Hi Everybody

First post on this great website, and looking for some good ideas on what to add to the already very nice KTM 690 Enduro R

The idea is to start with a short trip to Morocco and maybe Algeria, to see how it goes, and plan for a longer south America journey some time in the future

I am a keen enduro rider (the sunday toy is a 250 EXC-F), and I would like the bike to remain as proficient as possible offroad, while being able to carry your home with you.

The bike comes with the 14l aqualine tank, which is good, but needs some more work to it to get it ready
I have been talking to Swampy Marsh who will be taking care of preparing the bike, but any good ideas are welcome.

Swampy told me it was possible to swap the FI for a carb on the 690. It should make the bike more reliable and easier to fix, but would lose the smoothness and fuel efficiency of FI
any views on that?


also what are the good mods you would suggest I did?

Thank you in advance

Damien

Hi,

I would check the internet for FI failures on your specific bike first. Why change FI? Do you have problems with it? What do you gain?

My advise is to leave the engine stock, if you need to go to a KTM dealer somewhere on this planet they know what it is. Non stock gives problems.

There's this religion thing going on about carb vs. FI. in the last 19 months i've never met any biker with FI failure, but did have carb issues myself, and met others too. Wish i had FI, adjusts for altitude, little if no wear and tear, no maintenance.

Carb. tuning may have been easy in the old straight forward Bing days, but with the current hi tech carbs, man, they are complex!

IMHO if you are not capable of fixing a carb, there's no difference if you have FI or carb. both are black boxes to you.

Do put an extra external inline filter and change regularly.

my 2 cents...

sanderd

__________________
http://sanderonasingle.blogspot.com/

I am with Sander ... Why would you NOT want FI? especially if you are going to South America and the 5000 metre passes in the Andes.

To say using carbs is more reliable is fantasy. I have never heard of a bike adventure being called off because of a broken FI system. On the other hand, carbs are constantly gunking up, out of tune, braking down, broken floats, broken needles, carb icing etc etc.

If somehow, your injector gets clogged, its a very very simple thing to clean it out. Its a very simple device with almost no moving parts.

I personally seek out bikes with EFI for touring, because for a multitude of reasons FI is superior. One of which is they are 20 times more reliable and require zero maintenance (apart from changing fuel filter as required).

There are a lot of things that can and do go wrong with bikes electronically, but EFI is not one of them. I said it in another post once ... but FI has been around since world war 2, so its not exactly new fangled technology.

Diesel engines, simple and reliable beasts, all use fuel injection. My petrol V8 car is 17 years old, has 8 fuel injectors, has done 160,000 miles and not a single fuel injector has needed to be touched in 17 years (nor my ECU), and I don't consider my car to be abnormally good. If I had a V8 with carbs, there is no way the fuel system could have remained completely untouched in 160,000 miles, yet its perfectly normal for FI.

On a typical adventure motorcycle, you will be replacing cranks and valves long before you even have to think about the FI system.

... having said that, you need to remember its a KTM, so anything is possible!

__________________

I don't know about everyone else with a 690, but the first thing I had done was get the seat re-upholstered! Sitting on that 3 inch wide plank of wood that comes as standard just wasn't bearable for anything over 2 or 3 hrs.

Only cost me £60 by a local coach trimmer and it mad the world of difference.

Me and 2 mates are heading to Morocco at the end of March - what's your timescale and what route are you planning?
Chris

Thank you for your comments.
I will stick with FI now

It is just that I would know how to sort out fueling issues in most case with a carb, while I am much less confident about being able to diagnosed any FI problem

But your points are well taken, I will trust austrian engineering!

Let say we have trust to "Keihin FI"...


Regards,

Simon