Never had a dirtbike before...tell me about my bike

[cfox]

Hi, new to the forum although I've been lurking and reading posts for a few weeks now. After restoring a "78 Honda GL1000 that set for 15 years I decided I needed another project. I picked up a '94 Kdx200. Although I'm not familiar with 2 strokes, It started 2nd kick and ran pretty well. The machine has seen a lot of use and needs some stuff replaced.
First I yanked all the plastic, the radiators and the tank so I could clean the engine. The FMF gold series pipe was dented and dinged all to hell, the sprockets and chain were plumb wore out and the radiator shrouds were busted and patched up with the "frankenstein looking" zip tie method. Spooge, yeah a bunch of that coming out the exhaust port, the silencer and around the sparkplug. As I was cleaning the engine I discovered the plug was about 3 turns shy of tight in the cylinder head and one of the headbolts was loose also. I looked in the exhaust port and was surprised it actually looked clean in there. The piston wasn't scoured or carboned up, although there was some discoloration of what I assume to be the KIPS valve. I pulled the KIPS cover and it was pretty oily in there but the shaft moves freely. Next I went to the carb. The carb was dirty on the outside but new looking on the inside. The airbox was nasty but the foam air filter looked pretty clean.(the PO didn't clean anything else on the bike but it looks like he cleaned the air filter pretty regular) The PO who bought it a year ago said it had a top end done about 2 years ago and that it had aftermarket forks. The forks are "KYB" inverted and blue in color. If I'm understanding correctly the "E-6's came stock with inverted forks, were they blue in color? Maybe he just thought they were aftermarkets.
The cooling system's in good shape and the tires are fair.

Here's what I'm doing to it:
New radiator shrouds, a rear fender, new sprockets and chain, an FMF fatty and turbinecore silencer complete with a new copper crush gasket and rubber O-rings and springs, a UNI filter and that brings me around to the jetting...
I bought a manual from the Kawasaki dealership and it tells me stock for this bike is 158/48 1172 needle 4th clip from the top and airscrew 1.5 turns out.
It's set up now as 150/48 1172 needle with the clip second from bottom and the airscrew 1 turn out.
I've looked at Freddettes reccomendations and the FMF reccomendations for jetting with the fatty and they both call for a bigger mainjet. It looks to me like the bike is running pretty rich from all the "spooge" and bigger main would only make it worse. With the airscrew 1 turn out does that mean the 48 pilot jet is about right? Do I need to follow the bigger mainjet reccomendations? How about the needle?
I know I'm going to have to experiment around and dial it in I just want reccomendations on where to start with the jetting.
I've read the how to jet post and I've looked at other members jetting on this site and the jetting specs are all over the map.
I'll never race the bike, or do "gnarly hill climbs", I just want to ride around forrest trails in the Ozark National forrest on a bike that performs well and doesn't spooge a lot. I'm leaving the gearing stock for now. Elavation around 1000 ft above sea-level temps from 50-90 degrees and pretty humid most of the time. Tell me your thoughts.

[KDXrider1989]

All I have to say is that rich is better than lean, I'm no jetting expert but my '89 has a 155 main and 45 pilot, stock needle in middle position and it runs nice, smokes a little when cold but stops once it's warmed up, not much spooge either. It has pretty much the same stuff your bike does and I am around sea-level in altitude with the same temp. range. Granted that all engines are slightly different, but the 48 pilot is pretty fat IMO. The type of 2-stroke oil you are using also matters, and check to see if there are any leaks anywhere concerning the intake and top end. I hope this info helps

and also, the blue USD forks were stock on the '93 and '94 models

[vaughnp]

Here is a great post on jetting if you havent happened upon it yet:

http://kdxrider.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1156

Hope that helps and welcome to the site!

[KDXGarage]

How is this rebuild going?

[cfox]

As per KDXrider89 I put a 155main and a 45 pilot with a 1173 needle middle position and it runs well. I have to adjust the airscrew a little everytime I ride. I pulled the swingarm and shock rocker to grease them and found nothing left to grease, so I replaced the swingarm bearings and found a good rocker unit off of ebay from a "91. Also replaced the rear brake rotor and pads. It's a fun bike.

[fuzzy]

How banged up is the pipe? I'd likely reuse. SOme dents have actually been dynoed to increase power...LOL. Also there is pc pipe repair.

[cfox]

the small end just after it comes out of the head was really dented. I already put a new fatty on it, but kept the old one.

[fuzzy]

Cool, when you get around to it...post some pics of your 'wing.

[cfox]

I'd be glad to post some pics of the wing and the KDX but I can't figure out how to post images on this forum.

[Julien D]

You'll need to set up an account at photobucket, imgur, or some other image hosting site. Most of them have a "share" function, and you will need the IMG code from that function. Post that into your topic reply, and the image will be displayed. Otherwise, you can post the link to the image, and then place the IMG tags around it. You can just highlight the link text in your post as you are composing, and click the "img" button in the toolbar above.

[cfox]