Husky vs KTM EFI 250 2 Strokes | Which did I like better?

hey there i'm kyle brothers and we're dirt bike Channel today we're talking about the husky te 250 i and the KTM 250 xcw TPI these are both fuel-injected bikes I'm gonna tell you my thoughts about which one I like better stick around [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] to get you guys up to speed the KTM 250 xew TPI is a bike that I bought and the Husky over here is a bike that was loaned to me from Husqvarna so thank you for doing that the reason why it why I bought the KTM is because it was the one that was the most readily available I contacted multiple dealers and said hey I want your first either KTM or your first husky that comes through the door that's the fuel-injected one and the KTM was one that was the first that was available to me and so this is the one I bought and then Husqvarna was gracious enough to let me borrow this bike for about a month and that month is kind of closing up here in January so I'm doing some reviews and some and talking about the two different bikes and my experience on them I put more hours on the Husky than I have on the KTM because it's just been hard to find the time to do the riding and right off the bat I wanted these tests I wanted the test when we rode the bikes back-to-back I wanted them to be as fair as possible so I needed to set the bikes up as closely as possible as I could now the bike from husky came with some answer market parts on it they did an FMF header pipe they did an FMF exhaust those are those were the main performance upgrades the other things they put on some breakaway levers and and they they put some bling around on the bike that and they put like a rear disc guard on here and a couple of things but as far as performance goes the only modification that they did was they put the pipe on this bike well that meant that I needed to put the pipe on this bike so I went through and I put an FMF header pipe on this bike and the FMF exhaust on the KTM to bring it up to the same level as far as the exhaust wise goes to to the Husqvarna and then I was like okay so the Husqvarna has had the MX 3s motocross style tires I think it's because the reviewers that did this before me we're using it on a track and because they come with Dunlop atat ones both bikes so now I'm sitting there knowing I've got to put the same tires on them so I opted to just go with some Bridgestone battlecross X 40s and I put brand new tires on both bikes so brand new Bridgestone battlecross X 40s on both bikes I went through and I checked I mean I've got a list I checked clickers made sure the clickers were all set to the standard setting on both bikes all the way through compression rebound on the Forex in shock I put made sure that they both had skid plates we put reared I put a rear disc guard on both the bikes and just looking off my my whiteboard over here they both got pipes I set the sag to the exact same I set it to where I had a hundred millimeters of sag when I was standing up on the bikes and 105 millimeters of sag when I was sitting so they were both the same that way I but I moved both of the bars forward in the triple clamp so it felt natural to me I adjusted the power of alpha so they were the exact same spec I think I ended up with like one turn in from flush on both bikes I adjusted handlebar tension I you know set my controls up obviously already went over the tires and so we set the bikes up I set the bikes up is as closely as I could to see which one I liked better now in I try to go into any of one of these tests when I'm riding bikes back-to-back I try to go in with an open mind but everyone always comes into something like this with a little bit of biases and I figured that I was gonna like the Husqvarna better because the Husqvarna has that linkage shock on the rear and I had ridden Husqvarna multiple times more I'd ridden the Husqvarna about you know two or three times as much as I had ridden the KTM when we went and did a ride day where we rode them back-to-back and we rode these bikes I had you know four or five riders with me and we just kind of did a round-robin swapping back and forth on these bikes and with some other bikes with some other another carbureted KTM and and an EFI four-stroke KTM and it was just really really eye-opening for all of us to kind of go through because all of us felt like we were gonna like the Husqvarna better going into it just because it had that linkage suspension and all the other guys and you'll see in other videos I don't know if I'm gonna have those other interview videos up before this one or not but all of the guys actually ended up liking the KTM better and they were all super surprised and they just felt a little bit more stable and a little bit more planted on it for me though I I wasn't I wasn't so sure I think that to me both bikes were so incredibly similar that I felt it was like splitting hairs in in a way I felt a little bit more comfortable on the Husky but it was it was just it was just such a razor-thin difference between the two because they have the same forks they have the same gearing they have the same engine they have slightly different sub frames you know that the Husky has more of a composite subframe whereas the KTM has an aluminum cell frame they had a little bit different air boxes but as far as the way that they ran there was a very very slight difference in the way they ran and I think it just came down to pipe because the Husky didn't maybe seem to have it quite as much low end and I think that's basically just because it's got a motocross pipe on there it's got the ffmf factory pipe on this thing with with a with the Power Core to silencer and I think that's more of a motocross setup whereas on the KTM of course I wasn't gonna yeah I wanted to upgrade the pipe and I didn't want to go with a factory I didn't want to go with a motocross pipe so I went with with the with the the FMF gnarly torque and then the power core to spark arrestor so would be Forest Service approved on the bike that I own this one seemed to have a little bit more low-end the KTM whereas the the power on the Husky came in the mid-range and then the top-end