250 Jetting Question

I have a 2000 kx250 that i blew the main bearing on last season. I have now torn it apart and am in the process of rebuilding it with a new crank, rod and piston assembly off of Ebay. (Wiseco rod and crank, namura piston). Anyways, the bike already has an fmf fatty and powercore silencer and has a 52 pilot and a 160 main jet. I have the cylinder in the shop right now getting bored slightly (new piston is going to be a 67.35mm stock piston was a 66.35mm) and am having a very mild porting job done to it. I am wondering what jet sizes you guys would recommend to go with?


Ps-I blew the main bearing going wide open on the lake bed racing my buddies yz250. I'd rather foul a plug once in awhile than risk blowing it up again because this rebuild has gotten pretty damn expensive. Prior to blowing it up, the jetting seemed pretty spot on and hardly ever fouled plugs.

Should I just try 1 or 2 sizes bigger on the main only? and what is considered 1 size bigger? 175? 170?

Thanks
 
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SRAD97750

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Staff member
I have a 2000 kx250 that i blew the main bearing on last season. I have now torn it apart and am in the process of rebuilding it with a new crank, rod and piston assembly off of Ebay. (Wiseco rod and crank, namura piston). Anyways, the bike already has an fmf fatty and powercore silencer and has a 52 pilot and a 160 main jet. I have the cylinder in the shop right now getting bored slightly (new piston is going to be a 67.35mm stock piston was a 66.35mm) and am having a very mild porting job done to it. I am wondering what jet sizes you guys would recommend to go with?


Ps-I blew the main bearing going wide open on the lake bed racing my buddies yz250. I'd rather foul a plug once in awhile than risk blowing it up again because this rebuild has gotten pretty damn expensive. Prior to blowing it up, the jetting seemed pretty spot on and hardly ever fouled plugs.

Should I just try 1 or 2 sizes bigger on the main only? and what is considered 1 size bigger? 175? 170?

Thanks
I would remain with stock jetting, pre-mix, and set-up. The engine was probably tired.
The 1 mm overbore will not change the fuel/air it requires.
Namura is a good company, I use them, but some folks are going to tell you otherwise.
Keep us updated and post some photos of the build!
-BIG DAN:thumb:
 
I have a 2000 kx250 that i blew the main bearing on last season. I have now torn it apart and am in the process of rebuilding it with a new crank, rod and piston assembly off of Ebay. (Wiseco rod and crank, namura piston). Anyways, the bike already has an fmf fatty and powercore silencer and has a 52 pilot and a 160 main jet. I have the cylinder in the shop right now getting bored slightly (new piston is going to be a 67.35mm stock piston was a 66.35mm) and am having a very mild porting job done to it. I am wondering what jet sizes you guys would recommend to go with?


Ps-I blew the main bearing going wide open on the lake bed racing my buddies yz250. I'd rather foul a plug once in awhile than risk blowing it up again because this rebuild has gotten pretty damn expensive. Prior to blowing it up, the jetting seemed pretty spot on and hardly ever fouled plugs.

Should I just try 1 or 2 sizes bigger on the main only? and what is considered 1 size bigger? 175? 170?

Thanks

@SRAD97750 is right on all accounts. I'm a wiseco fan but have never heard of an actual namura piston failure by design. Jetting is a constant. I would often tune my jets through out the day depending on temps, humidity and elevation, but that's mx racing.
Why are you boring the bike out?
Is it steel sleeved? With the boring and aftermarket pipe you will probably have to re-jet the carb and it's not a guessing game.
I had a 99 kx250 and it was the fastest most durable bike I ever owned. I installed the hotrod crank and moto-Tassarini vforce reeds and had to rejet. Also remember this bike is designed and built for racing from corner to corner not wide open lake beds. If that's what you like to do then I do suggest going slightly fatter on top (after you get your perfect jetting results) and going to higher gearing. Keep in mind that your throttle response will change and so will the lower end grunt.
 
