Breaking Down the 2020 450 Shootout - Kawasaki KX450

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hey this Michael Lindsay and as promised we're continuing down the route of going through and dissecting and breaking down the twenty twenty 450 shootout as you can see behind me we have the 2020 Kawasaki KX 450 that's gonna be the subject of this video so if you haven't already I released my 20 24 50 shootout video it's about 13 minutes long it breaks down the results of it a little bit of the ins and outs of each bikes just kind of a broad overview to give you guys an idea of what we found over the three days of testing but from there I'm taking each bike into its own individual video I'm gonna spend a lot more time breaking down the characteristics of those bikes the good the bad where the test riders agreed where they disagreed give you a little more insight on what each test rider thought and then also taking me a few minutes to go through some of the changes we would recommend that motorcycle if you still went out and got one because as I said at the start of my other shot videos and I always say is hey the winner of the shootout wins because it's a well-rounded machine it's definitely a bike that we all valued in the test because of its ease of setup its broad characteristics that suited arrange riders but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the bike that you should go out and buy it definitely has a good repertoire and it's a pretty safe bet but at the same time there's definite characteristics about each motorcycle it's stand out and by going through and breaking it down thus far we want to give any consumer that's really interested in buying one of these bikes this year the opportunity to hear everything and find that bike that's gonna suit them best when they walk out with sure and floor they know exactly what the bike they're getting is gonna do what it's good at me what's not so good at what they can do to fix that so they can find the bike that they think is going to be the best to suit their needs before we jump into this really quick though I want to thank couple the brands helped make this thing happen shop our Motorsports is where we got his bikes you can check out shop motor comm if you need any parts gear accessories during the code ml5 one two at checkout to save yourself a few dollars on your next purchase big things Tim for helping to set this all up and for me to be able to afford and get some of these bikes to be able to do this test what I can serve privately being able to get all the bikes the same way as you the consumer does going out and getting them off the dealership for breaking in etc beyond that there's quite a few other brands that help make this thing happen like Fox and Oakley set up all of our I said two-tone supported us big thanks to them some local companies epoxy it SoCal DC MX tools support this check out description below there's links or Instagram stuff please give my follow maybe a little bit of a shout out as a big thank you for helping support this and be able to pull this off also visit design for all the graphics works connection for the stands and then done lock for hooking us up with a big batch of MX 33 tire so we had fresh rubber on all these bikes for the testing and even comparison we weren't gonna be able to get some of the OEM provide tires in this test so by working with them we got all the bikes on the same one was probably the most common tire out there so it gives us the information that probably best relates to what riders would expect on them and just gives us an overall even playing field so now jumping into this the Kawasaki kicks for 50 came up in fourth in this year shootout oh and one last thing people wondering where the heck my hair went bad barber shop visit yeah we're dealing with some pretty short stuff right now it's gonna be a while before that thing grows back but oh well now let's talk about Kawasaki KX 450 got fourth place this year one point behind the husky and our final rankings our rankings are pre simple dents and each rider scores the bikes one through six we add up their scores the low score wins in the case of the cow we ended up with 18 total points to the Husqvarna 17 so like said got fourth by one point scoring was myself Michael Lindsay I rated the bike second Jeff Walker rated at fifth Maddux soda rated fourth Derek ASCII third and Zach petty fourth so so you can see kind of a mid pack finish Ford averaging around the third fourth spot thus white finished fourth place just kind of up there in the running for right outside the podium spot and first off we're gonna go over some of the broad characteristics of spikes and the things I think everybody agreed upon so give you guys a little bit of a short background if you really want to learn more about what the changes are a spike what I said the 20 is a bng motorcycle there was a ton of changes in 18 it was the biggest jump the Kawasaki had ever made with the bike since their 2008 to 2009 model change I have a first look up on my page you can go check that out for more the details the quick one all new chassis kind of a different architecture the way they built especially the cradle area trying to get more the comfort they had some past jassi's try to get more front-end feel than they've ever had because kow he's