I rode with my nephew for the first time today. He has a 2001 250EX that his parents got him for Christmas a couple of years ago. The previous owner had completely gutted the muffler. The bike ran pretty good I thought but I'm used to my 400 and not sure exactly what to expect. It doesn't idle and pops & sputters when getting off the gas. It responds well to throttle though and doesn't seem to lack the power I would expect a 250 to have.

I have no idea if the carb jetting has been adjusted. I would SERIOUSLY doubt it. This ATV is living proof to Honda's reliability. It's a sad story actually. Yesterday I asked when the last time he had changed the oil or cleaned the air filter and the answer was never. He was able to lead me to the owners manual - under the seat in the toolbox area in it's original shrink wrap. I then assumed that the original owner hadn't changed the oil either. I drained about 3/4 of a quart of oil (hey, it was only a quart low!). I was surprised that it doesn't have an oil filter - is this correct or did I miss it somewhere in the manual? I taught my nephew the maintenance basics and told him to change the oil again after our ride today just to flush out some of the crap left behind from 6 year old oil.

Back to my original thought on the muffler, any suggestions? These folks don't have the money to entertain installing an aftermarket exhaust. I'm hoping that maybe someone who has installed an aftermarket exhaust has the muffler guts that I need. I could work on adjusting the carb for the gutted muffler but that still leaves him without a spark arrester.

One last thing that surprised me. When turned off but in gear, the ATV will not roll forward but it will freely roll backwards. Is this normal? I thought maybe this has something to do with the auto clutch.

Thanks in advance!
Keith

 

the popping is probaly because it is lean from having no baffle in the muffler. Id also have the valves checked they probally need adjusted. you might want to try adjusting the air fuel screw on the bottom of the carb to see if it gets rid of the popping. as far as having a spark arrestor goes try using a piece of window screen. it works pretty good and it cheap.

 

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a recommeded starting spot on the fuel screw for how many turns out? I see 2.5 turns out on the Dynojet instructions for stage 1. I'm not sure how to adjust based on a gutted stock muffler with stock headpipe.

It's tough to adjust the valves on a bike 200 miles away. I've been thinking about doing my own but putting it off like the plague [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

when you are adjusting the air fuel screw just go out a 1/4 turn at a time untill it gets better. if it is any more than 4 turns out you need a bigger pilot jet.