but it was super super subtle the differences in the way that the power came on with the bikes and I I loved both of them they both scream they both have amazing throttle response they both run as clean as you can possibly imagine they both run as good as any two-stroke I've ever been on and they were phenomenal and I didn't feel like there was enough of a difference in really any situation that you'd go wrong with either of these bikes they were so there were so much more similar than I figured that they would be the KTM with the link with the PDS suspension here all of a thought it would suffer in the whoops and the faster stuff out in the desert but honestly it didn't the funny part was Tyler one of my riding buddies he has he bought it at 2017 KTM 250 300 XC and he also bought a 300 xew those are both 2018 models he bought it he bought a W for his dad so he had the same bike one with linkage and one with what with the PDS and he doesn't like the 300 xcw as much as his XC but then when he got over to this bike it blew him away because this like he still felt super comfortable on it and didn't even notice that it had the PDS maybe that's a set of thing I don't know but what I'm saying is the PDS was not a problem for me on this bike it was phenomenal if I if you told me that I had to ride either one of these bikes you know for the rest of the year and not touch any other bike I'd be totally fine with it both of these bikes were flippin amazing I just I can't stress enough how good KTM and husky did with their first iteration of these EFI two strokes they are very very good neither one of them wants to start really well when it's super cold and when I say super cold like 20 degrees outside you pretty much have to kick-start them I know that you can like you know crank on a little bit for five seconds and then and let the batteries warm up I've done all that stuff because the lithium-ion batteries don't really like to start when it's super cold like that but cranking speed it wasn't the issue they the batteries had plenty of torque it's just that these things need to be kicked over even faster and I've been able to do that with the kick starts on both bikes so they both have the same quirks that I don't like actually the Huskie has a crappy kill switch whereas the KTM has a button a kill button so I liked that better on the KTM both of them have problems with leaking out of that oil cap up here with your two-stroke oil so they they kind of have a couple of little nitpicky things but I couldn't really tell enough of a difference between the two bikes where I would be like oh you should buy one over the other my thought is this buy the one that is the best deal where I live the Husqvarna 's are less available they're harder to find and they're usually $200 or $300 more than the KT ends which is why I just stuck with with the KTM s because these bikes are already as you know expensive enough I don't want to pay extra just to have the white and blue bike although there are less guys that are running these things out there on the trail so if you want to be a little bit different I would say go for the husky as far as the air boxes go people complain and say that they need to like vendor air boxes and everything I honestly don't think that that is needed at all neither one of these bikes feel like they're plugged up to me I know they have closed off the air boxes a little bit more but I don't think it matters for 99% of the people riding these bikes they're getting enough oxygen to run these motors really well and yeah they might be tuned a little bit differently the Husky might be tuned a little bit more you know for a little softer on the bottom and in some cases I think that's probably by design but no I don't think you need to like vent your air box on either one of these bikes they both scream straight straight out of box so as far as which one I like better you're gonna you're gonna see the other riders that I have test you know that I thought I interviewed they pretty much all felt more comfortable on the KTM which was weird they all were surprised by that but for me it wasn't that big of a difference the Husky is 7 pounds heavier the way that this is the way that this is outfitted and I tried to do is I tried to do you know do a fair of a test as I could just by filling them up with gas the Husky was about 7 pounds more than the KTM but you didn't feel that honestly you couldn't tell when you were riding these things you couldn't tell that there was any difference in weight and they both felt lighter than my 2017 KTM 250 XC which this was like 14 or 15 pounds heavier whereas this one was about 7 pounds heavier than that bike but both of these bikes felt incredibly light and they felt lighter than my carbureted two-stroke so I think that these bikes and the bikes that will follow are going to save two strokes because people are going to actually find out for the first time what a two-stroke is really supposed to run like because they were unknown on and and people are people are gonna be blown away with them and that's exciting because I think it'll help you know invigorate the resurgence of two strokes and it saves them because we were gonna lose two strokes because of emissions anyway so those are some of my thoughts I loved both the bikes I it's too hard for me to pick between which one I'd rather own because they're just they're just that good they both have a couple little things that are there maybe better than the other one but overall when you when you boil it all down and I was writing these things back-to-back all day long it didn't matter which bike I was on I loved him both and there wasn't there wasn't that deal-breaker you know with either one so these are both great bikes the Husky te 250 I awesome the KTM 250 xew TPI this one really surprised me this one probably surprised me more than this one I've have either one as my primary bike and I would just love it so anyway those are my two cents thanks for tuning guys

Channel: Dirt Bike Channel

Views: 299,124

Rating: 4.8830252 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: CrN8wxIXIu4

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 03 2018