But if you get the Honda you'll have to join their Forum and be a newbie!

 

$4k is pretty amazing. I'd be all over it If KTM offered me that towards a 530 or even a 450. Maybe I should check it out.

 

That sucks josh, i have changed 5 tires and no pinched tubes yet.. and including one on the street bike... that tire wasnt that hard to get on.

 

Brian If you do decide to lower your ktm Please keep me posted. As you know I inquired about it over on Thumper Talk but wrote it off figuring it to be too expensive.

MSRP 08 KTM 450exc $8100
tax$680
Must do Mods $ 1000
total-------------
$9780
IMO...Some of the must do mods are a rejet, new seat, cooling fan, Lowering suspension. I would be looking at almost 10 grand by the time I was done..

 

Will do. I talked to a suspension guy today about it and he said doing it wouldn't be any problem. The actual lowering is easy, he said, but it requires complete disassembly and in the case of the front forks, new springs since they need to be made shorter. So the total for just shortening would be about $350 which includes both front and rear.

However, he said if I was happy with the suspension now, just wait until I tried a revalve. He says stock they are pretty much set up for pro-level riders as opposed to the rest of us mere mortals, so a revalve can make it alot more smooth and plush. I'm thinking that would take the price to about $600.

That's a lot of change, and he said that he'd not recommend going any more than about 1 inch lower. Not because of handling or anything, he said it will handle as good if not better than before (if revalved), but more for ground clearance, logs, ruts, getting foot pegs caught in ruts, etc, etc. He said four strokes are worse than two strokes because of the taller engine in order to keep the seat height from being sky high, they already put it lower in the frame so you don't have as much ground clearance to work with from the start. As a side note, I wonder if the new '09 Husaberg FE with the slanted engine would fair better in this dept?

So, I 'm thinking about it. But I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do that or not. Only 1 inch is not that much, though the revalve might make it worth it. But I think I'll try the KTM low seat first which takes about 1 inch out of the seat height first for only about $80. If that works OK, I may send my other seat back to Renazco and have them lower it as much as possible. It would suck to give up the comfy cushion, though. But such is the life of the inseam challenged. To give you an idea of where mine is, with proper sag for my weight, I measured the seat height at just a hair under 38 inches. That sags about 3 or 4 inches or so when I'm on it which makes it about 34 - 35. But my inseam is only around 29 inches.

The new height kind've sucks, but I wouldn't go back to an improperly adjusted sag to compensate. The handling is so much better it's not even comparable. I notice the biggest difference when laying it over for fast turns - before the front end would want to push out and wash. Now it just tracks around tight and true like it's on a rail. Night and day. It's amazing how a properly set up bike can make such a big difference.

On your prices above, though, depending on when and where you buy, you can get a lot off MSRP. I got my brand new '07 last March for almost $1000 less than MSRP. Mandatory mods are: JD Jet Kit $75, hand guards $60'ish, skid plate $60'ish, regear rear sprockets $40. Cutting out the tailpipe restrictor and desmogging is free. Not that I stopped there, but one could. Everything else I did was non-mandatory stuff like the Akrapovic pipe, Flexx bars, etc.

Wow, you pay a lot in tax. I think ours here in NC was only 3.5% or something. My OTD price was only only like $7300 which included everything included tax and doc fees. MSRP was $8000.

 

Wow $7300 OTD is a good deal! Tax here in N.Y. is 8.5%[:'(]
Man if i could get a new ktm for $7300 I think I would have to buy it. Even If I went out of state to buy it I would still have to pay NY tax when I register it...[:@].I too only have a 29 inseam so$350 to lower the bike isn't too bad. I plannedon buying the KTM lowering seat also But I forgot about having to regear it.[8D]Oh before I forgetwho did you talk to about lowering it. Thanks for theinfo..

 

Bruce's Suspension - http://www.brucessuspension.com/