Cheap ignition advance solution
 

You all know you can advance your ignition timing in many bikes by elongating the holes for the crank/fire signal pickup and rotating it? If you want x degrees advance you can:

1. Measure the diameter of the crank trigger wheel.
2. Multiply that by 3.14 to give the circumference of the wheel.
3. Divide that number by 360 and it gives you the amount to elongate each holes for exactly 1 degree of advance.

I did this on my road bikes ages ago and just occurred that this would be good for the KLX because the engine was design (klx300) for heaps more advance. Usually 2-3mm elongation gives enough (5 degrees), and if you don't like just rotate it back.

Haven't yet had a chance to do mine but hopefully will have a look soon and report back, or if anyone has looked at it already please discuss.

VERY interested. Follow through and post pictures and what not and i will be right behind you :)

Some hi performance tuners for banshee quads did that. For hill shooting in the dunes. Supposedly for top end performance, probably requiring hi octane. Don't know what it did for low end. Sounds interesting....

I had the side cover off the other day and I was thinking of a different way would possibly be to weld a build up of metal ahead of the metal strip that triggers the ignition then grind it down to same profile.
Not sure but I think that small amount of mass should not throw the ballence off enough to really matter since increasing the mass of the piston when we put in a 351 seems not to be an issue.

Slotting timing plates, pickups, cam gears, and other creative efforts have gone on for a long time and often work quite well...just depends. Definitely worth looking at if one wants to experiment.

Yes I did this to my GSF1200 bandit a while ago - actually it upped the mid-range the most.

Maninthesea, that is another way, but slotting holes is easiest (and easiest to reverse/adjust). Yes ideally run mid range octane fuel when advancing ignition (95 octane over here in Aus will suffice).

Yeah I thing elongating the holes would be a LOT easier. I just thought of welding on some material becuase it was stareing me in the face.

How will this affect the bottom end though ?

The old bikes had 5 degrees of advance at 1700rpm while the new ones have 10 deg at 1300.

advancing the TOTAL timing is not the way to go. you need to advance the timing for the upper RPMs not the bottom. If you were going to run the bike at a dragstrip it would be fine but you will not achieve what the AUS box is offering.

I have Australia cdi...
How much bottom end can u loose when u have 351ccs! Mid range is what I'm after.

Anyway when I get to it I will synopsis as its the only way to see what's going on....lets not speculate.