You mention the main bearing failure: If it seized that bearing first consider that the bearing was likely failing for a longer period of time that you realize. When a bearing is failing the seal has a much harder job of keeping the charged air on the inside and the uncharged air on the outside, so your engine loses vacuum and runs lean.

I would put it back together and set the float and jetting to stock or close to it and ride it and jet it accordingly. As was pointed out the way yours came was with moto cross conditions in mind. If you are going to use it like a cross country bike (as i do most of mine) you may want to take a page out of the books of some of the most successful desert and baja racers when it comes to fuel mix. 20-1 was a pretty wide choice for some of the fastest on all brands in the day. I use it, especially on big two strokes that will be wound out further than usual.
 
on the other hand, it may be that it was lean on total fuel and got hot due to being lean. So, I would go one larger on the main. Not because it is bored out, just because it broke on you the way it was. Also, you never said what ratio the mix was. If you change to 20-1 that would probly be a big change and would lean out the fuel mix slightly which would then lead to a bigger problem if the main was already a little lean and led to the failure. I say main cuz you were WFO for an extended time on the lake bed. 20-1 is fine, but you need to jet to it or whatever mix you choose. If you are using 50-1 and go to 20-1 it is not like you change the total mix by a lot, it probly only ends up being a 3% difference in the gasoline in the mix. Usually its not the amount of oil that is the cause of a failure(unless its a poor oil or not enough in the mix like 100-1) it is usually not enuf total fuel thru the jets that causes the over heat and leads to the failure.
 
Yeah, it never even ends up being half a main jet size. read some works by men like Gordon Jennings and you can see the benefit of the added oil, would be my suggestion. Oil has more wives' tails surrounding it than probably anything. whether it is two stroke mix or 4 stroke lubricants.

Going back to stock suggested jetting is always my way when I make changes, but I have seen so few jetting problems where bearing failures are concerned to wonder if I have ever seen one. Air leaks are a little different(they do change effective jetting of course), and they come with failing bearings anyway. no mix ratios are going to alleviate that in a worn engine nor was it my intent to suggest it. So I would go stock, choose a mix, and find your jetting in the traditional means. FYI an increase in displacement on the previous carburetion will cause an increase in vacuum, air velocity follows that, and your bike would actually run richer than it was on the smaller displacement. the boring process on a two stroke tends to retard at least the transfer timing when material is taken away from the cylinder walls. in times past boring also retarded the exhaust port timing as well. with more modern arrangements including power valves the exhaust timing is now changed little and may even be advanced during boring. if your exhaust timing and transfer timing is retarded you get an increase in compression, which may necessitate a richer jet than you needed before the boring. if you go so large on the bore to affect your squish area you may end up needing some really big jets to keep the bike from detonating to the point of preigntion and "death". I have seen some bigbore jobs that turned into total dogs because of things like that. how much change is determined by what the actual angles are of the ports. you find the change in timing with a degree wheel, if you care. you can use a pretty simple formula of .25 x the bore increase to determine the change in port height. derived from most modern transfer ports having 45 degree or close port angles. When you retard port timing you usually eliminate some overlap and that again increases vacuum which in effect richens jetting. FAR more so than I have ever seen in changing an oil mix. So rather than trying to use some slide rule method to determine what to start with, it is just pretty darn hard to go wrong returning to stock and going from there to suit your needs. Like Mi said, jetting or optimum jetting changes hourly in some cases even if nothing else seems to change.

Most of us are running what I call "chicken jetting" just to try to keep from seizing and engine that will be used in varying conditions, perhaps all on the same ride. there are two things on your carburetor that can affect the overall jetting of your engine: the air or fuel screw (in the case of most 4 strokes) and your float level. most of us opt for standard float levels and play up and down during the day if the need arises on the air/fuel screws to get what we want.
 
