DRZ fork swap

[Friedom]

I had a 99 dr350 with 96 rm250 forks on it. Was hoping to put these on the DR so I could sell it closer to stock, but someone gave me a full price offer on the DR350, so now I'm putting a 2007 drz250 front end on the 92 KDX.
Bonus: fits right into the triples as they're 43mm!
Showa 43mm cartridge forks with full compression and rebound damping.



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[KDXGarage]

Cool.

wheel fits OK?

[Friedom]

And.....done!

Easiest fork swap I've ever done. 57 min, and I was multitasking. $260 for the forks, axle, caliper, rotor, master cylinder, had the wheel on hand. Bolt on affair. Probably not as good of forks as the KX, but I can swap in my sumo front wheel that I have for the dr441!

KDX wheel doesn't fit. Smaller axle diameter, but I honestly didn't even try. The drz250, late dr350, rm250 and rmz250 all have the same 17mm front wheel, and I had a spare on hand from doing fork swaps with, well, all of the above! Xr400 used a similar wheel too, but smaller rotor.

I have applied racing triples at the machine shop getting the lower bored out to receive the kdx stem, then I can eliminate the weird "ears back" bend on the handlebars, but that's not necessary for this swap.

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[Friedom]

Got the engine sorted out(silencer packing got loose since someone was kind enough to remove the mid baffle in my stock exhaust. Thus it was clogging).
So I took it out for a test run. What a treat! What a great bike!

Went to a really gnarly rocky 4x4 area and goofed around. 56 min, top speed 71. Softened the suspension compression damping to 3 clicks all around.
What a great bike! And great trail suspension, handled speed and slow admirably. I'm a fan! If you find a good deal or want an easy swap, I recommend the 43mm showa open bath forks!

Also, posted dry weight of kdx200 and drz250 is within 30bs. 224 and 254, respectively.



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[KDXGarage]

Cool. Thanks for the ride report.

[Chuck78]

Those are very nice forks, I was looking at possibly using a set of those on a modified (longer travel) '77 Suzuki PE250 I'm building, as to have drastically stiffer & better front end damping and not be subjecting the 36mm '82 DR250 Racetech equipped forks to trail abuse, save them for the vintage racing where they'd be required due to rules. 83-84 RM250 triples accepting 43mm forks was what led me to those, as well as lower ride height needed for an old early 80's Enduro suspension. Slightly less travel than a 95-06 KDX but a better fork

Good looking swap there

[Friedom]

Those are very nice forks, I was looking at possibly using a set of those on a modified (longer travel) '77 Suzuki PE250 I'm building, as to have drastically stiffer & better front end damping and not be subjecting the 36mm 72 DR250 Racetech equipped forks to trail abuse, save them for the vintage racing where they'd be required due to rules. 83-84 RM250 triples accepting 43mm forks was what led me to those, as well as lower ride height needed for an old early 80's Enduro suspension. Slightly less travel than a 95-06 KDX but a better fork

Good looking swap there

Very cool! I hear nothing but legends about the PEs back in the day.