Rat 500 refresh

[86T3]

I bought Just Ben's tecate 500 last September , and naturally, after racing it for 2 seasons while Ben owned it the motor locked up before I could pick it up. Ben wanted to take it out for one last drag race and was messing with idle air fuel when one of the crank bearings locked up. No big deal, I wanted to get the crank balanced anyways. Luckily for me, Jason Hall was coming out to NY for the air mx and wanted to build my motor, so it went home with him. The crank went to crank works in AZ, had the damage from the locked bearing repaired, a new rod installed and ballanced. Jason gave the cylinder a mild porting and reassembled the motor. In the mean time, I had HRE build me a +3 chromoly swingarm that uses a Honda 400ex carrier set up. The frame on the rat 500 had a pretty food tweak in it so I used the frame from my polished bike because ben included a mint frame with the sale. I figured I wouldn't damage a mint frame by modifying it for the spark plug recess, so I decided to swap frames. It took a long time, but I finished the bike for trikefest and fired it for the first time there. Jason helped me get the jetting set, but unfortunately, the rain came and canceled the drags before It could make its mark. It's first official race was at Unadilla where it ran excellent, and it's second outing was at Pine Lake. After these races, I dropped the front sprocket from a 15 to a 14 and it really made the bike come to life. Next weekend were going drag racing at a local fire hall for some practice, and in a coupel weeks is the $ race where im going to embarass Sanchez ' s honda 500 trike. Here's a couple pictures of it in action
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[John_Neary]

that is a man's machine, my 1990 KX500 was my all time favorite motocross bike

[fieldy]

Where is the $ ràce at and how does the 500 compare to the measly suped up 250's in a race? Thank you i really enjoyed your Kawasaki photos because I like Kawasaki's best.

[tecaterob]

Awesome, I'm going to do the HRE on my build a little later. Can't wait to see some video on it some post of it in action ASAP....

How do you like it compared to the 250, I haven't driven a KXT500?

[86T3]

The 500 is faster than the 250's for sure, but I regularly get beat by 250's because I'm not the fastest rider out there. The last photo in my first post is the start of our heat race last weekend, I'm out in front of 3 or 4 450's, a 310 triz (in his defense he wasn't ready for the start), and a 350r. I ride Ben's 250 sometimes and I feel I'm faster on his trike because it's a little easier to ride, all that power and traction is hard to handle. My porting and pipe are set for an all around power so it's a torque monster. It doesn't rev very high and gets a ton of traction. The best way I can describe it is its a cross between a 250 2 stroke and a 450. I'm trying to find another pipe that will go a bit higher.

Some things I forgot to mention about the bike is that I have a second front end that's a kx100 invert set up. I tried it at Unadilla but had to steal ben's front end off his 250 because I couldn't get it stiff enough. I need to look into different valving and stronger springs, or maybe just go on a diet. I'm running the stock shock on the rear with a 400lb spring on it and it's worked excellent so far. The 2 best features of the bike are a magura hydraulic clutch and a decompression valve in the head. The clutch pull is effortless and it kicks over like a 125. I regularly start it in sandals. The crank balancing took away 90% of the vibrations. It vibrates less than a stock tecate now. I'm running vforce 2 reeds with a special bullet cage that a guy on kxriders made. It has custom 500 decals on it from blueline (Bruce) and my absolute favorite thing of all, the zebra seat from hi flite.
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[tecaterob]

Is the pipe from Nick?? Thanks for all the info

[tecaterob]

Never mind I remembered its was Nicks pipe. What if you change your tires for a little less traction and go with a bigger carb. I when an lectron 44mm.

[86T3]

I replied to your question earlier today, I'm sorry it didn't go through. Yea, it's one of nick's pipes. For flat track I try to play with air pressure instead of completely changing tires. I was running 20lbs at pine lake, and at the last race in freedom I was down to 14. Still probably 5 lbs more than anyone else, lol. I'm a c class rider with an a class bike, basically what it comes down to. I'm just running the stock carb, I never thought of going bigger. Maybe I'll look into it over the winter. Fact is, I have a new build coming the end of this month that I plan on racing next year, I don't really know what I'm going to use this trike for. It's going to be a game changer

[fieldy]

Nice jumpout!

Would you use wider axles in motocross and flat track? Do you run10" rims in both?
..............Balancing sounds great!

[86T3]

I have a set of lawn mower tires on 8" rims for flat track and a couple sets of fast trekkers on 10s for mx. I think I'm going to try holeshots for mx next time because the fast trekkers spun a bit too much.