Engine life after mods

Just ordered my wr250r should be here next week was thinking that at some point I would like to put in FMF programmer,power bomb header , q4 exhaust. Just wondering if this will shorten the motor life any thoughts on this?
Thanks Steve

If you read all the threads about it (good luck, there are "a few" ), there are a LOT of people (most?!) that have done all "the usual mods" and have put on MANY, MANY miles without issue!!!
What we don't have is a powerful engine, what we do have is a very reliable engine !!!   Feel free to mod it and beat on it!!!!
There are threads about the transmission being bulletproof, threads about how the engine loves to bounce off the rev-limiter...all day long...
The WR250R/X is a popular model, not for it's power, but because it's a bike we can RIDE and it'll be ready to ride again tomorrow, and the day after, etc....


P.S. Don't forget the other mods...AIS delete, EXUP delete, airfilter, airbox, etc.

If I were to do it all over again I would forget about all the engine mods.

I would do the gearing (either 13/48 or 14/50) then do the suspension.

After that the seat.

Then just ride and enjoy the bike.

Just my $0.02

Ok thanks good to know cause I really want to make those mods. What about the break in period does everyone go by what the owners manual says?

I did I figure all those engineers must know something about what they built, I did change the oil and oil filter a little more often than what they stated. what can it hurt.

why is that rsteiger? Too costly or just didn't notice much difference? Just wondering is all. Going to break it in stock then start to make some changes. Is the plan right now anyways

Steve74 wrote:

why is that rsteiger? Too costly or just didn't notice much difference? Just wondering is all. Going to break it in stock then start to make some changes. Is the plan right now anyways

You spend a heck of a lot of money for what amounts to a couple of horsepower.

Gear the bike right and you have plenty of low end for DS riding - very little investment for a nice payoff.

Set up the suspension (I sent mine to GoRace and had them do the forks and shock) and you will be amazed at how much faster you are riding. This mod is not cheap but worth the money.

At the end of the day it is your money and you can do what you want with it. I did the same when I first got my WR and threw some coin after finding that couple of extra hp. After awhile I took it back to stock and things got quieter again and I had some nice down low torque that I was missing for a bit.

I have a friend that I ride with who just picked up a 2015 and he is going through all the engine mods with his bike now. Ran into the same flame out issue with the FMF programmer that I did (easily corrected) and it looks like he took a pretty big hit to his fuel economy now.

On the other hand you could just leave the bike stock except for the sprockets and just enjoy riding it rather than wrenching on it.

Mods that I definitely would do again if I ran out and bought another WR250R or X are:

*FMF Power Programmer.
I rode my WR250R back-to-back both with and without a programmer, and I'll take one because the throttle response is much better (stock feels lean and weaker by comparison).

*Lower gearing.
13/47, 13/48, or 13/49 sprockets do it for me.
The stock 13/43 (WR250R) and 13/42 (WR250X) are ridiculously tall and are only there to pass the required drive-by noise tests during certification.

*FMF Q4 muffler and Powerbomb header.
The bike runs better with these items on it since the stock muffler is stuffed full of EPA-mandated baffles and catalytic converter, it's pretty heavy by comparison, and the cat in the muffler gets pretty hot, too.
Speaking for myself, I was pleasantly surprised how quiet this setup is when I let somebody ride my WR250R one day - the exhaust noise when the guy was riding away and back to me seemed completely acceptable to me and all of the tweeting birdies in the trees near us.
I believe that if somebody in the area complains of noise, they're either a pissed-off cranky grouch, or you're simply riding somewhere you shouldn't be.

After those, it's your call, in my opinion, and dependent on what turns you on.
Suspension is certainly a very important thing with any motorcycle, but the above items are almost always done by riders first because they can be done by the rider, himself.

If you ride off-road, don't forget air filter maintenance and engine oil changes (a lot more often than what's shown in the Owner's Manual).
Neglecting these things or botching these things up is what shortens engine life.

