I had a '84 Honda xl250r before I bought the '09 klx250s. Got it for the wife but it had a bad case of head shake no matter what I did short of getting a Scott's stabilizer so I got the Kawi. But quickly found out that the older machine (2K miles) easily kept up with the newer machine. Wtf? Water cooled, shim under bucket, modern wonder didn't easily out run the air cooled dinosaur. $3400 more too. After break in the klx was not faster by any stretch of the imagination. If the older dual carbed bike had a header & jetting ? Electric start newer bike with the big bore kit made it acceptable.

 

i like the oldie

 

I had 4 of those off road model XR250's over time...'84, '86, '88, and '90. The '84/'85 models were well known to have more power than the later models due to that progressive dual carb setup. And when you hopped up the '84/'85 models with Powroll goodies, they would stomp any similarly modded single carb models even more. That design took total advantage of the dual exhaust outlet design of the Honda. However, as usual, it took some periodic fiddling of keeping the linkage syched to yield smooth operation, and let's face the fact that dumber is better for most people.

Now, moving ahead to the KLX, it has more potential than the XR or XRL 250 motors of that era. As delivered, I'm not surprised by your results. However, you start leaning on the motor mods a bit with the KLX, and you will get a bigger performance return. And that era of XR250's ate a fairly steady diet of pistons and bore jobs. I don't mean the motors "blew up"...just that the air-cooling coupled with a fairly short skirted piston didn't do much for long piston, ring, and bore life. Still, a piston and bore job was a decently easy and cheap affair as the engine didn't use a plated cylinder. I think this is why you saw the XR250R and L models disappear and the ancient 230-engined models remained. What did I say about "dumber is better" for most folks?

On that head shake...man, you are absolutely right on the '84/'85 models. They had an extremely short wheel base and steep steering angle. In the woods, they'd out handle many superior bikes, but when things opened up they could get scarey, even with their limited power. I currently have a complete 2001 Honda CR125R rolling chassis sitting in my shop without an engine and radiators. I've seen an '84 and later XR250 engine installed in one of those, and it made a killer trail machine. The air-cooled and shorter cylinder head profile of those XR engines will allow them to be stuffed into a 125 2S chassis amazingly well. I've dreamed about it.

 

I have lots of time aboard 250's from the mid 1970's on up having owned many and rode even more. This issue was noticeable to me on my first ride when I had bought the KLX new, if I would have taken a test ride I doubt I would have got it as the performance was poor compared to every other 250 I had ever ridden. I was sick by the time I got it home. I just hoped some performance mods would add some needed zip. And I agree with TNC here as this bike did respond better to each and every mod than any other 1/4 liter bike I had done mods to. It still is no faster than some of the Honda's I've owned but it became a different animal with bolt on's. Throw in the fact that the suspension is decent out of the box and it became a keeper.