I just joined the KX500 club about a month ago. I had the head off a week ago, and it seems like there is a lot of slop between the piston and cylinder. I think it will be ok for a little while, but I'm going to change out the piston this winter. I was just wondering if the weight difference between a stock (OEM) piston, and an aftermarket, ex.(Weisco Pro-lite) makes much difference in the amount vibration from the engine. It would seem to make sense to me that the crank and lobes would be balanced for the stock piston, but a lighter or heavier piston would throw the whole works off balance and cause increased vibration.
I'm also planning on having the cylinder replated at Luke?s Racing (
http://www.lukesracing.com/luksr/np.html). He's only about 50 miles from me so I can go up there myself to check out the shop. Any opinions about his work would be appreciated.
I have some other mods I plan on making this winter also, including: Setting up the suspension, adding a flywheel weight, lighting coil, headlight, taillight, Spark arrestor...basically I'm trying to make a large KDX out of it for high altitude mountain riding. (8,000'-13,800') and I weigh 300 lbs.
Any advice for building to this purpose would also be appreciated.
Thanks
Dan Gillman
Gil2264@earthlink.net