Here is a breakdown of the bike Chase Marquier rode while on PRMX in 2023.
I'm sure I will miss some things so ill try to add things as they come up.
I am going to break down the bike and list the parts we did/didn't use and why. I am also going to try and give you a price for each product we used and a total at the end to give you an idea of what this bike would cost the average person. (some of these photos were taken throughout the season so the bike may look a little different in some photos)
this build wasn't as wild as we had the ability for, mostly due to the fact that chase was not an overly aggressive rider and preferred the bike a little closer to stock compared to most.
The start of this bike started like many others, Kawasaki 450 framed, cleaned, and greased.
Engine
David our Motor Tech would assemble the motor with a Williams performance PRMX spec head and wossner piston. Rekluse full torque drive system was available to us however Chase just used the Rekluse basket because liked how the stock spring would slip just enough off the start (see Daytona heat race start below). some billet case covers and a PC water pump finished off the motor. as for the tune, D-Spec motorsports from Canada would handle remapping the stock ECU.
Suspension
The suspension was done by Tim at TCD, we had a Trax shock with Xact forks. never veered from Tim's setting other than a few clicks here and there. these were paired with some Luxon Gen 2 clamps that were 23mm offset.
Wheels
the wheels were Excel Takasago hoops with Haan hubs built by Dubya. Chase liked the Pirelli mid soft 120-90-19 spec tire in the rear a 80-100-21 mid soft spec front tire. gearing was 13-52, x-ring firepower chain with the wheel base in a neutral to slightly long position. i also liked to add some silicone to each side of the axle to keep the dirt out.
Controls
Chase preferred the Champ bend from odi at -0.5 cut down 1mm on each side. Chase also preferred a half waffle soft compound grip. as for the levers Chase preferred a traditional style lever with a bend similar to OEM for the front break, and one of ASV bendable leavers for the clutch.
Misc
I added a few pictures of some safety precautions we would do. pinning the radiator cap is just extra assurance it would twist off in a freak crash or something, we also had an issue with the brake line getting caught on the master cylinder and ripping it out of the brake line mount on the fork guard so we safety wired it to the mount so they wouldn't separate. master cylinder guards from REC helped keep the line away from the master cylinder as well. At some point during the year the sock body was catching Chases boot so i made a guard from old plastic that we used for a while before deciding it didn't look good (i will try and find a pic of that to show). as a final safety precaution and a very easy way to ensure no bolts are backing out i would mark each vital bolt head or nut with a paint pen so i could quickly go over the bike and see if anything came loose.
Chase preferred the Champ bend from ODI cut down 1mm on each side. Chase also preferred a half waffle soft compound grip from ODI. as for foot pegs, the bracket was stock mounted in the lower position on the frame attached to it were Flo Ti foot pegs.
2023 kx450f 9599
Motor:
Williams performance head (PRMX spec) 1,000
wossner piston 165
works crank with ti rod (only used in Seattle) 1,000
Rekluse torque drive 1150
option of vortex (did not use) 750
D-Spec engine mapping (just a guess) 400
PC water pump 200
PC billit cover 460
REC covers (oil filter cover, mastercylinder cover) 120
carbon Velocity stack (chase did not use but cade did) 500
pro filter 15
Suspension + chassis
trax shock 1500
WP Xact forks 3600
Luxon clamps and bar mounts 830
wheels + tires + breaks + chain
Dubya wheels 1380
Pirelli front and rear tires (non Spec) 130 & 95
motion pro rim lock 30
Pirelli heavy duty tubes 60
EBC rotors + pads 260
sprocket 40
chain 117
Exaust
HGS Ti Exaust 1000
Controls
ODI podium flight bars 95
Odi grips 30
Asv levers 175
Flow Ti footpegs 390
Misc
P3 carbon tank cover 125
P3 caliper guard 100
P3 skid plate 200
graphics 200
Anchor tape 55
guts cover and light weight seat foam 160
TDC fork guard bracket 25
evans petroleum based coolant 35
speck bold works nickel 80
fire power battery 117
Ti bolts 100
Rad hoses (did not use) 75
rakum start device 135
Ti Axle block adjusters 35
Works connection axle blocks 70
Works Connection Oil fill plug 30
Rad cap 2.0 35
rad plug 23
Accerbis plastics 130
Total 26,821
#219 machine 24,496
Really cool post -- thanks for the insight!