known for that rear steer characteristic try to balance it out get it a little more those front steering guys a little bit happier with this setup the motor had quite a bit of changes in new architecture as well awesome wait when electric start only really tried to just expand upon what they already had in that department good low to mid character try get one more top big suspension updates back to spring fork in nineteen all new bodywork just pretty much an all new ground-up bike for them very few parts actually carry over from a 2018 model so starting off at the chassis if you've watched my videos I made a big kind of compliment to the Yamaha about how much chassis comfort there is in that bike I kind of raised like you have the Honda Suzuki definitely on the more rigid side KTM and husky falls somewhere in the middle and then the Yamaha and the cow we are definitely on the side that the the chassis offers a lot of extra comfort into the riding it doesn't just leave the suspension up to doing all the work you can definitely feel a lot of harsh bump absorption a lot of square-ish absorption through the frame but also makes it interesting because a precise frame is gonna also be or sorry rigid frame is gonna be very precise so that's the challenge with this style setup is getting all that comfort that flex but at the same time keeping the bike precise being able to get certain feel out of it like I said this is definitely a much more comfortable chassis than the 1618 version really good bump absorption definitely more of a front-end feel than what they've had before not to say it has the turnin response of the Suzuki or the Honda we're not going as far as saying it's that good but it falls more in line with me like maybe like what the KTM and husky have definitely good front-end bite good front-end traction feel you can't just turn into the tightest sections it doesn't cut across stuff as fast like says no hunter Suzuki doesn't have that kind of constant front end weighted feel but it'll definitely turn in across slicker conditions rough conditions you can get a certain amount of bite out of the front end and what I feel like is good information to the rider to understand what the front end is doing enough that you can trust in a lot of those situations this complim what they still have is probably the best rear end steer bike in the class and part of that comes from just how they've always focused sore chassis development down to how the motor plays a part in that as well which we'll get to in a second so really balanced out characteristic more than what the cow has ever had before still not probably the bike for the person that is 100% focused on front end bite and traction maybe somebody's looking more in this is ook area I think the cow has a lot better corner entry when there's ruts and berms now but still just turning in across flat hard packed dirt it doesn't quite get where the top one or two bikes in that category are moving to the suspension this is the first major point of contention there's a bit of a Miss balance with and this is where the rider struggled last year and it carries over to this year because they didn't make gain changes so the fork itself architectural II is almost identical to the fork down on the Honda or the Suzuki 450 s it is are brisk on the eight hits type type fork and where that comes from is a lot of componentry is very similar to show as kit Forks from the past couple years we have a 49 mm your sanction tube this lower slider that's when people say oh I got a 49 millimeter fork that's where to come up lower tube size the damping rod is 14 millimeters the cartridge is quite a bit bigger and the damping rod stuff or sorry damping rod piston stuff that matches up with component sizes we've seen from kit forks before I believe show actually calls us fork and a dash of one I believe is the production name for it but either way similar architecture those Forks even holds the same spring rate is what's on the Honda the Suzuki which is a five Onan meter but it feels a lot softer and part of that comes from I think the way the bike is balanced and a low fork oil volume the Suzuki and Honda I think are around 350 CCS or so this fork is only around 310 to 350 CCS so that lack of oil volume it gives up a lot of its speed sensitivity and then the rear ends a little bit on the stiff side so over loads of fronts a lot of router's there on arm and that the for comfort is really good on this bike initially small chop small square edges there's a lot of give in the fork it's very plush initially feeling it actually has a different internal surface treatment that's dimpling on the tube that the other two brands that order the show components run on that so they say that's a big claim but I think part of it is the way it's set up just really good initial feel a lot of comfort really complements the chassis but the problem is on the faster tracks with the more abrupt braking zones that had heavier loads more abrupt jump faces and just when you wrote it overall more aggressively the front didn't have a lot of hold up it would blow through the stroke and it didn't it was good on low speed shop flowing into corners where you were just kind of rolling with your momentum but as soon as you had to brake deep or jump into the face of something the for quitters that's