Making it my own....
They say KTM's are race-ready, right out of the crate. Well, hogwash I say. This is only true if you don't mind replacing banged up parts every
couple of races. Here are a few necessities for my kind of racing.
Pipe guard and skid plate: must have'em both. The pipe guard is an
Eline carbon fiber protector which is very strong and light. The skid
plate comes from Enduro Engineering. KTM did a great job with the
water pump, placing it well out of trouble.

Next up: radiator protection. I chose
Enduro Engineering's guards
because of the way they protect from
side impacts. That's where most of
the beatings take place on radiators,
and Enduro Engineering has got it
covered. The guards retain the stock
radiator louvers.
Here's something you don't want to see. That's the broken end
of a tap inside one of the radiator mounting holes. The Enduro
Engineering guards require the radiators to be removed in
order to install them. KTM's threading of the radiator mount
holes bordered on pathetic. The bolts would not thread back in
properly, which is why I decided to clean them up with the tap.
Apparently when the tap met the frame (this is a blind hole), the
frame won out.
Once I ground out the broken tap with a Dremel tool (and a very hard
coated grinding bit), I went straight for the Heli-coil on both of the mounting
holes on that side of the frame (the other side was much better).
Here's another interesting product I tried for the first time: threaded inserts
for hand guards. The inside ends of the handlebars are tapped and the
silver thingies are threaded into the bar ends. The inserts came from
Emig Racing, which also supplied the handlebar top clamp for the Scotts
Steering Damper and the bolt-on steering damper tower.
The supplied tap cuts fairly easily through aluminum bars. A
little red Loctite keeps the insert in place. For the past 10 years
or so I'd used hand guard mounts that bolted directly to the top
triple clamp. I usually had to buy a new top triple clamp,
however, because most stock triple clamps these days are not
made to accept clamp-mounted brackets for the hand guards. I
didn't really mind, though, because usually the aftermarket
triple clamps were of better quality than the stockers. But KTM
put some nice ones on the 250EXC and I saw no need to toss
aside the clamps just because I wanted hand guards that
never rotate around the bars after a crash. The threaded inserts
are said to greatly reduce these hand guard rotations by
keeping the guards firmly planted to the handlebars. We'll see.
Enduro Engineering clutch slave cylinder guard. These types of guards
have been part of every KTM I've owned. Enduro Engineering made them
just a little better by including a metal piece that runs above the
countershaft sprocket. No mud buildup from the stock plastic guard -
that's a good thing.
And of course, no bike of mine would be complete without a
Scotts steering damper. I can't count the number of times these
things have save me from pain.
I decided to go with a bolt-on tower this time. Never had much luck with
these on past bikes, but this one, from Emig Racing, appears to be
holding itself firmly.
The handlebar clamp is also from Emig Racing. It comes with
four different sets of damper mounting holes for various bar
clamp positions.
The Scotts shark fin rear brake rotor protector. It's the best there is. Period.
Stay tuned...there will be more!