If you're at liberty to share; What's the budget throughout SX for parts / bike rebuilding? Do you guys do full rebuilds every week, or do you have to abide by longer intervals?
How often does a rider like Chase blow through parts / a whole bike?
Is there anything you desire resource wise?
I've always wondered how this stuff functions on non-factory teams
Thank you,
I'm not sure what the parts budget was, but we would go through grips, graphics, plastics, chain, tires, seat cover, air filter, oil, filter, and oil every race. every 6 races or so we would put new rotors and pads on the bike. Our teardowns were when necessary just because we didn't stay on Sundays like the factory teams so if we were driving to a race on back to back weekends we would frame the bike or after a mud race like East Rutherford. the normal schedule for greasing linkage was about every three races or if we had to pressure wash the bike a lot. As for the motor, because it was more on the stock side we had about a 50 hour limit before swapping it out, clutches would get changed anytime chase said something, we had a lot of clutches but they move quick when you have 4 250 guys and 2 450 guys.
Chase had the same race bike and practice bike all year, we did swap out the motors for both bikes half way through the season, the practice bike was because we snapped a countershaft which oddly enough happened to a few teams in the pits that were on the same motorcycle, and the race bike was just precautionary. I got lucky because chase was super easy on parts, the only thing that would give me a hard time was the valve stem, i learned i would have to crank down the rim locks and move the lock nut on the valve stem as close to the valve stem cap as i could.
I no longer work in the industry as a mechanic but if i could have any resource while i did it would probably be a machine shop, we really had most of the other things you find on bigger teams but access to a shop where we could bust out a quick part while we wait on an order or for making small parts to solve mundane problems, would have been awesome!
The goal of the whole team is to be as close to factory as possible, most of the biggest differences are money and support, which seem very obvious but when you don't have to worry about a budget it makes it easy to cover all your basis by saving time flying instead of driving to the close races, the machine shop i mentioned above, the ability to have a lot of smart people that can focus on their expertise instead of wearing multiple hats. support from a manufacturer is huge, you get the bike much earlier and you can develop the bike much further with access to the stuff above. though on the same note Julien, the owner of PRMX would try his best to make things happen if we asked, and he put together a very solid team with the resources he had, we had vapor blasters, parts tumblers, solvent bath, a decent parts inventory, nice washing equipment, access to a dyno for our motor guy, each mechanic had plenty of tools, chemicals. He provided us with a place to stay, nice meals while we were on the road, 2 sx tracks, suspension tech, it was as legit as privateer gets and I'm sure its gotten better since then. to sum it up, there are a lot of similarities (maybe not on the same scale) as factory teams and there are definitely a lot of differences too.
hopefully this answers some of your questions, let me know if i missed something or you would like to know more.
Do you have a break down of the 250 engine package? I know guys that raced Julien’s Bike and they never complained about the motor.
That was really insightful -- you covered everything I could've thought up!
What made you step away from being a mechanic? Are you still in working in the industry?
The Shop
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Cool write up Cole.
I do the development and performance work for PRMX.
250 heads are CNC ported, cams are designed and ground by us all in house. We used custom Wossner pistons. Different balance factors and inertia factors were used on the cranks.
Electric water pumps were also used on the 250.
Just finished the 25 team KX's.
Nothing really made me step away. I really liked being a mechanic, but after the season was over I chase didn't have anything lined up for outdoors so went home and ended up starting up a air filter company called Workz Filters (shameless plug) and I've been building that ever since.
Thank you
Yes, i was trying to remember if the piston was a custom spec as well.
I will always remember Phoenix of that year, that motor was really good and Yoder had been getting good starts that whole year which started a big bore rumor. He hole shot the heat race and I think maybe the main too that night in Phoenix, as soon as we got back to the truck AMA was there requesting to look at the bore of the cylinder stating a "random tear down". We laughed about that one for a while.
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