it right through the stroke just didn't have that hold up needed to be able to over jump things to be aggressive over the front end so felt like a great bike to ride it like 85 to 90% of your capabilities but to go into extra 10 percents are pushing pork just wasn't there and the hard part is because the spring rate is there and a lot of alley specs like okay it's similar those bikes where as a problem coming from I said oil volumes part of it you can try to go stiffer on the clickers which we did for multiple riders of different variances but eventually you can only go so far and the fork just becomes harsh so you start to give up that initial comfort but you never get all the way of gaining the bottoming or assistance so you just kind of end up moving the window into the middle and you lose the initial but you still don't gain the end stroke hold up that you need once you're up about five six click stiffer it's it's just giving it up at that point going a little bit faster on rebound helps a lot on the downhills but on more hardpack tracks it feels like it starts to top out in the stroke I think another problem that is also partially the shock overpowers the fork a little bit I think it's a lack of leverage ratio and maybe a little bit too a high spring rate for what the fork bounce is but the rear end just seems to ride a little bit high on decent through bumps so it's putting a lot of weight on the front end personally a lot as we're doing we're opening the high-speed compression to get it squat and stay down in the stroke a little bit sore and rebound and maybe a little less sag so if we're starting at a baseline of 105 this bike seemed to end up more in like the 107 range just trying to keep that rear end down try to keep some weight off the front end so it just doesn't dive so much because a few riders were coming they thought maybe I had a lot engine braking because it was just as soon as you try the thrall you'd feel the bike pitch and change balance really quick because it would unload if you came in and you went from full acceleration chop through all but breaking really heavy you'd feel the attitude of the bike adjust quickly which makes it really hard to push when the bike is a radically changing its pitch it's not as balanced as it should be going into the motor it's very broad it has a very crisp initial response it feels very connected to the wrist it's just every little motion you do with your hand you feel the bike instantly respond on it not a snap that gets away from you but you just feel like you can modulate that power really well and like so it's pretty broad definitely more towards the low to mid-range but as decent top but overall it just doesn't have a lot of output compared to a couple of their bikes in the class and I was the major complaint in the motor Department hey like the characteristic is really good all I guys really thought the power characteristic connection the mapping is good it just needs a bit more which yes you can say Oh 450 Stoney anymore there are those certain situations where you can get the most out of the power and I said what the callee has going for it already is that it is so well mapped it does have such a good power characteristic it's pretty easy to manage if we could keep that power characteristic and just raise the level of it it would really satisfy more than riders in the test as for the ECU plugs which were able to change on the bike the standard Green coupler had that characteristic that we talked about the black coupler which is the smoother one it gets rid of a little bit of the bark right off the bottom it's a little bit easier to actuate in tight ruts or went slicker it's still connected just not as much of a sharp throttle response feel so it mellows that out a little bit and then I feel like it gains a little bit on top end because of having a richer coupler having a little more feel it pulls a little bit better at higher rpm and doesn't quite nose over as hard and then the white coupler which is more aggressive accentuates that snap feel off the bottom it revs a bit quicker but once you get to the top of the RPM it feels like has a little bit more of a cliff and falls off of I personally played around with their little I guess I called the game boy their accessory map tuner we really didn't include anything based off those results in the test because that item does cost money from the dealership where like Yamahas power tuner app is free accesory map tuner for the kawasaki cost a couple hundred dollars I've done a map where I basically have combined did the initial part of the black and kept the green ending I really like that overall but overall these map changes are minor they don't increase the overall output to the point that the riders needed to be happy or rank it a bit higher the last point of contention that really stood out for everybody was the ergonomics of the machine all the riders complimented the bodywork the seat profile and everything about the cow there's no complaints about caching anywhere the foot peg to seat height felt great and of course it has the adjustable peg mounts to drop down for taller riders all of this was good where the problem was was related to the bars and this sounds of course like nitpicking because naturally hey everybody's got a bar of choice when you get the bike