Luxon 150SX - Weight, First Ride

Flipsid33
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Canyon Country, CA, USA
5/27/2019 5:52pm
On a side note all of the 17 KTM 250sx/xc engines are prone to idler gear failures.

Needs an updated crankcase or a mod to the cases before they fail.
VoodooHusky
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Roseville, CA, USA
5/28/2019 9:49am
Great build thread, looking forward to the next update.
Luxon MX
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San Diego, CA, USA
Fantasy
7/21/2019 3:23pm
Long time, no updates! It’s been a crazy couple months balancing engineering work with progress on the project bike, so the bike and to drop a bit in priority… But I’ve still made some progress worth mentioning:

The high-speed compression adjusters have been done a while now and we have them available on our site. They came out great! A little tough to turn, but still very doable without tools. No photo of one on the KTM yet as the shock is still in pieces…



We’re currently machining our billet fork lugs. Those and WPC treatment of the upper tubes is the main hold up on the suspension, so those should be done soon and I can get everything to N2Dirt Suspension for final assembly and valving. I did a bunch of work on the Dal Soggio kit to change the colors up and fix the adjuster issue as shown earlier, but I also received the MX Tech Lucky kit for our other shop bike. After weighing them both, the MX Tech is 2.5 lbs lighter than the Dal Soggio! So the plan now is to go with MX Tech on the KTM and the Dal Soggio go on our Husqvarna. The Lucky cartridges are supposed to be really good, and we’re going for a really lightweight bike here, so it was the obvious choice.

Lucky on the left, Dal Soggio on the right:


Here’s a screenshot of the CNC programming on the fork lug:



6
Luxon MX
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Fantasy
7/21/2019 3:28pm
When I was into the transmission, I noticed KTM uses an aluminum shift drum. Pretty cool way to keep the weight down, but it’s just raw aluminum and full of sharp edges! I threw the drum into our tumbler to knock off the edges, then sent it out for our Kyokote coating. That’s the same stuff we’re doing to fork uppers and shock bodies; a Teflon impregnated hard anodize. It’s comparable to Kashima, but we do it locally and have a lot of control over the process. This will go off for WPC treatment along with the rest of the transmission, so the shifting will be silky smooth.

As it came out of the transmission:



In the tumbler:



After tumbling:



After coating:


19

The Shop

Luxon MX
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Fantasy
7/21/2019 3:34pm
And since I had the cases all apart, it made sense to knock off some weight there too. KTM must share these cases on other bikes since there are provisions for an electric starter included. There are also manufacturing features left over – runners, machining datums, etc. as well as some casting mismatch and flash. I went to town with the Dremel and sanding wheel on our angle grinder to clean things up some. It was a lot of work for not much weight loss, but it all adds up!



After that I sent the cases out for black anodize. They masked off all the bearing bores and important features where sizing id critical, so no worries there. And I knew that castings don’t always respond well to anodize, but wow, these turned out like crap! They’re kind of a splotchy grey. It’s not too bad if grey is your desired finish, but I really wanted black so our hard-anodized grey covers would really pop… So, I’m sending these off to Vince @fiendz.cc for some proper Cerakote. Lesson learned there…


3
PTshox
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Highland Village, TX, USA
7/21/2019 3:42pm
Interesting stuff. Keep it coming. Great to follow. Looks like you have a lot of cool tools at your disposal for such a project!
CarlinoJoeVideo
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7517
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Portland/Los Angeles, CA, USA
7/21/2019 9:40pm
Awesome work on the shift drum. I questioned that part when I ISF’d my 125 tranny. Wasn’t sure what to do with that part.
GarrettL
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95
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10/8/2010
Location
Edmond, OK, USA
7/22/2019 8:23am
Luxon MX wrote:
And since I had the cases all apart, it made sense to knock off some weight there too. KTM must share these cases on other bikes...
And since I had the cases all apart, it made sense to knock off some weight there too. KTM must share these cases on other bikes since there are provisions for an electric starter included. There are also manufacturing features left over – runners, machining datums, etc. as well as some casting mismatch and flash. I went to town with the Dremel and sanding wheel on our angle grinder to clean things up some. It was a lot of work for not much weight loss, but it all adds up!