YZEtc wrote:

*FMF Q4 muffler and Powerbomb header.
The bike runs better with these items on it since the stock muffler is stuffed full of EPA-mandated baffles and catalytic converter, it's pretty heavy by comparison, and the cat in the muffler gets pretty hot, too.

Good point YZEtc.

I forgot to mention I cut the cat out of my stock pipe. In my case that did not cost me anything but for some it could be an expense.

The strange thing is that after I took the cat out of the stock muffler the bike ran quieter. I figured it was just my old ears but a friend of mine who rides a WRR also commented on how quiet the bike was after I cut the cat out. Baffles my mind since I would have thought it should have gotten louder if anything.

The other thing to bring up is that if I want to be a hooligan on a DS bike I will either take the Beta 520 RR or the TE250 out instead depending on the ride.

To me the WRR is my go to long distance DS bike, the bike I can jump on in a heart beat and enjoy riding without constant wrenching.

Again to each their own, to paraphrase a commercial "it's your money, spend it how you want too"

One other observation...

There are 5 of us that tend to do a lot of DS riding together. Three of us have WR250R's. The last guy who bought on got a brand new 2015 model. I had a 48 tooth rear sprocket that I lent to him so he could see the gearing difference (from stock to 13/48). He really liked the difference and then the three of us went out on a little DS ride in the area which featured a drag race between the stock (except for gearing) 2015 WRR and my other friends modded (Stock pipe drilled out, FMF fuel programmer, EXUP removed, AIS removed, and 14/49 gearing) 2008 WR250R.

The 2015 model pulled away from the 2008 bike on all the runs. The guy who owns the 2008 bike is now wanting to take it all back to stock. I guess at some point we should tell him the 2015 was running 13/48 gearing but not quite yet. We as still having too much fun at his expense.

Ordered the 48 tooth sprocket when I ordered the bike I was reading the fmf PP manual I found online so if you put on the header and exhaust with the programmer and exup delete you don't have to do the airbox mod and leave the programmer factory set? So does that mean if I did all that and then opened the airbox I would have adjust the programmer?

You'll want to adjust it anyways. It's quick and easy to adjust it.

Just be forewarned about the FMF recommended settings.

I think there are different calibrations of the FMF Programmer after the instructions were published. Many of us ran into issues with the 5th number being too low and causing the bike to die at high speed during throttle roll on (bike was too rich at that point). General consensus is to set it at 6 or higher - I ended up at 8.

I had the FMF Programmer at one point and then made the jump to the Power Commander 5. The WRR in it's stock fueling has some rich spots in the program. With the FMF you can only add fuel - you cannot take away fuel. Even with my airbox mods and free flowing exhaust we ended up removing fuel at some TPS and RPM settings to get better performance on the dyno. Most of all the fuel add was done on the higher RPM's which would make sense.

As far as adjusting the FMF programmer it is very easy to do provided that you are not orange/green color blind (I am - had my daughter help me do the settings). The thing is unless you have an O2 sensor or on a dyno all off the adjusting is guesswork. I did three dyno runs to adjust the PCV on my bike. My regrets is that I should have done a baseline dyno first before I did all the mods.

Hey Bob Steiger I was just wondering how you made out since you took the programmer out? I have the fmf programmer, power bomb header and the Q4 exhaust. But I am thinking I'm going to cut the cat out of the stock exhaust and put the exup valve back in and leaving the ais out. When you switched back did you re-attach the flapper door ? How does it run I wouldn't think it would be too lean. Like you say without a air/fuel meter and O2 sensor or a dyno it is really quite hopeless setting up the fmf programmer. Imo

Steve74 wrote:

Hey Bob Steiger I was just wondering how you made out since you took the programmer out? I have the fmf programmer, power bomb header and the Q4 exhaust. But I am thinking I'm going to cut the cat out of the stock exhaust and put the exup valve back in and leaving the ais out. When you switched back did you re-attach the flapper door ? How does it run I wouldn't think it would be too lean. Like you say without a air/fuel meter and O2 sensor or a dyno it is really quite hopeless setting up the fmf programmer. Imo

So here is where I am at.

