went to Chalk Bluff with a couple of my riding buddies we did thirty miles which is a lot for up there. I had raised the idle, reset the suspension settings and reset the fuel programmer to the stock recommendations. It didn’t start out well within the first three, four miles it stalled four times. I reset the fuel from 3 to 6 and it only stalled twice the rest of the ride. 

I changed the Rekluse engagement point; it was set at a low RPM engagement point which translates to a lower RPM point when the clutch will disengage. I’m going to experiment a little; I set it up to engage at the medium point which means a little higher RPM before it engages and a higher RPM point where it disengages. My thought is perhaps it may help with the pop stalling, we will see. I didn’t touch the suspension settings at all. This was the first ride on this bike where I really enjoyed ridding it. I put the 52 tooth back on this made it easier to use third gear everywhere this combination works much better.

Well that’s it for a while, I’m going put time on this thing and I’ll report back later.

Doug 21J