After that I sent the cases out for black anodize. They masked off all the bearing bores and important features where sizing id critical, so no worries there. And I knew that castings don’t always respond well to anodize, but wow, these turned out like crap! They’re kind of a splotchy grey. It’s not too bad if grey is your desired finish, but I really wanted black so our hard-anodized grey covers would really pop… So, I’m sending these off to Vince @fiendz.cc for some proper Cerakote. Lesson learned there…


Precision Anno in OKC can get them hard anodized black. Mine turned out decent.
2
danman
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1204
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4/1/2008
Location
Readstown, WI, USA
7/23/2019 5:52am
Luxon MX wrote:
Long time, no updates! It’s been a crazy couple months balancing engineering work with progress on the project bike, so the bike and to drop a...
Long time, no updates! It’s been a crazy couple months balancing engineering work with progress on the project bike, so the bike and to drop a bit in priority… But I’ve still made some progress worth mentioning:

The high-speed compression adjusters have been done a while now and we have them available on our site. They came out great! A little tough to turn, but still very doable without tools. No photo of one on the KTM yet as the shock is still in pieces…



We’re currently machining our billet fork lugs. Those and WPC treatment of the upper tubes is the main hold up on the suspension, so those should be done soon and I can get everything to N2Dirt Suspension for final assembly and valving. I did a bunch of work on the Dal Soggio kit to change the colors up and fix the adjuster issue as shown earlier, but I also received the MX Tech Lucky kit for our other shop bike. After weighing them both, the MX Tech is 2.5 lbs lighter than the Dal Soggio! So the plan now is to go with MX Tech on the KTM and the Dal Soggio go on our Husqvarna. The Lucky cartridges are supposed to be really good, and we’re going for a really lightweight bike here, so it was the obvious choice.

Lucky on the left, Dal Soggio on the right:


Here’s a screenshot of the CNC programming on the fork lug:



Perhaps I missed it in an earlier post, but what is the goal with the fork lugs? Weight, performance, both???

Your work is damn nice. I love seeing the new stuff you come up with.
1
Luxon MX
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San Diego, CA, USA
Fantasy
7/23/2019 8:39am
danman wrote:
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier post, but what is the goal with the fork lugs? Weight, performance, both??? Your work is damn nice. I...
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier post, but what is the goal with the fork lugs? Weight, performance, both???

Your work is damn nice. I love seeing the new stuff you come up with.
Thanks! There are a few reasons we're making lugs:

1) I've integrated a bigger interface for the brake side wheel spacer to sit against. We can change the wheel spacer size for more or less stiffness at that interface for a different steering feel. I suspect we'll want to go as stiff as possible, but we'll see after some testing.

2) There are a lot of people running KYB inserts or some other change from stock. I'll be machining some of these lugs as "blanks" - all features externally, but with a dummy internal hole. We can either sell them like that for custom applications, or machine to order. I'll keep some fully machined ones on the shelf for typical applications like AER and KYB, though.

3) Replacement cast lugs are pretty expensive if you strip a bolt or something. We can offer billet ones that are competitive in price.

4) Bling. People are spending $1000's on fancy coatings, upgraded internals, etc. and then putting on the stock cast lugs. If we can offer a hard-anodized, billet equivalent, that looks factory, it's an easy upgrade to match the factory look of the rest of the fork they've spent a ton of money on.
11
PTshox
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Highland Village, TX, USA
7/23/2019 12:20pm
danman wrote:
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier post, but what is the goal with the fork lugs? Weight, performance, both??? Your work is damn nice. I...
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier post, but what is the goal with the fork lugs? Weight, performance, both???

Your work is damn nice. I love seeing the new stuff you come up with.
Luxon MX wrote:
Thanks! There are a few reasons we're making lugs: 1) I've integrated a bigger interface for the brake side wheel spacer to sit against. We can...
Thanks! There are a few reasons we're making lugs:

1) I've integrated a bigger interface for the brake side wheel spacer to sit against. We can change the wheel spacer size for more or less stiffness at that interface for a different steering feel. I suspect we'll want to go as stiff as possible, but we'll see after some testing.

2) There are a lot of people running KYB inserts or some other change from stock. I'll be machining some of these lugs as "blanks" - all features externally, but with a dummy internal hole. We can either sell them like that for custom applications, or machine to order. I'll keep some fully machined ones on the shelf for typical applications like AER and KYB, though.

3) Replacement cast lugs are pretty expensive if you strip a bolt or something. We can offer billet ones that are competitive in price.

