13 Tips when Switching from 4 Stroke to 2 Stroke Dirt Bikes

welcome to dirt bike channel i'm your host kyle brothers and today we're going to give you 13 tips in order to move over from a four-stroke to a two-stroke because there's a lot of people that are kind of thinking about making the transition and all they've ever ridden is a four-stroke and they're uneasy about moving to a two-stroke so here are 13 things for you to think about or to set your mind at ease and answer some of those questions for you as you transition over i should mention that i'm not an expert but i am changing bikes all the time i've had over 40 45 motorcycles and a and it's been a really solid mix between two-stroke and four-stroke and i switched two-stroke and four-stroke all the time and i've gotten better i'm not like a pro i'm not an expert but i've learned a lot of things from my own experience as i switch from two-stroke to four stroke right after ride after ride after ride and i've developed some things that help me to do that either mindset things or practice things on the bike and so that's what we're gonna talk about in the video today hey something to know is that this video is focusing on moving from four stroke over to two stroke and some of the benefits or things you need to know if this video does well and if you guys want i'll do a i'll do a video in reverse because i do think there are some different things if you're moving from a two-stroke over to a four-stroke that you need to know i'd have a totally different list for that so let me know down in the comments or send me an email and let me know if you want to do the video the opposite of this video i just need to need to say that it isn't that two strokes or four strokes are better they're just made for different purposes and some of them shine in conditions where the other one wouldn't in fact they do that all the time and so i prefer to ride the two strokes a lot of times because of the type of riding that i do but the four strokes are amazing for some of the writing that i do and some of the writing that you do so there's not a right or wrong answer but as you're moving over you will notice some nuances between the two and it's important to note where one is good and one is maybe lacking for a certain type of discipline number 13 is about pre-mixing fuel now i get this question a lot now some of the bikes some of the tpi bikes or something even some of the betas that are oil injected are going to mix the fuel for you but what i want you to know is that pre-mixing fuel is not hard all you have to do is get a measuring cup and a gas can and then pick a quality oil i've had really good luck with oils like motorx and motool and reverend motors and a couple of other and amsoil and you pick an oil and if it's a good synthetic oil you can email me for for some suggestions but a good place to start is about 65 to 1. 65 parts gas to one part oil you use the measuring cup you go to the gas station you dump the oil in the can and then you fill it up with five gallons of gas or whatever it is but mixing oil is not hard to do and you shouldn't be intimidated by intimidated by it again if you have questions you can email me and either me or my assistant will go over that with you and we can help you sort that part out so don't be afraid about mixing fuel oh and super quick you can enter to win this two-stroke this is a 2021 ktm 250 xcw tbi i'm giving this away in the month of august all you have to do is go to my website dirtbikechannel.com you can get entered to win this thing or you can use my links to rocky mountain atv down in the video description i'm also going to bring you to utah i'm going to fly you here put you up in a hotel and we're going to do a ride and you're going to win this bike so go to my website dirtbikechannel.com right now to get entered to win this thing it ends august 31st one month only go number 12 riding your two stroke on the street now while it is perfectly okay to have some connecting roads for a mile or two say on the oil road on your two stroke i don't think two strokes make good dual sport bikes where you're gonna go for 10 20 30 40 miles i don't think a two stroke is a good option for you to be commuting 10 15 20 miles a day on this bike they vibrate a little bit more they do better with like variable throttle they don't i don't think they do that well they kind of run a little bit rougher if you just hold constant throttle for like five miles so if you're going to do a lot of dual sporting or a lot of like road use leave that to the four strokes because i just don't think the two strokes are a viable great option for some of those longer road trips so just keep that one in mind number 11 let's talk about engine oil changes versus gear oil changes see on your four stroke it was an engine oil change because that oil was lubricating the engine and the head and the transmission and the clutch it was doing a lot and it was getting very very hot and breaking down on the two-stroke it's only lubricating your transmission and your clutch which means there's less heat in that oil which means they can go for longer intervals now if you're not using your clutch very much and you're not getting that very hot these bikes can go 30 or 40 hours between gear oil changes that's a benefit for you so congratulations a lot of times i've done that other times if i'm beating up on the clutch and i'm getting this thing really hot the clutch really hot by dragging my clutch or something like that you might want to change the change your gear oil at around every 10 hours but the point is your intervals between gear oil changes or engine oil changes on the two strokes are further and you know further and fewer between you don't have to do it as much so congratulations on that it's one of the benefits of moving over to a two-stroke number ten let's talk about engine rebuilds now one of the benefits of going with a two-stroke is that you can easily rebuild your motor at least your top end inside your garage or in your shop in the four-stroke world it's a lot more complicated the four-stroke engines are a lot more complicated there's more moving parts there's more things and so it's less likely that you're going to rebuild your four-stroke in your garage however a two-stroke is much much easier there have been multiple two-strokes that have been rebuilt in this shop here's a piston that we did here in the shop and here's a top-end kit that i have for another 250 or this one might be a 300 because it's a little bit easier to replace and you know exchange pistons out of a two-stroke so it's one of the benefits