if that's something bars you switch well there's plenty of other bikes in the shootout to having a bar or a handlebar that's acceptable crossed a wide range of us maybe it's not our preference but it gets the job done in this case the cockpit up in that area on this bike did it for nobody whether it's the smallest guys off petty it like hundred fifty pounds five foot seven to Jeff Walker and Eric ASCII who are both six foot one and derreck's and her nine pounds size double XL gloves like just an overall you know fairly broader guy it just doesn't work the bars are very tall but they have a weird amount of sweeper they don't even work for tall guys and for us little guys you're saying just makes you sit upright in the cockpit so bad when you're sitting and when you're standing up you have to stand very upright how's your shoulders and elbows up too high and for me I end up just having to roll the bars down the lap bars to make it work for me and it was kind of hard cuz I would adjust them that much for like me and Zack Petty and then the taller guys again on the bike and they're trying to roll past the neutral point to try to get rid of some of the sweet feel on the bar so their elbows weren't pinched in so honestly no rider in the group like no handlebars and he said that really threw off the air goes because between the foot peg mount options in the handlebar the actual top trip clamp holes move the bar mounts back and forth it does have a good range of economic strives I would see bill hey what's the best tall guys like what's the best small guys like the cow he does hit a perfect medium you can really be on either end of scale or in the middle and probably find something about this bike they'll organ ama CLE make you happy but number one with that is ditching the stock bars another little nitpick and I said this about last year's like it sounds like a small change but I honestly think it makes a huge difference is they went to a turn a fifty millimeter rear rotor last year I don't care for it it's it takes so little pedal pressure to lock it it's really hard to modulate and they might sound like a weird complaint but it kind of triggers weird things when you're riding on West Coast when you have hard pack ruts it's so easy to drag that rear brake coming in that you end up sliding the rear tire up and over those shallow ruts they don't have they aren't deep enough to hold the bike in on entry and then talking about that bike balance struggling with the rear end lift character because of the lack of leverage when you lock the rear tire that easy across braking bumps that just unloads out of the stroke every time it Clips one so the race team doesn't run the 250 they go back to 240 I did personally on my 19 bike I rode quite a bit last year I put the 18 bracket carrier on it and threw a 240 rotor on it and it really changed the character of the bike for me on corner and she really improved that settle down the rear end of the bike a bit and definitely something I would recommend so getting over into some of the individual thoughts on this bike like said i rated it second a lot of thoughts i've shared or based off mine and some of the comments that come in ask for other riders we'll start with Jeff Walker he rated the bike v his good the motor pulled really smooth really broad characteristic really crisp feel he likes the adjustable ergonomic Slyke the lower pegs and the bar mounts up top for him I said the hydraulic clutch was amazing and that's a point I also missed is nobody seems to notice it has a hydro in a good way it has the most cable like distance of engagement and it feel to the point there's very little adaption period when you jump on this bike with that the only negative I can say for the hydro is the engagement distance is a bit long so it's got a lot of or not this sorry engagement distance long is good it's the FreePlay that's kind of excessive on it I personally like a lot of free play in my clutch lever but some people don't if you have big hands you're probably going to crunch that lever to your fingers you're gonna have to run the lever way adjust it out or put a space or a few EXO spacer in the actual caliper mount itself to move the entire assembly farther out from the bars that would be something to kind of think about because definitely the lever will come in and get to your fingers if you have a larger hand size other goods from Walker likes at room and cockpit for the tall guys the bad super soft suspension especially the front end forks or front forks for him once again he's the fastest guy in this test um kind of middle to the higher in weight scale I know he really struggled the second day at fox raceway with the more abrupt jumps the more abrupt braking zones just we couldn't get the forks stiff enough without losing comfort and balance out the bike for him once again even in his height The awkward tall bars talking about that sweep it just didn't work in in a sense even for any range the guys because we were trying to run it low in the rear to balance it out he sent our acceleration kind of had a chopper tout feel not necessarily a very fast motor once again brob just not a ton of output and then for him his speed and skill level I said probably can come up with having the chassis had soft and then suspension that soft kind of feels wallowing