• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    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!

Need 84 250 air cooled cylinder

This cylinder came only on the '84 250wr and cr air cooled bikes?

A little advance in the port timing, some porting in the right areas to improve the flow and maybe polishing the crankshaft area in the case and the 250 is as far as it can go.
 
Bigbill said:
This cylinder came only on the '84 250wr and cr air cooled bikes?

A little advance in the port timing, some porting in the right areas to improve the flow and maybe polishing the crankshaft area in the case and the 250 is as far as it can go.
Click to expand...
yes, all air cooled 84 250s and 83 250 cr.
 
I feel if Husqvarna made these changes sooner with all the advancements in technology back then even to the single shock sooner they would of survived.

Even Penton tried first with husqvarna to tell them about a more user friendly smaller engine, more woodsy dirt bike.
 
Husqvarna has survived,just look elsewhere on cafe husky.As for husqvarna longer be made in Sweden,I'm not sure if I would really want a Swedish Husky these days.
 
what do you mean bill? the 84 cylinder has less bottom end than my 88 liquid...top end is the only place this design excelled, and thats not what helps in the woods...powervalves are one of the things that did in husky in the 80s....i agree they arent needed always but people were not going to buy a bike that didnt have one...they had to sell the company to make that happen
 
Well I mean that husqvarna could of make more changes sooner. Big companies get in a rut when there product is selling and doing great. The big company that I retired from was number 1 in the world. But they dumped millions into research and development trying to stay on the leading edge of technology. Let's keep an eye on KTM there number one right now.

I understand the mid to late 80's husqvarna bikes were better. Even my Italian 98 & 99 bikes were decent. I did over 100mph on the highway here on a te610e. It's going to get interesting were ktm takes husqvarna in what direction. Since ktm let husqvarna gobble up the husaberg four strokes. The two Swedish companies are together again in a way.

Performance wise the exhaust power valve took the power/speed away from the top end and put it on the bottom.
 
This cylinder, in my opinion from riding with one, is not better than the '82, and in reality was a last ditch effort to keep up with the Japanese, but it was too late. The '84 ('83 CR) AC cylinder probably makes more peak numbers on a dyno, but most people (including me) will be faster on the '82 cylinder, and even faster on the old non-primary kick '79-'81.
 
I haven't had my '84/250wr out yet to really see how she runs. Watching my son ripping around the yard tells me it has more snots then my '83 wr did. What little time I tried it I haven't been on a two wheeler in a decade + but the bike was ripping with the front wheel up with ease. There's a porting difference. Unless work was done on this bike before. Ill pull it down soon. For a 250cc it doesn't run bad.

I have more seat time on a '79 cr390 than any other husky. I rode the '81 cr250, '78 250or, 83 430wr, 83 250wr, 86 400wr in between. The '79 390cr with the smaller frame is ballistic when it comes to power. But I liked the '81 250cr and the 78 250or too. I like them all. Each one has its own feel to it power wise. There's something special when it comes to the 390/400cc engines.
 
"Performance wise the exhaust power valve took the power/speed away from the top end and put it on the bottom" -bill
i feel your last statement is false...you know a powervalve is basically variable exhaust port timing, right? you can have cake and eat it too in this aspect. a powervalve robs power from nowhere and adds broader range, making the port tall for higher rpm or shorter for grunt.
of course this adds complexity and is something else that needs maintenance..
dont get me wrong, i love a bike without a valve, its simple and easier to jet. i also love my swedes, they cannot be replaced. i often wondered why for years how the biggest bike husky made was the 360, no 430, no 500. after buying a 360 and tuning it, i can understand why thats all the bigger thats made for offroad.
 
"ripping with the front wheel up with ease" is irrelevant to what is good for getting through the woods or around a track as quickly as possible. Most of the time, unless you are racing supercross and you are Ryan Villopoto or James Stewart, smoother is faster, not a hit that has you "ripping with the front wheel in the air". Even more so for the woods, and even more so if you are no longer 20 years old and invincible, which I think includes everyone here.
 
The newer bikes(jap) top out at 85mph. We checked it with a street bike after my 86 400wxe destroyed it at the dam. While the husqvarna will do over 100mph easy (80's). My '81 250cr was destroying newer kx250's in the straights at will.(90's bikes)
To me it seems the exhaust valve took away some top end? Or did they ever have too end speed? I feel you put a good rider on a good running husky even an older one it's like sending iron Mike Tyson who was unknown at the time to fight. The old bikes still run good. They might not have the high tech stuff the bikes of today have but there still impress me.

I enjoy the power. Remember this is my last go round. The bike is my exercise machine so I can get my strength back that the cancer took away. If I can return to my old self it's going to be fun again. Maybe in a year or less ill post a video.
 
New bikes have much closer ratio transmissions than even the CR Husky's, its got nothing to do with top end HP.
 
transmission ratios and gearing are what you are dealing with..
dont get me wrong ive played on the road alot with all my friends their jap bikes had power, just most didnt have the gearing or ratios to get from riding area to area..
my newer husky 360 is not any slower than my older swedes, thats for sure. it has the tranny to run against them with a better motor..
thats being said, i love my older swedes, just like you do bill, they just dont make em like that anymore. thats a good and bad thing..
 
bill, you would have got a kick out of my friend...he brought his brand new 05 or 06 yz250 out and lost every drag against a 86 wr400 and had very tight races with my 88 xc250. the xc250 would walk away from it after he hit 5th, he was pissed all day but he didnt know what was going on he just saw old bikes giving him a hard time. no one could keep up to that 400 unless you had another husky or bike with tall gearing.. really just a matter of ratios...and 6 speeds! of course crank and flywheel weight help with traction
 
This is what I'm trying to say our buddies with there newer bikes would try to smoke the old huskies. When they lost nothing was said. Me and my son were quiet but we were laughing all the way home. My secret words to my son was "take it easy on that old bike" before we rode with them in front of them. The kid knew if they messed with him he would pour it on. We're under dogs on the old bikes. We go to ride and have fun doing our own thing. I go when the place is empty so I could pour it on for a good workout. Three passes and I'm beat. But I was in the best condition of my life. No one realizes what a workout it really is.

The '86 400 wrx was no slouch for sure.

I could get the '79 cr390 into 6th gear with it pulling hard with more throttle to go but I never topped it out. I wicked it once in 6th gear while flying and up came the front wheel. I think after riding the 1200cc bandit on the street I had no fear. I learned about body English on the dirt first then on the street.
 
Kartwheel68 said:
This cylinder, in my opinion from riding with one, is not better than the '82, and in reality was a last ditch effort to keep up with the Japanese, but it was too late. The '84 ('83 CR) AC cylinder probably makes more peak numbers on a dyno, but most people (including me) will be faster on the '82 cylinder, and even faster on the old non-primary kick '79-'81.
Click to expand...

Without riding any husqvarna 250 except a 2004 that is kind of what I thought looking at the picture of those extra exhaust ports. Put some adjustable stoppers in them, make them twice or more as big, add a flapper to close down the main exhaust port and you have what a modern 250 is. (in that general area of the cylinder) Maybe someone still makes the other design like my avatar or the yamaha 125. That also makes much less noise when those side exhausts are closed and the flapper is down.

We see more advancement in the 250 say 1983 to 1988 in terms of porting I believe because the studs or rods that hold the top end on get in the way as the bore increases.

There are a number of statements I disagree with in the last 10 posts or so but will not address.
 
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