of moving from a four-stroke over to the two-stroke world because you can typically rebuild your motor you know two or three times inside your garage with very very minimal tools and it's pretty simple so that's one of the benefits of moving over to a two-stroke let's talk about blipping the throttle versus constant throttle see on a four-stroke you need to hold the throttle constant because the engine breaking which we're gonna get into later but on a two-stroke two-stroke you can do a little bit more blipping in fact i suggest that you blip the throttle a little bit when you're riding a two-stroke it's just super fun they feel playful and you can actually do a little bit more coasting if you will on the two-stroke than you can on the four-stroke because of that lack of engine braking it makes you feel like you're freewheeling and it's a really great fun feeling so blip the throttle a little bit more when you're on a two-stroke it makes it really fun number eight where your two-stroke will shine over the four-stroke and where it won't see where the two-stroke is really gonna shine is in your mountain single track it's gonna shine in your technical terrain it's gonna shine when you're actually going slow the four stroke is gonna shine in your faster stuff like your motocross tracks and your wide open desert stuff and blitzing whoops in third four fifth gear the two-stroke isn't going to shine as much in those faster areas yes it can do all those things but this is gonna shine when it's slower more nasty more technical more rooty terrain so don't be surprised if you're a little bit less comfortable on your two-stroke when you're blasting out fifth gear through the whoops we're gonna get into that in just a minute but just know there are places where it shines and where it doesn't number seven let's talk about carburetor jetting spark plugs and the range of your fuel tank for your rides see a lot of times if your bike isn't tuned properly some of your tp if you've got a tpi bike you probably probably don't need to worry about this that much but if you've got a bike with a carburetor you're gonna probably need to tune that thing because so many people are running too much fuel through their system which is then causing them to get much worse fuel mileage and causing possibly their spark plugs to foul because the spark plug has too much fuel in it and doesn't get hot enough okay it's too cold and it fouls so if you're using a carburetor you'll probably need to tune that thing and depending on where your elevation is you may need to take some of the fuel out of that fuel air mix so that your range can come back up and so that your spark plug doesn't foul yes these bikes can go a long ways a lot of times i can get these bikes where i'm going anywhere between 30 to 40 miles per gallon so that's some pretty long rides um but you've got to make sure that you're tuning that thing properly through your carburetor or if it's got if it's cpi there's a couple things you can maybe do but yeah we want to make sure we're not fouling plugs which i will get into a little bit later on another subject number six less stalling see when you're moving from a four stroke over to a two-stroke you're gonna stall less in those tricky technical situations when you're getting over rocks or logs or roots or some of these other obstacles and that's because the two-stroke is firing that piston down every single time it comes to the top of the cylinder so if you if you're in a tricky situation and you're at 3000 rpms this bike is firing 3000 times a minute versus in that same situation on a four-stroke it would only be firing uh 1500 times a minute which means the four stroke will stall where the two stroke won't so that's a really really big benefit of moving over two strokes is one of the biggest reasons why i ride them in single track and mountain terrain is because they stall far far less in those same types of situations than a four stroke would and so that's a really big benefit of riding a two-stroke and you're welcome for that one my number five thing in this list is let that motor lug we already talked about the fact that it doesn't stall so we want to use that to our advantage and we want to let this motor lug and that's going to give us traction when the rpms are low the traction is high remember that also remember that it's also it's important again to make sure that your fuel air mixture is right so that you don't foul plugs we want to make sure that there's enough heat on those plugs but we're gonna let this thing lug and we are going to just let it go and get us through those things and get us over those obstacles and get us up those hills in low rpm situations where we're not spinning the wheel it is fantastic the amount of traction that you can have when you're lugging a motor on one of these two strokes number four your two-stroke might feel a little bit twitchy at first for the first few rides another way to put it is it might feel a little less stable or less planted than your four-stroke did now trust me this is something that you'll get used to after a few rides and you'll actually start to come to enjoy that because you won't be wrestling the bike as much it takes less energy to get this thing to turn and to get it to kind of change lines and that's a feature is because it has less centripetal force a less centripetal like rotating mass in that motor and so the bike feels lighter even though it might weigh the exact same weight as a four-stroke it will feel lighter when you're riding it aka a little less stable a little more twitchy but you'll learn to use that to your advantage and really really come to appreciate that fact about your two-stroke number three thing that i have for you when moving from four stroke over to two stroke is do not warm up your two stroke the same way you did with your four stroke on your four stroke you could just start that thing and let it idle for 10 minutes come all the way up to operating temperature sitting there idling more likely than not if you do that onto on a two-stroke you're going to foul the plug or at least fill the thing clear full of goo in the power valve what you want to do typically with mine i've i've never fouled a plug on a big bike on a 125 or bigger i have never fouled a plug yet knock on wood and part of that is because the bike is properly jetted the other part of that is because i only let it idle for a minute uh tops and then i'm on the bike and i'm starting to maybe do some balance drills or i'm slowly shifting through the gears i'm not getting on it hard i'm not putting hard load on the motor but i'm