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The Incomplete Duke - A Duke II Primer | ||
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I purchased this absolutely stone stock 2002 KTM Duke II in September of 2004 with 347 miles on it. Not even broken in. As with any good obsession I began with an Internet search on the bike. There was no home page or fan page or much of anything really. There are some foreign pages but the translations are almost as good as the original language. So this page, like the Boxer pages, is going to be what I was looking for but couldn't find - a guide to getting the most out of a stellar machine. This isn't to say the internet is void of Duke information - it's there but it's scattered through different sites and in a dozen languages. Here are some of the boards and lists you should check out in your search: The Yahoo KTM Duke site is about the only Duke only list. KTM Talk Motard and Thumper Talk LC4 are Motard and LC4 based pages respectively which the Duke certainly fits in. Another good one is the MonoManiacs site. None really outshine the others and it's rather a pain to search through them all but if you just got a Duke I'm sure you will. I'll try to condense the information I've gleaned or discovered on these pages. A Duke Primer if you will. So what's wrong with the Duke? Very little as it turns out. The suspension is top notch, the handling is superb, the build quality rivals Honda and the looks - well you either love it or hate it. I love it. About the only shortcoming of the bike is the power. When I test rode it I honestly expected more. The bike feels like a dirt bike so you expect that kind of violent power but it's not there. Government restrictions have strangled the engine but it's easy to correct. With the help of the teams dyno guru, Peter, we decided to put up some pages that cover the standard Duke mods and find out what they do. Try to separate the wheat from the chaff if you will. We'll also address some other niggling problems and just have some fun making the bike a little better. The sequence will follow the modifications as a normal owner might. Cheap stuff first and then things more involved. So, shall we start? Click below or follow the "next" buttons... |  | |||||
Peter sets up the Duke on the Dyno. The stock bike will give us a baseline to measure against. | ||||||
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Duke Modifications | ||||||
950 Adventure Modifications | ||||||
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