Earl and I went out to the El Mirage OHV area this weekend for a little riding. I got there early Saturday morning, and while I was waiting for Earl I sorted out the correct jetting for the area. The lake bed is around 2800', and we saw an elevation range of 2647-3068'. All altitudes were from my Garmin GPS.

For reference, my TRX250R setup is as follows:

• Stock porting, head, & carburetor
• K&N filter, removed airbox lid
• VForce3 reeds
• 66.25mm bore, stock style piston, 170psi cold compression (throttle closed)
• FMF SST pipe & FMF Powercore2 silencer
• 91 octane Chevron gas w/Yamalube 2R at 40:1

I ended up getting the best plug color with a 158 main jet, and the best throttle response with a 48 pilot, the air screw 2 turns out, and the needle clip in the 3rd groove.

After Earl showed up, we did a bunch of trail riding, with Earl leading and trying to find every sharp pointy rock in an attempt to puncture my new Kenda Klaws on their first outing. Speaking of my new tires, they worked great. Good steering response and much more grip than the old stockers.

On previous trips, Earl's bike had been running really rich, which was tracked down to a worn out float valve that was allowing the fuel bowl to overfill. We spent most of last week trying to hunt down a replacement, but in the meantime Earl sanded the wear groove off the needle, and it seemed to work. We eventually decided to play around with the jetting on Earl's bike, but after reassembling the carburetor, the throttle was sticking badly. This was no great surprise, as the throttle cable was badly frayed--in fact, Earl had ordered a replacement, but it hadn't come in by Saturday morning, so he had decided to just hope the worn out cable would make it one more trip. It didn't, so we decided to call it a day and see if, by chance, the new cable had arrived.

Surprise surprise, it had!

The next day, when we got back to the jetting on Earl's bike, he ended up with the stock 360 main jet and moving the needle clip up one groove from the stock position. After getting the jetting sorted out, Earl decided he wanted to do some top speed runs. Fortunately, El Mirage is just the place for such a thing (just ask the SCTA). He ended up with a GPS verified 89.5mph, running with the (considerable) wind. Photographic proof is at the right.

Other notes from the trip:

• I rode Earl's bike, and managed not to die
• I suck at wheelies
• Jumping is addictive