Great thread Prayn4snow! We are excited for this build as we believe our products for the Axys are some of our best work yet. Robert came to me like any other customer asking about product information... then we started chatting about the forums and doing a build where he could document and be here for the dyno stages, then give real world experiences. We thought it would be a great idea as it's hard for us to be on the forums as often as we'd like. I'm a consumer just as much as the rest of you and I know the results coming from someone like Prayn4snow mean a lot more than what the companies claim.
Right now we are just waiting for some cooler weather so the dyno shows more accurate winter like conditions.
What is the reasoning for fitting a durability kit to a supposedly much improved engine?
So far it is just a pipe/can modification, stock engine still?
Much improved might be a little far fetched. Improved, yes... but still not where it should be. They still have the same short pistons and after just 400 miles on our short track last year we already saw significant wear on the intake side of the piston like on the old motors. This motor has a lightweight crank, different porting (almost identical to our porting for the 800CFI), and pistons with oil retention grooves in them. Of course the addition of an electronic oil pump does help things if you are the rider most of us here are. For those cruising trails and not in the throttle all day, the oil mixture is very lean. Up top they are at 35:1 which is not bad at all especially when running a good synthetic.
More of the story.... engine life will be improved, but you will still see a loss of compression earlier than on many of the competitions motors. No motor is exactly the same, so just keep an eye on your static compression(as you should with any 2 stroke).
The durability kit however is a performance upgrade even on a brand new stock motor. It provides a better angle for the reed cage to enter the bottom end, and adds much needed crank case volume. This results in +5hp on the Axys platform plus provides an even better top end. The durability kit also allows this motor to rev higher. So in our stage 3 kit with the bully dog, we can run the motor at 8400-8500 and they simply scream.
-Mike