Brothers, I'm 600kms into running in my KH100 after a complete rebuild and today it stopped on me at 84km/h into a head wind in fifth gear. Fearing it has scored the bore - it did feel like a quick locking up . Just hoping it only ran out of gas. My mechanic and rebuild guy said I should have been running in 4th into that headwind and that 5th was a bit high. They said that as soon as steady throttle or opening throttle = slowing down, drop a gear straight away. In hindsight I was probably straining the poor little thing. What should I expect this little 100cc rotary valve engine to be able to achieve? I'm not talking performance. I'm talking reliability and how they should be ridden. Should I keep it ring-a-ding-dinging way up high all the time? Tell me how you ride yours? How far? etc. Any help greatly appreciated. D
I'm riding your bike's dual sport brother, logging over 1000 miles (1600 km) since it was plated on Aug 3rd. Aside from oil fowling a couple plugs, the bike has been dead reliable. Over 4750 miles (7600 km) on the bike in total, without a rebuild, just the minimum to get it road worthy again since I bought it out of 10+ years in storage. I've been using it on my daily commute, roughly 40 miles (65 km) round trip. Longest trip to date has been a day trip to my parents house, a bit over 100 miles (160 km) each way with prolonged 5th gear high rev use for miles on end. Thus far, it seems that my bike is happiest when it's revved up a bit. I've heard it's better to rev than bog, especially low power 2-strokes. I down shift anytime the engine sounds like it's slowing due to wind/hills or when it sounds too slow while maintaining a particular speed.
That's good info there ihatemybike. Cheers for that. :) What kind of speeds do you find yourself sitting on when you're riding it "prolonged 5th gear high rev use"? I'm intrigued by that, because this event happened on a stretch of 80km/h speed limited road that is only about 2 k's long. But, like I said, I was going into a headwind and the engine was slowing due to the wind. I was just about to downshift when... engine felt like it pulled back and it cut out. I've had it seize before the rebuild because it was running lean & hot due to it being a 35 year old engine and this, sadly, felt very similar. Similarly, before replacing the tank cap I had a venting issue which would cause fuel flow to slow and run out of fuel. I've found that feels different to a sieze in that it just cuts out without the feeling of 'pulling back' or 'locking up' momentarily.
