Best bang for your buck mod for power gains?

Recently bought a X not too long ago. Bought the bike mainly for wheelies, adventure, and because of financial limits while in school. Coming from a supersport, I never expected much power from this little 250 but I hear everyone say that the bike stock is really weak. Bike is almost completely stock at this point. What would you guys say the best bang for my buck would be to start with on mods? I cant decide if gearing or a exhaust and programmer would satisfy me more. I don't want to lower the top speed of the bike too much, but 5-10 miles less top end wouldn't bother me too much. What would you guys start with?

Bear in mind that you are asking for opinions - kinda' like asking what is the best place to eat at.
My opinion on the WR-250X:

1) The bike comes stock geared way too tall if you want better performance.
On my 2008 WR-250X, I ran 13/49 sprockets, and this felt ideal to me.
This requires a longer drive chain, too.

The bike felt more peppy, could cruise at 50 - 60 mph (top speed of 80 mph) while in the meat of the powerband and without being revved too high, and, considering it is a 250cc bike, had very good performance.

The trade-off is more frequent shifting, but that is physics.

2) A fuel programmer (I used the FMF Power Programmer, but there are others) gives the bike much better throttle response.
I rode the 2008 WR-250R that I previously owned (I also used this on my WR-250X) back-to-back both with and without a programmer, and without it, the throttle response felt lean and noticeably weaker.
I hooked it back up and left it there.

From there, it's your choice as to whether or not you want to/can afford the rest of the commonly-done stuff to these bikes, like FMF header and Q4 muffler, removing airbox flapper, removing AIS parts, or anything else I can't think of at the moment.

Here's your second opinion, which is very much like YZEtc's above.

gearing - get new chain and bigger rear sprocket.
fuel programmer
new exhaust cannister
airbox mods (only after getting fuel programmer though)

I don't live in dusty, sandy conditions - and I rarely go off-road - so the best seat of the pants mod once I got a fuel programmer and pipe was to simply remove the airbox door (not to be confused with flapper mod).

I have 13/48 gearing and my top speed is about 83-84 mph with a corrected speedo.

If you futz with gearing, you'll probably want to get a speedo corrector unless you have and use a gps for true speed indication.

If youre doing gearing enough to have to buy a longer chain, go ahead and get a bigger front sprocket too. Bigger front + Rear = less chain maintenance since it sits further away from scrap it could drag on. You're tightening intervals can be much longer.

My gearing is a bit taller than theirs, 14 / 47, but 10 minutes of my commute is 65, and another 5 is at 75, the rest being stop and go BS at 40-55mph. The gearing works well for that.

I just removed all the EPA mess, and put on a pipe, programmer, and hi-flow air filter and did the airbox mod.  If you are looking for a bit more from the engine, this will definitely do it.  I was very surprised how choked off the engine is as it comes  stock.

I haven't done the gearing change yet, but it's probably not too far off..

FMF pipe and fuel programmer, noticeable difference....
oh yeah, like they said some gearing too...

GhostShiftZ wrote:

Recently bought a X not too long ago. Bought the bike mainly for wheelies, adventure, and because of financial limits while in school. Coming from a supersport, I never expected much power from this little 250 but I hear everyone say that the bike stock is really weak. Bike is almost completely stock at this point. What would you guys say the best bang for my buck would be to start with on mods? I cant decide if gearing or a exhaust and programmer would satisfy me more. I don't want to lower the top speed of the bike too much, but 5-10 miles less top end wouldn't bother me too much. What would you guys start with?

Come to the ride on March 9th posted at SMJ in the Tampa thread and I'll let you ride mine. Has all mentioned mods above (CREGO555 at SMJ)