boat like if you listen to my Yamaha comments I talked a lot about how they've gone for chassis comfort but they've tried to match that by making the suspension more aggressive and held up in the stroke well soft is the front end is here and as much flexes or is in the chassis you end up with a biked under extreme braking extreme aggression over the front end just starts to wallow around and feel loose and it can get kind of vague and that definitely came up for Jeff Zack petty is my other pro level rider in this group he is the small stove like 575 a 150 pounds has raised a little bit of Supercross a little bit Nationals really overall balanced right very technically proficient on the bike Zack rated the bike fourth pros really like the seat height two foot peg position all the body work it in catch all that stuff he was really happy with the slenderness at the foot pegs a grip of the bike the bars were all right for him from brake was strong felt like the rear brake was easy to lock couldn't really deal with the pedal modulation very well bike roll side to side through sweepers really well basically transitions its weight cons suspension was balanced if speed was lower basically he felt like he was riding in like 89% the bike was good but pushing he just felt that same thing the pitching of the bike and the front was too soft he tried to go a lot faster on rebound which helped on the fork but he could only go so stiff on compression without losing the comfort same thing he's after three clicks he would just lose too much comfort to be worth the change he said the motor was really good in third and fourth gear second to third were almost a little too similar strong pull off the bottom good response signed off a little quickly up top and just overall need a little bit more output I'm definitely say felt like he shifted this bike a little more than some of the others in the class so my biggest guy in the group Derek a ski 190 pounds he's your that like 40 plus a novice guy six foot one just an overall broad built guy he rated the Kawasaki third his comments really liked the chassis feel the adjustability and the overall comfort by the chassis he really liked of course me I'm gonna beat that much taller being able to drop the footpegs was a huge bonus for him the suspension was overall decent form but the forks felt quite soft once again the range of adjustment was only so far before the comfort was lost I said motor was broad connected good mapping didn't feels fast his last years funny he's Derek somebody to participate in last year shot with me same with Zack I do agree with both of them this is I guess you know the little bit of variance you get in production bikes but I definitely felt like our 19 we had last year had a little bit overall more everywhere I don't know if I was God slightly less pick of the litter but I would say the bike we had last year felt just a tad bit better and I had a couple minor test riders can throw out that sentiment as well as we went through this big one for him though was st. with Derek's name problems there's the barbed end just didn't work for him really needs stiffer fork Springs at his weight by quite a bit also talking about tennis with air guys what everybody's riding myself I read a little bit of everything I don't really have I bought a cow 450 to ride a little bit last year want to quit my last media job but I test and ride a mix of everything at a fairly even amount Derek personally owns a Honda Jeff Walker races Honda's right now and a race a husky a little bit really sheer Zach petty was on Yamaha as the last couple years and has been on a Honda 450 this past year for anybody points too many fingers the three guys on Honda only one of them actually picked the Honda for the winds so like so if you haven't checked out the main shootout video check that out it's kind of interesting and then I heard kids come in here matic Soto he is like my typical he's my local bee kid top five will gonna be rider about five foot ten high hundred sixty pound range he currently rides Suzuki's and he also raided the bike fourth so his pros with the bike really like the overall turning of the bike basically the balance characteristic between front and rear steer really felt like you can use a wide range of blind selections like the overall shots to comfort the con for him he felt like the engine braking was a little bit too much at high rpms he felt that pitch of the chassis so like I said I felt like the engine on this bike is fairly free compared to most of the class but there is a lot of pitch when you transfer off decel so it can give it that feel but also sort of runs I think the bike to the full rev range pretty far so you can I felt a little more I think almost 450 outside of Hondas a little bit free and so's that yeah but a lot of them do would do better still with less decel I mean nobody takes the Suzuki medicines this is uki by far has the most high rpm decel feel if you chop a throttle you feel the front end load up on a lot on that bike and it tries to transfer its weight it's got that old-school four-stroke feel i think the cowboy leans a little bit in the middle but definitely the balance of the bike doesn't help it's our lack of balance doesn't really help its course there so that runs through all those we're gonna talk a little bit