2008 KLR-650
by Todd Vosper
by Todd Vosper
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is prohibited without the express written consent of the author. For more information or to request permission to publish this
document, please see our contact page. For information on our pledge to maintain your privacy click here. To learn more about
your friends at Top Gun Motorcycles, read about us here.
2008 KLR-650 Snap Shots
There's nothing quite like a tracking gun shot in an air-to-air engagement. Even in today's
modern aircraft there are certain assumptions that are made when designing a gunsight,
and a tracking shot only comes when you've satisfied those assumptions - closure is
under control, range is valid, sight is stabilized, etc. And as you can imagine, they don't
come easy. More often, a pilot will be presented with shots of opportunity where the most
important assumptions are met, but not all - a snap shot. When this occurs, the pilot relies
on his experience and knowledge of his systems, a little Kentucky Windage, and a little
luck, and puts a burst of gunfire into the expected path of the enemy. A highly trained pilot
will make good use of these opportunities, and in doing so, can sometimes get a kill even
when his adversary is successfully defeating other shot opportunities.
Likewise then, with this page. These are Top Gun snap shots taken on the new KLR.
We've got most of the assumptions satisfied, but not all. We'll give you our best take on
something we see that is interesting and we'll follow up with more detailed information in a
later article. Who knows, we might just get a kill anyway!
There's nothing quite like a tracking gun shot in an air-to-air engagement. Even in today's
modern aircraft there are certain assumptions that are made when designing a gunsight,
and a tracking shot only comes when you've satisfied those assumptions - closure is
under control, range is valid, sight is stabilized, etc. And as you can imagine, they don't
come easy. More often, a pilot will be presented with shots of opportunity where the most
important assumptions are met, but not all - a snap shot. When this occurs, the pilot relies
on his experience and knowledge of his systems, a little Kentucky Windage, and a little
luck, and puts a burst of gunfire into the expected path of the enemy. A highly trained pilot
will make good use of these opportunities, and in doing so, can sometimes get a kill even
when his adversary is successfully defeating other shot opportunities.
Likewise then, with this page. These are Top Gun snap shots taken on the new KLR.
We've got most of the assumptions satisfied, but not all. We'll give you our best take on
something we see that is interesting and we'll follow up with more detailed information in a
later article. Who knows, we might just get a kill anyway!
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- Rear suspension links are 10mm longer - Kawasaki lowered the bike just like any
aftermarket lowering kit (rear shock is the same eye-to-eye length as the old one.
This places the swingarm and wheel higher in it's arc than the older version -
we've got marks on our Chain Master already just from riding on the street! This
is also why the chain slack adjustment has gone from 50mm-60mm to 35mm-
45mm. We'll do more work on wheel clearance, check the chain slack figure, etc.
- Rear wheel is listed as a 130/80-17 but measures more like a 120/90-17. 120/90-
17 is a better fit for the stock rim anyway. We will be checking soon, but we're not
sure there's enough clearance for a 510 knobbie tire.
- 50.8 miles per gallon on our first fill-up (sticking to the break-in RPM limit of
4000).
- (5/18/05) We have roughly 700 miles on the new bike. Although the manual says
15,000 for the first valve inspection, we decided to check anyway. One valve had
closed to the limit of the specs already! The others were still in limits but we're
glad we opened it up and checked. Elden will have a full report on the valve
adjustment and other observations on a special mid-month Tech Insights (soon!).
- (5/18/05) Another example of Kawi fit and finish. The left side seat bracket on our
bike is mis-aligned. So much so that you need to push down very hard on the
seat to get the holes to match up. There's a metal collar that fits in the plastic of
the seat. Be careful if yours is mis-matched - ours came with a big bite out of it
when the factory didn't get the holes lined up for installation.
- (5/18/05) Elden found out quickly that the metal "curb feeler" pegs that Kawi has
installed underneath the rider's foot pegs are definitely in the way of an
aggressive rider. He touched down and caught a boss dot on the highway that
bent the peg and nearly knocked his foot from the foot peg. Definitely less lean-
angle clearance with these installed.
- (5/18/05) The fuel tank appears to be the same as the old one - just with more
brackets attached. We took the side fairings off for a better look during the valve
adjustment. One note to home wrenchers, there is more "stuff" to have work
around on the new bike.
- (5/20/07) The new chain slipper seems to be an improvement. It is thicker, seems
to be made of a different material, and has a guide ridge top an bottom. We think
this will contribute to longer chain life. Speaking of chain life, we carefully
measured the chain and 35mm of chain slack (factory spec 35mm-45mm) is too
tight. We recommend '08 owners stay closer to 45mm when adjusting their chain.
- (5/20/07) The '08 rear wheel appears to be able to move higher into the wheel
well. We'll know more when we complete our study of the new shock.
Nevertheless, we did notice that the chain engages the Chain Master
considerably earlier than the wheel reaching full travel. Although there have
been some changes to the rear suspension, there has been no change to the
positioning of the airbox. Our Chain Master already has a nice set of marks on it
from engaging the drive train. We are going to modify the Chain Master slightly
for the 2008 KLR. Look for '08 model Chain Masters soon!
