Anything close in appearance to Malhombre's must be a good looking ride! Got any pics??

 

Have you looked to see what Bike Bandit has them for? MY guess would be about $30.

 

Here's the page...

1986 Suzuki LT230SG OEM Parts, 1986 Suzuki LT230SG OEM Replacement Parts - BikeBandit.com

Little pricey.

 

In the Suzuki forum I have a help question maybe one of the gurus here can help?

Thanks Brian

 

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone can advise me on a safe maximum RPM for the LT230. I've seen some photos of broken rods/cases and I don't want to go there!

I've picked up a Hot Rods rod kit and 66mm Wiseco piston for the LT230. I'm looking at putting these into a 1960s 200cc Italian vintage roadracer as original parts are pretty hard to get. I'd like to have some readily available and reasonably priced "off the shelf" parts for this bike and not have to get Carrillo to build a rod or have Arias do a batch of custom pistons.

The engine it would go in is 66mm bore x 57mm stroke instead of the LT230 67mm so that takes some stress off the rod. The LT rod is longer and the deck height of the Wiseco piston is shorter than the Italian parts and that gives it a better rod ratio and shorter cylinder with a lighter piston.

The LT rod looks VERY slender and I'm hoping you can give me some idea of the kind of RPM it can safely be run at. Safe in the LT230 should mean it would be safe at a bit higher RPM in the shorter stroke engine.

I'd like to be able to use 11-12K RPM as a redline with power peak in the 9-10K RPM range.

I've seen some photos of stock LT rods that have failed and the Hot Rods parts are reportedly higher quality than the stock rods they replace. I don't want to go to the trouble to put the aftermarket LT rod in my engine if it is going to fail and destroy the engine at the RPM it will need to run.

What kind of RPM would you feel is safe for the HotRod in a hopped up LT230? If it is reasonably high I could retune my bike to bring the power peak down a bit if needed.

Thanks for taking the time to help me with this.

cheers,
Michael

 

well with the improved rod ratio with the shorter stroke, id say that youre definatley good to 10k. but 12k is pushing it.

however, dont let the 230 rod's appearance fool you, its quite stout!

 

Thanks for the reply. Have you seen Suzuki give a claimed redline in a factory manual or maybe show a power curve or even electrical output or ignition timing chart that shows a definite cut-off RPM? I haven't been able to find any LT230 dyno run charts or find an online manual.

$330 will get me a custom rod from Carrillo and various OEM pin/bearings can be had for about $60/70 the set. That makes the LT230 Hot Rods look very good on price, but not so good if it destroys cases, cylinder or other parts of a 45-50 year old engine. The photos (that I think were in this thread) of blown up 230 rods didn't give enough information to let me judge if they were good parts just revved too high (however high that might be) or abused parts that just couldn't take even moderate loads any longer.

I think Hot Rods probably has to follow the stock rod design pretty closely so they don't change the overall or end weights on the rod. It is nice that they put a bronze bushing in the small end, but I'm not sure if that and maybe a little better steel (8620) than stock might be about as far as the improvements go.

FWIW, the stroke reduction would give piston loads at TDC pretty much the same with the Suzuki revving at 10000 RPM and the shorter- stroke engine at 11000 RPM.

cheers,
Michael

 

There are no rev characteristics that I can see in the manual. They list timing as 5 BTDC below 1800 RPM, and 35 BTDC above 3800. I think the limiting factor in these engines is the small carb and cam. Upgrade one or the other and RPM's go up. Upgrade both and then you're having fun! Whatever you end up doing, get the stuff balanced! I've seen more engines die from high revs with parts just thrown in. If the stuff is all balanced out nice, you can run higher RPM's easier, and produce more power in the mix. If it were me, I'd upgrade to an aftermarket rod at least, I'd want as much strength there as I could get, with the RPM's you're talking about.

 

how are you doing today i need help with my 1990 suzuki lt250s can you help please?

 

i needed a set of rings in my 250 so i replaced the whole top end and now i got a real weak spark and i need to know how to set the timing on this thing cause it is starting to tick me off so can someone please me out with this