also not just letting it sit there and idle at low rpms and foul the plug or fill the thing up with goo so when you're moving over from four stroke to two strokes just know put all your gear on first and then start the bike and then just go ride it slowly slowly don't go high rpms but you're warming that bike up quicker and you're not just letting it warm up by idling i promise that is going to help your experience with two strokes and you're not going to be fouling plugs or having other uh related issues to warming up the bike so that's my number three tip for you number two tip see this shifter right here you're gonna become well acquainted with this thing because you're gonna want to shift early and shift often you're gonna be shifting more on the two-stroke than you were on the four-stroke and that has to do with how the power is delivered see on these 250s and 302 strokes the power is kind of like lumped there in the low to mid range rpms on your four stroke it was like it was like this huge broad power band these things have an amazing exciting power band to them but it's it's in a tighter narrow of rpms and i think that on a lot of these bikes it pays you to shift earlier in the rpm range and shift often to stay kind of in the meat of that power it's an amazing feeling riding these bikes but if you try to go try to wring out the top end on a lot of these modern two strokes you're going to find that the top end is pretty flat way flatter than it was on the four strokes because the four strokes will pull forever this bike isn't going to pull forever so you want to shift it again shift it up and get it back into that power and stay in the meat of the power it's going to be amazing if you shift early and you shift often as compared to how you're riding your four stroke okay you wondered when we were going to get to this and now we're here it's my number one tip from switching from four-stroke over to two-stroke and it has to do with engine braking see engine braking is a big thing on the four-stroke and it's not a big thing on the two-stroke here's what i'd say about engine braking your engine is for speeding up and your brakes are for slowing down period full stop and if you start to think about this in your riding it's going to make a big change now i'm not saying that engine braking and using engine braking is this is wrong to do on the four-stroke it is something that you can use to your advantage but you don't get that on the two-stroke so for me switching back and forth between the two all the time i stop using it i've stopped using engine braking i pretend like it's not a thing at all i just know that my throttle and my engine is for speeding up and my brakes are for slowing down the brakes are far better at slowing you down than they are than than the engine is and so for me switching back and forth i would just say hey look if you if you think you're going to start switching over to a two-stroke just change your mindset on your four-stroke a little bit to where like hey stop relying on engine braking if you can stop relying on engine braking and just have a smooth throttle on your four-stroke and not chop the throttle then when you move over to and then you're just slowing down using your brakes then when you move over the two-stroke it's not a big deal i don't ever like i i'm not sitting there blowing corners when i swap from a two-stroke to a four-stroke because i'm trying not to ever use engine braking on either bike it's easy on here because there's no engine braking i have to consciously make sure that i don't use engine braking when i'm on the four strokes so that's just my best tip for you is engine braking is a big thing over here it's not gonna work on your two-stroke so maybe you should adjust your riding style on both motorcycles where you're not going to be reliant on any engine braking because you don't need it throttle is for speeding up and brakes are for slowing down period full stop hey remember if you want to win a two-stroke for basically next to nothing you can win this 2021 ktm 250 xewtbi it's an amazing top-of-the-line enduro bike and i'm giving away to one of you all you have to do is go to my website dirtbikechannel.com i'm also going to fly you out to utah put you up in a hotel and go riding you can use my links to rocky mountain atv to get entries for this thing or you can buy anything on my website and it's pretty stinking killer hey thanks for watching this video it's a lot of fun to make if you have topic suggestions for other videos send then send an email to me kyle dirtbikechannel.com or you can leave it down in the comments and my assistant will probably dig through there and find that but if you want to be sure send an email to kyle dirtbikechannel.com or customer service at dirtbikechannel.com and those will bubble through to me if you want to support what we're doing here one of the best ways you can do it is to actually get some entries for this motorcycle that i'm giving away it ends august 31st of this year so it's august only other really really good ways to support your brake channel is or to use my links for rocky mountain etv and motorsport and amazon i have them down in the video description and i have them over on dirtbikechannel.com there's a links section up there or you can just send me an email and i can send you a bookmark or a link that you can bookmark in your browser you've got to have the id tag at the end of that link so if you're not sure send us an email and we'll tell you what we're talking about but it's a great way to support dirt bike channels and again if you want me to do this video in reverse switching from a two-stroke over to four-stroke what are some of the things you should know uh let me know because i can totally do that video and it would be some some different things that i would certainly highlight in that case so okay i'm gonna go get this thing edited down and get it uploaded to youtube so hopefully every hopefully everyone is having an amazing week an amazing summer and you're getting out there and you're doing a lot of riding and leaving a single track so thank you very much and we'll catch you in the next video

Channel: Dirt Bike Channel

Views: 40,925

Rating: 4.9571247 out of 5

Keywords: enduro, motocross, dirtbike, ktm 2016, ktm motorcycles, shootout, ktm, range, erzberg, graham jarvis, johnny walker, best dirtbike, 125, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 525, exc, sx, how to, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, video, review, ktm, husqvarna

Id: oSP1wdmdVbQ

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 07 2021