about what I would do to kind of create the bike if you are interested in it easy one we're talking about power output just needing a little bit more pipes are big help on this usually most four strokes current day four strokes it's hard to say that aftermarket pipes are big games they usually aren't the stock exhaust have gone quite a bit better the cally still has a nice amount room I'm sure somebody'll bug me in the comments section I actually did a full range of tests on the 19's and I said I'd post it and I got busy with this so I'll try to get it up after this I went through pretty much the majority of what's available the FMF PCE Oshiro bukh so i'll get some tests up on those bow i'll tell you is anything that keeps the long header profile the stock I preferred keeps that really crisp initial low to mid and cans it's pretty easy to get top-end gains how of it if you go to a pipe that has a shorter header you're gonna lose bottom end if you're gonna gain quite a bit more mid to top there's definitely some easy horsepower gain there may be a high compression piston just try to keep the overall character but just get a little boost out of that the mapping is really good I'll box one of the few bikes I can say you don't have to go like a big improvement isn't going and chasing a different ECU for it other upgrades like I said drop the rear brake rotor down long link arm seemed to help mostly it just moves you know the leverage curve a little bit far removes the leverage little farther into its curve trying to get a little more an initial leverage I would also run the rear wheels far back as you can Kali's have always liked that feel really helps with the rear and feel it's kind of set in the middle stock so definitely addling I would consider going up a tooth because like I said the bike was being shifted a little bit more I felt like it couldn't roll through a corner and third gear as easy as like the AMA or the Honda could going up the tooth for me just kind of places in the right spot for the majority of bigger tracks I think on a lot of of tighter tracks it's still maybe not enough so the stock gearing is fine just going back to second I would recommend though playing around figuring it's got 52 stock 51 to me was quite preferred as we talked about bars ABS it got changed the bars and then onto suspension so ah guys always say I'll just throw throw sip or spring rain in as I said the spring rates are pretty close to a hot or right there with the Honda Suzuki I don't actually think a fork spring is always the exact answer depending upon your rider Wayne's skill I think if you're 165 more that 170 and a little bit above I would recommend throwing a 5 to noon on one of the fork lakes but I would still up the oil volume by 15 cc's or so to try to get more speed sensitivity out of the 4 once your 181 i'd say 185 and above I would recommend five to s on both sides now if your 165 and below like a couple of us were in the test I would actually recommend dropping the shock spring rate to balance out the bike a little more and then add the fork oil volume to get more speed sensitivity out for because I think the spring rates actually Dees on the fork form or that lighter level rider it's mostly the rear that I feel like overpowers it for most of us in that range I mean that really kind of does it for this bike I feel like that covers quite a bit of our experiences with it if you want to know anything else throw the comment in the section below I'll gladly answer them all if you like what we're doing with all these shootouts going down get all the bikes I want to do this again for 250 it's honestly not cheap to do though no matter how many side contracts are worked out to who's buying to my bikes who is in and stuff like that who's you know purchasing them from me it still cost a decent amount of money to go out procure the bikes do all the videos all the test stuff I have a patreon now it's description link below patreon.com backslash ml 5:12 I'm giving away a bunch of contest prizes if you want throw a couple bucks in awesome if you can't support that I understand just give us a subscribe if the little Bell notification throw a like on the video that does a lot as well for getting these videos out there morning expanding the presence on YouTube and just trying to grow the audience and get this out to a further amount of viewers that can hopefully do some good with this information make sure you check out the rest of the individual videos from the shoot off your interest in some of those bikes please give them a watching and thanks for viewing with us
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Channel: Michael Lindsay
Views: 11,334
Rating: 4.9534883 out of 5
Keywords: Motocross, Supercross, Moto, ML512, Michael Lindsay, Testing, Vital MX, SX, MX, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Kawasaki, Review, Dirt Bikes, MXGP, Motorcycle, Husqvarna, Gas Gas, TM, Alta, Fox, Alpinestars, Off Camber, The Off-Camber Podcast, Test, Tested, First Ride, First Impressions, 2020 Kawasaki KX450, 2020 Shootout, 2020 450 Shootout, 450 Shootout, Kawasaki KX450, KX450, KX450F, Kawasaki KX450F
Id: LsnLitDAnCs
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Length: 27min 37sec (1657 seconds)
Published: Sun Aug 18 2019
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