4) Bling. People are spending $1000's on fancy coatings, upgraded internals, etc. and then putting on the stock cast lugs. If we can offer a hard-anodized, billet equivalent, that looks factory, it's an easy upgrade to match the factory look of the rest of the fork they've spent a ton of money on.
Nice work!
MotoRoss678
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215
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2/16/2016
Location
Waynesburg, PA, USA
10/23/2019 10:16am
Hope to see an update soon! This is awesome! How'd the air cured cerakote turn out on the frame?
1
Luxon MX
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Fantasy
10/23/2019 1:00pm
Hope to see an update soon! This is awesome! How'd the air cured cerakote turn out on the frame?
Thanks for the bump! Workload has really bumped up on the engineering side of our business, so the project bike has been pretty much stalled out for the last few months. Hoping to get back on it soon, though.

The air-cured cerakote looks good sitting on the frame in the office here, but it's hard to give a good review since it's just sitting inside!
red_leader
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246
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3/6/2018
Location
Redondo Beach, CA, USA
10/24/2019 9:28am
Do you revolve the HPSD?
Or run it stock?

Sick Build!
Luxon MX
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10/24/2019 9:37am
red_leader wrote:
Do you revolve the HPSD?
Or run it stock?

Sick Build!
Thanks! Currently running them stock, but tempted to try out some heavier oil and possibly different valving. They're super simple to rebuild.
Zeke27G
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1408
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Location
Ascot Park, CA, USA
10/24/2019 12:55pm Edited Date/Time 10/24/2019 12:57pm
Neat-o!

Let me know when you're ready to do a KX500 build.
1
RABnasty
Posts
261
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4/26/2012
Location
Temecula, CA, USA
11/4/2019 8:19pm
Would love to see how this one is going
1/29/2020 11:21am
Hey,
I just startet this Account to ask how the build is going. I check this page out almost every day just to see if there is an update. But it has been a long time. I hope you will continue this build because I follow this since day one.
Greetings from Germany
3
Luxon MX
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Fantasy
2/6/2020 1:53pm
Apologies for the lack of updates, this has been dropped in priority to take care of paying work! we hope to make significant progress in the coming months, though. I'll post a couple things really soon, though, to catch us up on the little things we knocked out in the last few months.
Luxon MX
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San Diego, CA, USA
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2/6/2020 2:00pm
We've expanded our DLC offerings and now have Ice Blue and Rainbow in addition to standard black. So we'll have to decide which color to go with on the build! I'm leaning towards the Ice Blue to keep with the blue color theme we've got going, but the rainbow looks pretty flashy...

And I'm not certain on the upper tube color yet, but we'll likely go with our black Kyokote as shown here:

Ice Blue:


Rainbow:


16
ledger
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2/7/2020 12:53am
Ice Blue in my opinion...very unique and different.
red_leader
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Location
Redondo Beach, CA, USA
2/7/2020 11:12am
Oh sweet!
I want Whistling
Luxon MX
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San Diego, CA, USA
Fantasy
2/26/2020 8:56pm Edited Date/Time 2/26/2020 8:58pm
Well, this is one of those things that just looks cool rather than a performance mod... The stock aluminum washers for the exhaust bushings are pretty plain and boring, so why not drill them out (10g of weight saved!) and anodize them blue to match the rest of the bike's theme?










21
ledger
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USA
2/27/2020 2:27am
Will you offer this type of service ? I would be very interested...
1
lumpy790
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York, SC, USA
2/27/2020 5:32am
Sweet looking mod!

Dropping 10g here and there will add up to a lot lighter!
1
2/27/2020 6:29am
ledger wrote:
Will you offer this type of service ? I would be very interested...
X2 I would be in on a set
Luxon MX
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2/28/2020 12:14pm
ledger wrote:
Will you offer this type of service ? I would be very interested...
X2 I would be in on a set
Probably not. They would have to be pretty expensive for it to make sense for us to do it. Something like $80/set.
1
ledger
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2/28/2020 1:16pm
ledger wrote:
Will you offer this type of service ? I would be very interested...
X2 I would be in on a set
Luxon MX wrote:
Probably not. They would have to be pretty expensive for it to make sense for us to do it. Something like $80/set.
Booooo...lol, just kidding, and I totally understand.
1
PTshox
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Highland Village, TX, USA
2/29/2020 1:00pm
You folks at Luxon are doing some nice work. Keep building up the product portfolio, crow about it and good things will happen.
1

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