My SX drives like a tank?!

[chris200x]

I find my 250sx is very hard to turn. I've been riding it hard for the last two days and I must say I am very very sore. My arms and shoulders feel like jello.

I escpecially find it difficult to turn when riding on a paved road. Is there something I can do to help with this? I have a new front tire on it but was wondering if adding some air in the front tire will help any? I run about 3 or 4 lbs of air but was thinking does adding air pressure help any with the poor steering?

How about making spacers and running a skinnier front tire like on the X or R? Will I need a matching hub or will I loose my front drum brakes by doing this?

What about a diffrent front tire? What do you think is the best front tire in a 22x11x8?

I'm running just a plain knobbie up front. Any ideas? Maybe I'm just getting old?

[erectordale]

Make sure your steeering stem bearings are well greased and noy dry I had this Problem on a 200x

[Kintore]

You can run a 200x front end in it, ive heard its alot better. Im doing this when I pick up my SX this weekend! thanks B!

Also try some more air.

[chris200x]

Yea I've been thinking about the whole 200x front end since I got this SX back in febuary. But I don't want to give up my front rack and speedo. I'd like to keep it as stock as possible. I was just wondering if any of you SX guys have tried the skinnier front tire while keeping the stock SX front end. Thinking about this now If I go this route I'd probably loose the speedo anyways. Hmmm.....

[nouseforaname90]

I have no problems with my SX. It is not harder or easier to steer than my dads Big Reds or my R or Z.. so I'd say you need to grease up your bearings. The R's skinny, tall front tire makes it a little better a cornering, but thats not what you mean.

[chris200x]

Well I think my neck bearings are just fine. A few weeks back when I had the front end jacked up off the ground It moved left to right smoothly.

I put over 16 hours of seat time on this in the last two days ... Maybe this is my problem eh?

I was just sitting here thinking if there was a way to improve this a bit. Maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something simple to improve the handling of this thing.

[Tri-ZNate]

Yeah I had this problem with the old knobbie I had. Turning on paved surfaces will always be tougher than on dirt, I added more air to my front and it made it turn alot easier since there was less tire touching the ground.

[danteross77]

The skinner tire helps out alot, but I lost some of the utility fucntionablity with it. It handled like a dream otherwise, kinda hard keeping the front tire on the ground when pulling things and even when dry with the lower 1st granny gear, I normally start off in 2nd. I saved my original front end so I can always go back, I used a 250r front end with the disc brakes. Also added a set of handle bars of a rm 125 because it just felt better, more control IMO

[chris200x]

One problem I think with putting the 200x front end on is don't you have to trim up the steering stop on the neck? Would this then cause a problem if one was to go back to the stock setup?

Another problem is finding a complete front brake system.. Those are kind of hard to comeby these days.

[danteross77]

One problem I think with putting the 200x front end on is don't you have to trim up the steering stop on the neck? Would this then cause a problem if one was to go back to the stock setup?

Another problem is finding a complete front brake system.. Those are kind of hard to comeby these days.

Actually the 250r front end I am not sure of the year is simular to the 250sx in that you dont have to trim your stops. I forget because it has been a while since I completed this project but IMO the 250r front end is a better fit.

[Huffa]

Adding air will certainly help and I always run the max in mine. The only slight trade off is you won't have quite as much flex in the tire and on certain terrian it might bounce more over rather then flexing and staying on course.

I think the type tire (a cheapo) you have on would tend to get skinnier in width and taller in sidewall profile just by adding a lb of air. Try it, measure it and see!

Other possible solutions are to slide the forks up in the clamps maybe a 1/8th inch or so. This tucks the front end in a bit more and weights the front of tire more also. This should in theory make it stick better and turn a bit quicker.

You also can jack up the preload on shock which in turn is accomplishing the same thing as sliding the forks up but will also of course stiffen the rear up a hair.

If you would go with a 200X front end, don't forget, there are trade offs with that too! For instance it won't float as good over mud or snow and will tend to dig in more and that's what you don't want. I'd stick with the stock set up if I was you but for sure I agree, they look nicer with a skinnier tire.

Even just changing tires can help a good deal because your type is putting a lot of tread (most of the width across) on the ground where some tires may only put maybe 3" of tread down from the middle of tire on each side, if ya know what I mean? In other words you can have two tires the same width but one can be skinnier as far as the contact patch of tread on ground, yea, that's what I was trying to say!

One more way is to simply just borrow mine !

[chris200x]

I will try the air pressure increase and report back in a day or two.

Let me ask... Would it make a diffence at all if it were a radial tire or not? I'm not sure about mine but I would think the belted ones would be a bit stiffer.

As for the early 250R front end I would think the ones off the 1st generation air cooled R would be the one of choice. But there it still runs the fat tire. Has anyone tried a front end off an 81 or 82 fooler. I would think the suspension is a bit better at least. I would think those would be harder to find as well.

Here's something else I thought of just now. Do you think cutting some knobbies off the front tire would help any? Say every other one or so?

[traxxasx]

same here but with the 225dx in my sig hate the big ass front tire so ugly and bulky and just a waste of weight from what i ride on i want a slimmer taller front tire to but with out having to fab up anything spacers would be fine.

[Jason T]

Take a look at this link:
http://www.3wheelerworldforums.com/s...ad.php?t=46728

Doing this meant we retained the drum brake, and in your case you would be able to keep the speedo as the hub is unchanged
It has made the steering lighter, also the tyre doesn't clog with mud as easily and ground clearance is improved

Jason T

[Tri-ZNate]

One problem I think with putting the 200x front end on is don't you have to trim up the steering stop on the neck? Would this then cause a problem if one was to go back to the stock setup?

Well on my front end I actually have to weld a little more onto the stops because the forks hit the tank.