- (5/20/07) There was much made in the press releases about the new fork size,
and following that, some discussion of using the new forks in the old triple
clamps. First, we're not convinced yet that the new forks are necessarily better.
Second, the triple clamps aren't going to cross-over. It will take some work if that
is a project you are interested in.
- (5/20/07) The new cooling system is noticeably more efficient than the older
model. We will do a more detailed comparison in the near future. However, the
radiator itself is attached to the frame in only two places (instead of three places
on the old model. With the fairing off, the radiator wiggles around enough to
make you feel uneasy about it's chances in a fall. As you can see, it attaches to
the fairing in several places, which does provide some stability during normal
riding. We hope none of you get to test it's crash worthiness any time soon.
| This is the longest spacer we've seen in a fork. |
| Top shock is the new 2008 piston/shim stack. |
| An efficient new radiator, but Kawi really left it hanging in the breeze. We wish it had more solid support. |
- (7/2/07) We had the weight of the rear spring checked by Mark Behnke of
Precision Concepts in El Cajon. The new spring is 4.91kg (275lbs), compared to
5.05kg's on the old model. We will have two new springs to cover both old and
new models in the next 4-6 weeks, and will allow us to accommodate a much
larger range of riders.
- (7/2/07) We've had questions ourselves about the fan switch on the 2008 since
the darn thing hardly seems to ever turn on. We finally got our hands on our
service manual: 2008 fan switch turns on with rising temperature at 203-214 deg
F (201-212 for the older models) and turns off with falling temperature at 189
deg F or less (196 on the older models).
- (7/8/07) We wondered why Kawasaki no longer included the balancer chain
tension adjustment in the Owner's Manual, even though the same adjustment
system was present. Turns out the factory DOES include it in the service manual;
every 7,500 miles.
- (7/18/07) Perusing the service manual I did find an interesting change in the
procedure for installing the rotor. We don't see the need to change the balancer
lever, though we can't see any way around having to install a shorter adjustment
spring sometime in the future. The new procedure calls for torquing the rotor bolt
to 15 ft-lbs, removing the rotor bolt, cleaning and drying the bolt before
reinstalling, then torquing the rotor bolt to 144 ft-lbs.
| New 2008 exhaust pipe mounted to 2005 KLR650. |
- (7/18/07) Here's a picture of one-half
of the 2008's new "one piece exhaust"
(as claimed in Kawi's literature) fitting
nicely on a pre-2008 with stock
muffler. Not sure where the "one
piece" bit comes from. The new pipe
sports a better mounting system for
the pipe cover, with more space
between pipe and cover and rubber
dampers. Hopefully this will solve a
common problem with the pre-2008
models which would often exhibit
cracking around the mounting holes in
the pipe cover. The rubber dampers
might bear watching to see how they
hold up to the heat around the pipe.
- (6/10/07) Here (below) are a couple of
pictures showing some interesting
finds concerning the 2008's
suspension. We will have a more
comprehensive article concerning the
front and rear suspension very soon.
The picture on the left shows a
comparison between the new shock
and the old model. The new shock
uses a conventional piston and shim
stack, a definite upgrade for the 2008.
The picture on the right shows the
surprisingly long spacer found in the
fork. This thing measures almost 12"
long! Again, we'll have a more
comprehensive article on the front
- (6/10/07) Speaking of forks, we asked a practicing mechanical engineer to do
some calculations for us based on our measurements of the new forks. The new
forks have a larger outer diameter but thinner walls. Structurally, the new forks
should be able to resist deflection 12% better than the old forks. Of course, there
are some other variables that come into play in the real world of riding. One note
we'd like to mention. In over 255,000 miles of KLR riding, we've never had a
problem with the old KLR forks. We've never used a fork brace either; just
proper axle spacing, proper torque and fastener tightening sequence, and
properly adjusted steering bearings.
- and rear suspension very soon, and we're currently working on ways to
potentially upgrade both ends.
- (8/5/07) We ran an informal braking test from 50mph to zero between the 2008
and a pre-08 with the 320mm EBC rotor (front brake only). Both bikes stopped
virtually in the same distance. This speaks well for the new 08's front brake, but
also shows that owners of pre-08 models can have the same performance by
upgrading to a larger rotor.
- (9/2/08) A few months back, we had a strange problem with our KLR that we
initially attributed to the carb. The bike would only start and run with the choke
lever pulled. The bike would inevitably die once the lever was closed. Our big
surprise was finding the emissions canister had fuel in it! Emptying it solved the
problem, but now we had a new mystery - how did it get there? We are carefully
about not overfilling our CA tank, and the bike had never been tipped over. Fast
forward to this month when we were doing some maintenance, and had removed
the emissions gear. We pulled out the service manual to confirm the hose routing
as we were reinstalling the equipment and to our surprise, the hoses had NOT
BEEN CONNECTED PROPERLY at the factory! Probably goes a long way to
solving that fuel-in-the-canister mystery... Check your emission hose routing!
UPDATE!!
| The Top Gun Chain Master will fit 87-08 KLR650s. |
| Top Gun Motorcycles |