We chose Pro Armor's front...
We chose Pro Armor's front bumper, rear grab bar, nerf bars and pegs, and underbody protection to keep our KFX safe from the hazards of the off-road.
At this point, the quad appeared to be running slightly lean on the air-fuel ratio, but it did not seem significant. So we decided to ride test it and see if we could get away without purchasing a fuel management system and continue to contain the budget as much as possible. We knew it was a fat chance; it ended up going lean, pinged a bit and forced us back to the dyno. Then we installed a Dynatek FI controller, and within a few minutes of tweaking it on the dyno, we had it dialed in. Believe it or not, we even picked up more than 1 hp, landing us into the 48s, and we felt this was a good number we could work with. The Dynatek fuel controllers are very easy to make even small adjustments on and can be tuned with just a screwdriver. It comes with three preprogrammed base maps and can be fine-tuned from any of them. CT Racing has a good database of information on these maps will send it to you pretuned for your mods. So the good news is that it will most likely be a plug-and-play mod if purchased through CT.
Improving Handling
From the factory, the KFX is a bit twitchy and actually becomes extremely twitchy under hard braking. We felt that Kawasaki's factory caster settings were part of the problem. The suspension also felt a bit soft for all of our testers, so that accentuated the problem under braking. We did two things to tailor the handling, first being a new set of upper A-arms that allowed us to adjust caster settings. We chose to go with Teixeira Tech upper A-arms. Teixeira builds his A-arms with the best and easiest caster adjustment system we have ever seen. All you have to do is loosen the upper ball joint, then you can slide the ball forward or backward. We also liked the fact that these arms and ball joints have teeth built into them so that when you tighten them, they lock down and can't move. Cool system, and that let us add in some caster to slow the steering, which helps cure the KFX's twitchiness. Being easily adjustable, you can actually dial these arms to your liking. The farther back you pull the caster, the more the quad wants to go straight and will portray less twitchy. If you are really into the higher-speed styles of riding, then try pulling the caster all the way back. But for those who prefer more technical styles of riding at lower speeds, try setting them in the center position.
Noleen J6 got ahold of our...
Noleen J6 got ahold of our stock shocks for a little makeover. What a huge difference they made.
Second, we had Clark Jones of Noleen J6 rework our stock KFX suspension rather than spending big bucks on new aftermarket shocks. Our goal was to have Noleen get the best possible performance out of the stock shocks through revalving and respringing. Clark has proven to us with some of our prior projects that he can build some of the best high-end suspension available, so we wanted to try the low-end workings. The main thing we needed was to keep the front end from diving, stop it from bottoming and to not pick up a harsh ride in doing so. We installed the shocks and went testing. At first, the front end was so stiff that it didn't feel as if it were working, so we made Clark bring softer springs out to the track. Clark did a little pushing and pulling and figured out that the upper shock mounts had been overtightened. He went ahead and installed the softer springs, and we hit the trail and immediately began bottoming this front end. As ridiculous as this may sound, we ended up putting everything back to where it was when Clark shipped them to us. Lesson learned; on the KFX it is important to tighten the top shock bolts before you slide in the bottom bolt. Make sure the shocks swing easily before you install the bottom bolt. And even though they make use of a locking nut, we recommend using Loctite to be assured things are properly secured.