Going to rain all weekend so might as well

So what do people do with these athena programmer boxes, toss them in the trash?

Tearing into the motor as soon as I eat some lunch.

Stock miles - 15,450

Wow! that cam chain tensioner sucks.

  Nice thread mate.... I will be watching progress with much interest, and looking forward to more pic's as well.

  Cheers.

Thanks  
I just got the timing set and I am a happy camper.
Thank you so much to MotoMind for this post.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15948813&postcount=21889
So easy to push the tensioner with a screwdriver, I barely touched it and brought it out slowly.
Spun her 4 times and checked, still on..... repeated and I think I'm ready for a beer

more pics

one more

Both maps on the power commander site for the 290 are no good for an open airbox.
I have 2 trims on the gytr exhaust one ( felt better than the fmf one even though I have full fmf )
Wish they would have done it with an open airbox...

This is how the bike should have come stock.
Torque isn't off the charts, but it is there on the low and mid where it seemed non existant before.
I haven't tried full throttle or wheeling yet, few more miles on the rings and an oil change...
I get off early tomorrow but 60% chance of rain.
Hope I can get a good trim session in.

Any chance you know the diameter of that piston?

I didn't feel the need to mic it since it came in the kit with the cylinder...
Should be 83mm.
What are you trying to figure out?

So rough estimate...how much time did it take to go from working 250cc bike to working 290cc bike?

Have you done something of this nature in the past?

Seems like such a huge and potentially stressful "project".

Well, I kind of spread it out over the weekend and drank alot of beer...
Somewhere between 6-8 hours actual work would be my guess.

I have done top ends on 4 wheelers and big bore crf 50's.

Really not that bad of a project if you take your time and double/triple check everything.
Read the instructions and high fives thread a couple times.
Use a 3m scrubbing pad and clean all old gasket material off.
Use a torque wrench and follow the sequences.
Hardest part was trying to release the cam chain tensioner the way the manual says to do it.
Easy though if you know MotoMind's trick.
Other than that just being carefull to keep the passages blocked from anything that will fall in the engine.
Was a little tedious putting the rings on the piston.

Was nervous to push the button, but she fired up on the 2nd or 3rd rotation.

f3joel wrote:

I didn't feel the need to mic it since it came in the kit with the cylinder...
Should be 83mm.
What are you trying to figure out?

I'm just curious as I bought the whole Thumper Racing kit from a dealer on eBay. It came with an 83mm piston, but the sleeve is 80mm. I know TR made some larger pistons for the Athena bores and I'm thinking that may be the one that I got.
I know that boring is part of the final fitting of the sleeve, but 3mm sounds like a lot and I worry that it would thin the sleeve out too much.
Now I'm wondering if I could get just an Athena cylinder...

You shouldn't have to do anything but hone the sleve after pressing in.
If you bored out to 83mm it wouldn't be a 280, you definately have something wrong.

Not sure if the ebay seller was any help at all.
What I would do is take clear pictures of everything and email them to TR.

f3joel wrote:

You shouldn't have to do anything but hone the sleve after pressing in.

I know when I was talking with TRacing the gentleman told me that once the sleeve is installed there is approx 1mm (0.039") that has to be machined out of the cylinder. Then final hone.  3mm does sound excessive to me. I would do some digging to be sure it's all good.

pbnut wrote:

Now I'm wondering if I could get just an Athena cylinder...

They have them on ebay.

tyrone wrote:

They have them on ebay.

I just took a look. I see complete kits, but no cylinders by themselves.

I think this is the cheapest one on there.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Centauro-Athena-Cylinder-Only-Big-Bore-83mm-290cc-For-Yamaha-WR250R-WR250X-08-11-/111123534650?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item19df7a933a&vxp=mtr

So with some significant fuel added to the map I am closer to being where I need to be.
I can now easily power up 2nd gear with 13/43 gearing.
The two power wheelies I tried were from low rpm in 2nd and just rolling it on.
She will stand straight up, I clicked to 3rd the second time.
Looking forward to more tunning sessions.

After about 100 mile break-in of the rings I switched from rotella-t 15w40 to silkolene pro 4 15w-50.
My baby now bleeds red.