We took in this 2010 Kawasaki KL250 with the primary objective of gaining more power.
Although it started life as an enduro, the customer mainly rides this on the street, thus his incentive for wanting a bit more “get up and go” on the road.
After doing extensive research and determining exactly what route he wanted to take to achieve this he presented us with his findings. He’d selected a 351 big bore kit by a company named B&B Cycle Restoration out of Wichita, Kansas.
B&B Cycle’s products weren’t in any of our dealer catalogs so we reached out to them directly to see if they’d work with us on ordering the parts. They readily agreed to do business with us and we were grateful for being able to purchase the specific product our customer had requested.
The big bore kit included a new bored cylinder with a 351 sleeve installed, one set of gaskets (base and head), a new piston, pin, rings, two cir-clips, and a fresh air block-off plate.
We’d definitely rank it as a top-notch kit in terms of quality as the installation went smoothly and all of the parts we needed were there- including gaskets- which isn’t always our experience when installing kits of this nature.
Image Credit: B&B Cycle Restoration
This service took the KL from it’s 250CC beginnings to 351CC’s, allowing more torque and horsepower. The CC size is determined by the bore and the stroke. By installing a larger cylinder and piston, we change the CC size of the engine.
“CC’s” stand for Cubic Centimeters and is a metric unit that measures the engine’s
capacity/volume. According to Quora.com, “engine capacity is also known as ‘engine displacement’, which means the displacement of the piston inside the cylinder from Top Dead Centre (TDC) to the Bottom Dead Centre (BDC); in engine’s one complete cycle. The Engine Capacity is also measured in Litres corresponding to Cubic Centimetres. If an engine has capacity of say 1000cc or 1000 Cubic Centimetres, then the capacity of that engine is 1 Litre.” This is why a 1000CC bike is also known as a “litre” bike.
In layman’s terms, it’s the amount of space in the cylinder from when the piston is positioned all the way up, to when it is positioned all the way down, represented as CC’s.
What differentiates this job from simply being “bored over” (a selling-point phrase we’re not particularly fond of as we’ve explained in the past) is that the cylinder was also replaced, allowing you to achieve a larger diameter while retaining cylinder integrity.
While it was in our shop the customer also requested the handlebars be switched out to new ones for better handling.
We’re excited to see this one return to it’s owner and are awaiting feedback on handling and power!
