My KTM 250 ADV goes for service: Modifications made after 33k km

My initial plan was to get more road-based tyres like the traceR, but ended up with the off-road rubber instead.

BHPian advstreak recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

They are listed in the order changes were made.

So the sound had remained the same and therefore went back to the stock resonator.

Rally windshield

The windshield deflector broke during a minor crash on account of it being made of acrylic. At the same time, Dismotech launched its rally replica windshield made in Polycarbonate. I decided to give this one a try for the looks and somewhat mixed reviews over various platforms.

The rubber nuts given with the windshield were of very low quality and the insert got separated from the rubber moulding during the installation only. Hence replaced all of them with Nylock nuts with loctite-coated bolts. This will ensure that the bolts will never get loose.

The rally windshield due to its curved design does not flex and vibrate like the stock or most of the other aftermarket windshields. The performance is better than the stock windshield. There is barely any windblast but due to the steep angle, there is some buffeting near the helmet. To solve that I borrowed the Pro-spec extension from @Game_of_Roads. It did solve the buffeting at the center of the helmet but there was still some from the sides. For that went to the Pro-spec office and got their widest extension ie ER760. The one for the stock windshield is ER740. ER 760 took care of the side buffeting to a large extent. To give more stability to the rally windshield+extensoin I added a couple of braces using the off-the-shelf angle brackets. They are mounted using GPS mount and through a couple of drilled holes in the windshield.

Here is the bike with the ER740 extension installed.

Earlier the spoilers next were removed as they had broken. This increased the airflow to the torso area. This was not a problem with the windshield deflector but with the rally windshield there was more air coming in hitting the torso and then moving up hitting the helmet leading to increased wind noise. So the spoilers had to be installed back leading to figure out an alternate way to mount the aux clamps which is discussed further.

AUX LAMP MOUNT

Earlier I was using a copy of the Maddog clamps which did not have a weld at the bottom like the original one. This caused the clamp to vibrate a little and the aux lights to shake. Also, the clamp itself was mounted to the number plate holding area increasing the stress on the already weak by design headlight assembly. I was thinking of mounting something to the headlight support frame but with the spoilers in place, there was going to be very little clearance with the front forks.

Then after some time spending time on Google, I discovered that there are alternate styles of clamps also which use the frame mounting hole instead of the number plate hole. Here are the three options I had considered:

• Maddog
• ADVTribe
• Lluvia

The Maddog won't did not have flanges or welds at the bend to make it stiffer. Also, it looked like it would require the number plate to be relocated which I did not want to do.

The ADVtribe was only used one hole for mounting and to prevent rotation is used a support plate which led to getting the Lluvia one as it used both holes which aided in rotation prevention stressing the plastic headlight cover. Also, both of them use pipe which in theory should give the stiffest mount with less weight.

The mount is properly stiff and did not notice an increase in headlight vibration or in the aux lamps.

Here are the pics of the AUX lamp mount post-installation:

Brembo Sintered Brake Pads

Both the rear and front brake pads needed replacement and hence decided to get a Brembo sintered one to get better braking performance.

Here is the condition of the stock organic brake pad

The sintered brake pads took some time to break in properly around 500 km give or take. But once they have broken in properly there is a significant increase in braking performance and totally worth the premium they command over organic ones.

Reise TourR Tyres

So after 33000 km, the stock MRF meteor had been worn out to that there was less than a 1mm tread left to the TWI.

Here is their condition just before replacement:

My initial plan was to get more road-based tyres like the traceR as my use case is more biased towards on-road touring and whatever trails I might go on my off-roading skills to be levelled up before getting better off-road tyres. I had chosen traceR as they come in stock size. The other option I was considering was to get MRF KURVE which comes in stock on the CB350RS and the TRIUMPH SCRAMBLER 400X but decided to go against it as I heard reports of them being not so great. As the traceR was out of stock on the resie website itself and not available elsewhere in the local market I placed their order on tyremarket.com.

But it had gone out of stock there also which they took their own sweet time to respond to. As I wanted to replace them worn out MRF quickly decided to go ahead with TourR. They are more focused on touring in various road conditions. The front was made in the 44th week while the rear was made in the 23rd week so they are fairly recently made.

The first thing you notice in a notice in tourR is much softer ride quality compared to MRF. The ride is more plush while having 29 and 31 as front and back pressure respectively. Post 200 km or so post installation I did a Kolli Hills ride to check their performance on twisties and these do better cornering than MRFs. I will be checking their off-road performance after and will update accordingly. The braking performance was also better compared to MRF due to the slightly softer compound being used for the blocks. From a touring perspective, these are very good tyres for the price.

Here are some pictures just after getting them installed.

ROLON BRASS CHAIN KIT

I had been lubing the stock chain quite regularly using SAE 140 oil and it was showing not much extension and seemed to have reached a steady state. The rear sprocket was also not showing much signs of wear. But when the mechanic opened up to clean the front sprocket it had quite noticeably worn out and even some teeth had bent a little. As per the mechanic, the front sprocket wearing out much faster is a common thing in KTM.

As the chain also had developed a few tight spots decided to get some bling in the form of a brass chain kit. Now the brass chain kit is only available for the 390 Adeventure which uses a 15/45 sprocket set. The 250 Adventure uses a 14/46 sprocket combo. In order not to alter the gearing much I decided to get a new 14 teeth stock front sprocket. Now the bike is running a 14/45 combo which is slightly taller than the stock gearing. This affects the acceleration a little but it cruises at a slightly lower rpm on highways. For reference earlier, it used to be 100 km/h in 6th at 6000-6100 rpm approx. Now with the revised sprocket combo, it does it at around 5900-6000 rpm. A small negligible difference which one will only notice if pointed out.

The brass chain does appear to run a little quieter and smoother but its true character will only be known after a couple of thousand km of use.

PAKELO ENGINE OIL

I decided to get one of the fancy oils and see if it makes a difference. Hence got the Pakelo 10W50 and it does seem to make the bike a little smoother. There are lesser vibrations all across the rev range. This could be also just fresh oil and more concrete evidence will come after it has done more than a couple of thousand km.

Now the 6th service was done at 33204 Km and along with the things mentioned above the usual suspects like the air filter, oil filter, fuel filter, and spark plug were replaced. The mechanic suggestion was to stick to stock spark plugs as there are a lot of fakes on NGK iridium was are very hard to distinguish from the real one.

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