Yeah, it never even ends up being half a main jet size. read some works by men like Gordon Jennings and you can see the benefit of the added oil, would be my suggestion. Oil has more wives' tails surrounding it than probably anything. whether it is two stroke mix or 4 stroke lubricants.

Going back to stock suggested jetting is always my way when I make changes, but I have seen so few jetting problems where bearing failures are concerned to wonder if I have ever seen one. Air leaks are a little different(they do change effective jetting of course), and they come with failing bearings anyway. no mix ratios are going to alleviate that in a worn engine nor was it my intent to suggest it. So I would go stock, choose a mix, and find your jetting in the traditional means. FYI an increase in displacement on the previous carburetion will cause an increase in vacuum, air velocity follows that, and your bike would actually run richer than it was on the smaller displacement. the boring process on a two stroke tends to retard at least the transfer timing when material is taken away from the cylinder walls. in times past boring also retarded the exhaust port timing as well. with more modern arrangements including power valves the exhaust timing is now changed little and may even be advanced during boring. if your exhaust timing and transfer timing is retarded you get an increase in compression, which may necessitate a richer jet than you needed before the boring. if you go so large on the bore to affect your squish area you may end up needing some really big jets to keep the bike from detonating to the point of preigntion and "death". I have seen some bigbore jobs that turned into total dogs because of things like that. how much change is determined by what the actual angles are of the ports. you find the change in timing with a degree wheel, if you care. you can use a pretty simple formula of .25 x the bore increase to determine the change in port height. derived from most modern transfer ports having 45 degree or close port angles. When you retard port timing you usually eliminate some overlap and that again increases vacuum which in effect richens jetting. FAR more so than I have ever seen in changing an oil mix. So rather than trying to use some slide rule method to determine what to start with, it is just pretty darn hard to go wrong returning to stock and going from there to suit your needs. Like Mi said, jetting or optimum jetting changes hourly in some cases even if nothing else seems to change.

Most of us are running what I call "chicken jetting" just to try to keep from seizing and engine that will be used in varying conditions, perhaps all on the same ride. there are two things on your carburetor that can affect the overall jetting of your engine: the air or fuel screw (in the case of most 4 strokes) and your float level. most of us opt for standard float levels and play up and down during the day if the need arises on the air/fuel screws to get what we want.


I read this and see a man who loves the mechanics of anything in motion. :hail:
 
I ended up getting it all back together last Wednesday and took it riding over the weekend. The bike runs great now, but i think it may be running a bit lean. I went with a 165 main instead of the 160 it had in it. Didn't have any problems with fouling plugs, but when ran hard it would sort of surge up and down in rpms at idle. Not sure if that means it is running a little lean or what. The bike use to do this sometimes when I would rde it up a sand hill wide open, but it seems to be doing it more often now. air/fuel screw is 1.5 turns out. Before the rebuild it was 2.5 turns out. 32-1 mixture with yamalube racing oil. The "porting job" was only to clean up the ports a bit. Did not change the size of any of them. The cylinder has a steel sleeve and I bored it slightly because the people doing the work to the head said it was time. Thinking of either putting in a slightly bigger pilot jet or messing with the air screw, but I want to be careful. My buddy with the same bike fouled 2 plugs on the same rides, not sure about his jetting but he has a custom made pro circuit pipe because his bike is a 2015 kx250f frame with a 2003 kx250 engine in it so they had to custom make the pipe for it.
 
your going up two sizes in the main won't be felt at idle. they start up and idle fine without a main jet most of the time.

sounds more like an air leak to me. your friends bike likely needs some float work if he is puking plugs that fast. is yours ,set?
 
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it is getting hot in the part of the throttle you are using...So, if it has the high ding ding idle and you just did a hill climb or ran it wide open for a minute, then it is lean on the main. If the idle settles down after 20-30 seconds this also helps to backup what I laid out. It is good on the pilot if it has enough gas to cool it down after the wide open run if the ding ding idle stops. Turning the air screw in will help it cool down faster but is only masking the issue of the main.
 
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