The owner of this KTM SMT had fitted his own DNA Stage 3 airbox and, led by what he’d learnt from forum ‘experts’, had removed the secondary butterfly valves, control arms and stepper motors and thrown them all away. Which, from our perspective is a mistake because as part of the remap we adjust their opening and closing times to take away some of the legendary bottom end snatch.
So because we couldn’t speed up the gas flow in the venturis at low rpm with the valves, getting this engine as sweet off the bottom as we’d like much harder. Also, he’d fitted the DNA airbox and thrown away the original base – we always keep ’em (with the DNA fitted inside and the stock lid removed) to provide relatively consistent airflow when riding. On the Dyno, we get more power, with the fan on, with the base in place.
We explained all this to the owner, and he understood. Two important things to remember are 1) don’t believe everything you read on a forum, just because it’s on a forum and 2) it’s not always about outright an horsepower figure with these big KTM V-twins; they are mainly ridden on the road, where things like throttle response and mid-range power delivery matter a great deal more…