Sawatdee krap Kun Brewster.
Liked many of your posts (e.g. on Marcelino mod topic, which I'm gonna apply this time).
That is what I'd love to do, just want to do it with peace of mind. Don't want to find out I have bad ring seal, low compression and oil burning because I messed up something and didn't do it good enough. Don't want the cylinder to wear out either, though.
So by the pictures you think it looks useable? Too bad I have no idea how a Nikasil cylinder supposed to look like. Never saw one before... And hard to find pics that would describe it well enough.

 

If it's so hard, why can it hurt to do a more thorough hone/deglaze job with a standard hone)? (if the coating can't be cut/damaged with a standard hone).

Kawa says "electrofusion coating" without any more detail, but I've heard the term Nikasil used by some people. Are there any other coatings commonly used, anyway?

 

I've been reading several sources on Kawasaki and other nikasil plated cylinders. Apparently older, pre-'03, Kawasaki cylinders used a different process called electrofusion, but all later versions use nikasil like most all cylinder plating done now. The best overall post I found was this one from Thumpertalk. Look particularly at Chokey's posts. He seems to be in line with other info I found.

honing question on kx - Kawasaki 2-Stroke - ThumperTalk

Even though they're talking about a 2-stroke in this thread, everything I found indicates it applies to a 4-stroke too.

 

Is the coating still in place, you asked?
It looks very much like the coating that I found on my 1999 KDX220 cylinder and I basically just used scotchbrite on it and installed a new piston and ring. I'm pretty sure yours is the same and I'd be using it WITHOUT running a honing tool up and down the bore.

 

From what I can find researching this is that a standard honing stone is the material that will be worn away, not the cylinder surface. So all it's going to do is coat the surface with remnants from the stone and leave everything else in place.

 

So now we have a cylinder with a stone 'coating' ? No , Thanks Just clean that up with some Barkeepers Friend or such and a scotchbrite pad. Use a handpiece w/ 'fiber' brushes . If that doesn't work then just sandblast it.

 

Where you are at OEM KLX parts are really reasonable. What does a fresh factory cylinder cost? It may be worth the money, for the peace of mind.

 

A new cylinder is around 270 USD here, more than I want to pay now. I have a feeling some OEM parts (almost all electric parts, maybe aluminum as well) come from Japan, I don't know, and the prices are not that great compared to stuff definitely made in Thailand.
I'm planning to go to a 300 or 331 one day (when have cash), getting a new 250 cylinder seems like a waste of money.
All right it seems I'm gonna scotch-brite the hell out of it again, and use as is.

 

Don't think you can hurt it with scotch brite, but don't get carried away...there is no need to destroy the coating to get new rings to seat. Let us know how it goes?

 

Will do. Thanks for advice.