New guy intro (with bike pics)

[RockerYZWR]

New guy checking in here - been lurking a pretty long time and finally decided to join up.  I've gotten a lot of help from this site in the past.

 

I grew up riding dirtbikes and had a streetbike for a little while, but then went without a bike of any sort for about 14 years after a really bad street accident in '98.  I spent a whole day on a CRF450X five years ago and have been wanting to get back on a dirtbike of my own for a long while.  Decided the WR450 was perfect for me, and found a VERY lightly used 2011 WR in May of this year that the guy had already converted to dual sport (with the Tusk kit), had already titled for the street, and was asking a very reasonable price for - couldn't pass it up.  Told the wife: "This is happening" (she's really cool anyway and was all for it) and bought it the day after I found it.  The guy I bought it from had also changed gearing to 14/42 (top end beast) and had done all the free/cheap mods (air box snorkel/air injection removal/GYTR muffler insert/gray wire/throttle stop/accelerator pump and some other carb stuff).

 

When I got it, I threw in a set of .48 kg/mm fork springs to better suit my weight, along with some RT Gold Valves, and a .58 spring out back.  Still working on fine tuning the front, but it rides way better than stock for sure.  I'm no means an expert rider, so my progress is slower trying to figure this stuff out.

 

Other than that, the only other stuff I've done to it is gearing, grips and the Cycra hand guards and some sweet stickers.  I also made the license plate/tail light holder assembly out of some aluminum I had laying around - looks a lot cleaner than the one from Tusk that was on there.  For gearing, I went 14/45, thinking I'd keep it reasonable for local roads and highways, but I'm going to go to 13/51 soon since I don't ride on the street much...but can if I want to!  Which is awesome.  But the lower gearing would be a lot better for what I'm doing.  And those tires are actually the factory Dunlops - might try some MX-51s or something once they're gone.

 

I'm thinking of going with some sort of pipe and have been reading up on the YZ exhaust cam.  But I haven't found myself wishing for more power quite yet and kind of like the stealth aspect of the stock muffler, so we'll see.  Plus I'm out of the country for another few months anyway (active duty military) so I have plenty of time to think about it.

 

Anyway, glad to have finally joined the site!

 

John

 

[JDLowrance]

Welcome...you made a good choice. keep up on the maintenance and the bike with serve you well and faithfully.

 

Cheers.

[RMK800]

Love the Lexx pipe, hard to beat for around 150.00. Really opens it up. Check out RMATV, there are a TON of good reviews on it. Wish I had a FI version from my 07. Maybe in a couple of years.

[zlathim]

Welcome to TT.  Nice looking bike too.

[Bazzaboy7]

Love the tail-tidy !!!! May have inspired me to try and replicate it .......

[RockerYZWR]

Thanks very much guys.  I have so far been pretty religious about the up-keep on this thing so far.  Compared to what I'm used to working on, it's really nice that (almost) everything is so simple and easy to get to and I really enjoy taking care of it. 

RMK, I'll take a look at that Lexx pipe - I'm no sort of brand snob/loyalist (with aftermarket products, anyway), and had never heard of that, despite how much money I've spent at RMATV.  Thanks for the talk-on.

And Bazzaboy, that tail light holder took about an hour to make with some sheet metal bending pliers and some shears.  I may do a re-design on it to clean it up a bit more around the blinkers when I get home. 

 

Thanks again for the welcome; it's great to read through the volumes of info on here.