I bought a stock exhaust from an inmate here and removed the cat. Reinstalled the EXUP and connected the cables to the valve - followed the manual for adjusting the cables. Pulled the PCV, used some dielectric grease on all the connections. Since the cat was gone there was no need to re install the AIS system and that remains off.

Due to my issues with no starts in the past I also replaced the coil pack while I had the tank off - replaced the plug awhile back which did not resolve the no starts.

The bike fired right up and settled into a nice idle. Took it for a spin and right off the bat I noticed a bit of a bog when I would start out at low RPM's. As I rode and the bike warmed up the bog went away.

Got back home and took the CO setting from 0 (stock) to +5. Noticed that when the bike is cold the bog is pretty much gone now but I have some idle instability (idle seems to hunt around) as the bike warms up. Once the bike is warm the instability is gone. I had this same issue on the FMF programmer and my PCV.

I do believe I have lost some top speed but I gain some low end grunt versus when I was full bore with my mods. For how I use this bike and where I ride it this is a better setup for me. Right now I am running 14/50 gearing but since I have my 13/48 setup from when I road the COBDR I think I may put that back on and see what it is like with that setup.

I may also take the CO setting back to 0 or at least try +3 for awhile.

My fuel economy went from an average of 48 mpg (I am a big guy) to 54 mpg which is a bit better.

The bike fires up quicker - less crank time than before.

Now here is the catch. How much of this is due to going back to 'stock' versus replacing a potentially bad or weak coil pack? I don't have a clue. However the bike is running well and while it may not have the same top end as it had before the bottom end gain works well for me. Time will tell if the no start issue is a thing of the past.

I may see what my Dyno guy will charge me to do a run on the bike and measure the A/F ratio and the Power/Torque output with the bike in this setup. He did the initial setup when I put the PCV on with my GSXR exhaust system.

Thanks for the update. I'm am going to take the cat out today and put the stock back in. I will let you know what my results are since I will be running the same setup as you. I have the same bog when it is cold. Thought maybe it was the fmf programmer but it doesn't really sound like it. The dealer told me that it was a issue with the other ones he had sold as well.

Steve74 wrote:

Thanks for the update. I'm am going to take the cat out today and put the stock back in. I will let you know what my results are since I will be running the same setup as you. I have the same bog when it is cold. Thought maybe it was the fmf programmer but it doesn't really sound like it. The dealer told me that it was a issue with the other ones he had sold as well.

Some links that maybe helpful when you are removing the catalytic converter from the stock muffler:

https://wr250rforum.forumotion.com/t6530-catalytic-converter-removal?highlight=catalytic

https://wr250rforum.forumotion.com/t4926-decat-oem-exhaust?highlight=decat

i don't have a welder or welding skills so I brought the muffler into our maintenance shop and offered the guys pizza to cut, remove the cat, and weld the pipe back up. They didn't want the pizza they just wanted to cut it open to see what a catalytic converter looked like on a bike.

Originally I was going to have them remove the EXUP but after reading what it's design intent was I thought it would be better to leave that in and hook everything up.

Yea I was going to take out the exup as well but after reading your post I found earlier I thought it best to leave it in. Got it cut apart just have to weld it back up and put it in.

Did you make it so the flapper on the intake worked again or leave it out?

Steve74 wrote:

Did you make it so the flapper on the intake worked again or leave it out?

I took out the flapper and cleaned up the air box internals when I first bought the bike.  So no going back on that unless I buy a new airbox which I am not planning on doing.  I will say that the bike is louder (intake noise) with all that stuff gone.  I do think the flapper had something to do with noise emissions on the bike.

If you still have the flapper there you should be able to play around and see what you think.  If not, no worries everything seems to run fine without it but maybe that is why I get some of that idle instability when the bike is warming up.

BTW once you have the catalytic converter off you may want to see if it is worth anything. I know down here there has been a rash of thefts in apartment complexes where people are removing the catalytic converters of cars, cutting them open, and then selling the metal that is inside the converter.

Well got it done took it for a ride seems pretty good but after a good ride in the bush I think suspension mods will be the next thing I look into