No good deed goes unpunished. I took on a project to rebuild the carb on a friend’s 2010 KLX250.

Upon rebuild I noticed the main and needle jets were not stock. Research led me to believe this had a Dynojet kit in it. Ok, so I set the mixture screw to 3 turns per the instructions vs stock 1-5/8.

Test run the bike, all seems good. To verify I have things set correctly, a push button bump should fire the bike right?…nope.

Could not get it to restart hot without choke and a tiny bit of throttle. Called my buddy, he said yeah it’s been like that since I bought it used, it needs a hair of throttle to start it. To much it won’t start etc. Sure as **** I got it to start each time by doing what he said.

So in my quest for perfection I decided to try a #38 slow jet, it was slightly better but not a true push button start. Seemed lean starting as it would ping start each time I got it going.

So I decided to check valve lash since the ODO has 16,000 miles on it. EX is right on the low side of spec at .152mm, intake is at .150mm. So not too tight but not a problem.

Then I noticed the intake cam seems to be one tooth off? This has obviously been apart before with notes painted on the cam cover. Any ideas how or why this was put together like this?

 

Could it be the marcelino cam mod? https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...rcelino-35904/

 

No, the MCM would have the marks significantly higher, 2 teeth higher. I'd make sure the crank is at TDC compression, the T mark, in the crank timing hole. Then look at the marks, it could be one tooth off on either the exhaust or intake. Not knowing if the mark is properly lined up in the picture, I cannot tell which would be questionable. It does look as if the intake is off and would be one tooth if the exhaust mark was parallel to the head surface. But again, don't know if the engine is spot on for TDC compression.

 

Yes, it’s 100% on the T mark. I set it there to check the valve lash then noticed the cam alignment.

 

Ok, after reading the service manual, I’m going to count the pins between A and C as noted and see where I’m at.

 

So the pin count checks out at 32 like the diagram shows. With the T mark aligned the EX cam is slightly off in the CCW direction. The Intake mark is also CCW past parallel.

This leads me to believe this is a product of normal to excessive chain wear?




But when I move the T slightly past alignment so the EX marks are perfectly parallel, my Inatake mark lines up parallel with the case as the diagram shows.

 

Your cam chain shows your off by one half a link plate/one tooth in comparison to the service manual diagram. So your crank is off timing by one tooth also.

 

The T mark in your picture does not look lined up. Might be the angle in the picture. Plus in the shop manual you may notice where the intake mark is... not quite parallel with the head. being slightly below the head surface, which would have you one full tooth mark based on your picture of your setup. The head surface is 1/2 tooth above in your picture, the manual shows it 1/2 tooth below. Take a look, that's what I'm seeing.

As for the crank tooth, moving there would throw off both the exhaust and the intake. The crank position is fine if the mark is absolutely lined up, only the intake cam appears to be off.

I am not sure if that will cause a hot start issue though. I wouldn't think one tooth off would make that much difference considering the 2 tooth difference in the MCM still starts fine. I'd take a look at the carb jetting for the pilot jet to either be too small or have some obstruction since it requires choke when hot. For Dyno Jet I have no clue what sizes should be, but you could do a search to find that information. If it happens to be Kiehin jetting you can find the proper jet sizes, etc. in D Pippin's web page. Click here a wealth of information on his pages.