• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
     TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Calling all 2013 TE449 owners - Would you buy it again?

Kelly mentioned Bill's, and they dont charge for setup...but they do bother to make the bike run as well as it can...and follow up if it ends up with issues.

I must have bad luck because almost every bike I have bought required some tweaking....
F650GS BMW...so lean that it stalls and it might not start again...cure Power Commander
VFR750 Honda....runs OK, but wont run right until you install....Power Commander. Rectifiers die regularly.
05 Honda CRF450X, wont start, jetting way out of whack. Use the button and kickstarter simultaneously and starts most of the time. Better yet get a JD Jetting kit.
Update: Triumph Thruxton, dealer went through the carbs before I ever touched it.
08 Honda CRF450X, better than the '05, but still needs jetting kit.
BMW F800, so soft that it bottoms on everything....significant suspension setup expense on a street bike.
Husqvarna 610 runs lean. Make powerup plug and cured.
Husqvarna WR300 less than crisp throttle response.... off to RB for carb flow work
Husqvarna TXC511/449, must plug in powerup plug to make it acceptable, JD or remap to make it great.


Ive recently been researching vintage bikes and am reminded that poor jetting was the standard of the day since I started riding in the early '70s. Every article I read about a 70s era MX bike includes a long discussion of the setup issues they faced.

And if we want to talk autos, I could build a similar list.... Ford 6.0 diesel, Maserati semi-auto transmission, porous blocks on Porsches, transmission failures by the boatload across many manufacturers.....
 
McKay said:
Illustrates the point perfectly, shouldn't need a paid setup.
Click to expand...

Every brand of bike I have ever bought the dealer wanted to charge setup fees, and yes I have had suzuki, honda, kawasaki, yamaha, ktm, & husqvarna. Your comment makes it sound like setup is a husqvarna thing but every brand has set fees which do vary wildly by dealer. Proper set up by a dealer like Bills or uptite is worth paying a few dollars.
 
Buy a KLR 650. It is renowned for its reliability. I have owned two, very durable, but the list of mods you must
make to get it right is lengthy. Doohickey at the top, requires removing left engine cover and special tools,
(balancer chain adjustment spring and holder are faulty) carb mods (22 cent one), different fork springs, are it dives
Like an an olympic gold medalist, drill thru frame mod (frame can break at sub frame junction) 08 models usually
Require 685 kit due to burning oil and on and on...great bike though, dealers will not acknowledge these malfunctions.
Buy any brand new RM, YZ, CR etc, and if the guy knows what right is, he will be jetting/mapping, doing suspension
Reworking the bike, it's how it is I have only 5 in the garage, 3 different Asian makers, 2 huskys, I think the huskys
Have been less trouble, and perform their tasks more to my liking, but I am not a smart man.
 
rancher1 said:
Every brand of bike I have ever bought the dealer wanted to charge setup fees, and yes I have had suzuki, honda, kawasaki, yamaha, ktm, & husqvarna. Your comment makes it sound like setup is a husqvarna thing but every brand has set fees which do vary wildly by dealer. Proper set up by a dealer like Bills or uptite is worth paying a few dollars.
Click to expand...
No, my comment is in regards to the bike not running properly when bought, NONE of my vehicles needed tuners, ECU flashes, xhaust pipes/mods or TPS resets when they were delivered. This includes cars, trucks, motorcycles, aircraft , tractors...
 
McKay said:
No, my comment is in regards to the bike not running properly when bought, NONE of my vehicles needed tuners, ECU flashes, xhaust pipes/mods or TPS resets when they were delivered. This includes cars, trucks, motorcycles, aircraft , tractors...
Click to expand...


Welcome tot he world of plated dirt bikes. My friend struggled a lot more with his new WR450F Yamaha than i did with my 511. My buddies KTM350 are very lean as well and need tuners etc. What is happening is they are taking 50 hp high performance motors and corcking them off and leaning them out so the can get a plate. It is pretty much industry wide and most understand this going in. Really the power up plug that comes free with the bike makes it run pretty good but there is a lot left on the table for you to get should you choose. Most do, some are happy with just the plug and then maybe a muffler down the road.
 
Well, the original poster has had his question answered. He knows about what may or may not be every issue with the bike. Some will find an issue critical, while others consider it trivial.

Different strokes for different folks....and he gets to decide.
 
McKay said:
Ugg, I give. Everything is rosy with the 449/511.
Click to expand...


It really is just the condition with these plated dirt bikes and seems every manufacturer struggles to meet the EPA requirements. Nothing to get upset over it is what it is. As it is obvious they can run fantastic once uncorked and remapped I'm sure the factories would LOVE to sell them to you that way if they could. I dont think they are wild over all the crap they have to do just to get the plate ether. I'm sure they would rather not do charcoal canisters, huge mufflers with expensive catalytic converters and EFI maps that suck too.
 
Motosportz said:
It really is just the condition with these plated dirt bikes and seems every manufacturer struggles to meet the EPA requirements. Nothing to get upset over it is what it is. As it is obvious they can run fantastic once uncorked and remapped I'm sure the factories would LOVE to sell them to you that way if they could. I dont think they are wild over all the crap they have to do just to get the plate ether. I'm sure they would rather not do charcoal canisters, huge mufflers with expensive catalytic converters and EFI maps that suck too.
Click to expand...
All so very true and it has been said so many times.
I just can't understand why it is so hard for some folks to understand? :confused:
 
Because most people buy a vehicle new, put gas in it, drive/ride it until the manual says it needs service, take it to a dealer and pay them to maintain it. They don't want to know what makes it go or how to make it better.
 
4eyes said:
Because most people buy a vehicle new, put gas in it, drive/ride it until the manual says it needs service, take it to a dealer and pay them to maintain it. They don't want to know what makes it go or how to make it better.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I expect out of a routine commuter/travel vehicle. I have a 2010 Nissan Z that is a blast to drive, and I have absolutely NO intention to modify it in any way. It's life consists of mostly Sunday drives in the country and a bit of commuter work. However, lots of online Z owners race their cars, and that is when deficiencies arise. The issues are mostly with keeping the brakes and transmission cool. Both tend to overheat with track use. Both can be fixed for some $$$. It's a great car to sport around in, but if you want to be SCCA competitive in advanced classes, you better be willing to pony up. If a Z owner wants to drag race Mustangs, Cameros, AMGs, etc, you can Stillen supercharge the car, but that isn't what the car was meant to be. Same perspectives with the TE, IMO.
 
Interesting thread...
I know that some folks are investing some significant $$ into these bikes to turn them into semi-bulletproof race machines but...
I have yet to spend an extra penny on mine apart from regular dirt bike stuff.
I do change my oil regularly and usually clean and grease all suspension and wheel berings between 800-1000 Km of general trail use.

Stuff I paid for:

1 - Bark Busters (money saver in the long run)
2 - Spare air filter (I like to keep one clean an oiled to avoid the temptation of riding with a dirty one)
3 - Oil and Filters (no brainer)
4 - DoubleTake Mirrors (Go on all my offroad bikes)


Stuff I got for Free:

1 - Powerup plug and Akro exhaust (Zoom Zoom)
2 - Small issue with #2TPS sensor (Righted by Dealer for free)
3 - Remapped ECU (also righted by dealer for free as he understands how a bike should run. Especially when his name is on it. ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM)

No, it's not quite as easy to work on as an older XR or DRZ but every minute on this bike has been worth the hours invested in making sure it is ready for the next ride.
I'm pretty sure I spent significantly more to make my '04XR650L ridable and it was never this fun.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top