T his whole build started with a second hand 2015.5 KTM 450SXF Factory Edition purchased through Trademe . Unfortunately , not all bikes are as they are advertised … what was sold as a “ well maintained ” bike , turned out to have a destroyed engine that had struggled through its last hour of riding with a dry , un-oiled air filter .
COMPLETELY REBUILT MOTOR So , we stripped the engine right back and started from the ground up . While it was apart , the frame and swingarm were powder coated . The engine cases were all soda-blasted to clean them up . Then we rebuilt every single bearing and seal on the bike with genuine KTM parts . That included a new genuine bottom end , re-plated the cylinder and matched it to a new Vertex KTM piston and rings and new cam and cam-chain . The clutch was rebuilt with KTM Powerparts clutch pack
and Hinson Cover , and while in there we also replaced the oil pumps with new genuine rotors . Once we had everything back together we filled it up with Motorex CrossPower 10w50 4T . The engine was pretty straight forward to do - 95 % of parts were in stock at KTM and the other 5 % took a week and a bit to arrive . We went with an FMF Mega Bomb full titanium system as we ’ ve always had good results and good life out of them on our four-strokes .
BIG CHALLENGE The chassis was the real challenge for us . We had a rough idea about flat track , but really didn ’ t know in what direction we should take the bike . Sam Smith was always my go-to for info as this was really his sport that he was growing from the ground up here in NZ . This bike has become something of a tribute to Sam ,
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