Application: CRF250R

Honda's all new CRF250R is nothing short of an awesome motorcycle; it does everything well. The only area in which it fell short to its competitors in our bike comparison was the engine department; Yamaha's YZ250F is still the top dog when it comes to making power. The CRF makes good power but lacks the roll-on and hard-hitting mid the YZ-F possesses. That said, we thought it would be the perfect candidate on which to try the new POWERNOW PLUS™.

The POWERNOW PLUS™ increases air velocity by cutting down on destructive, turbulent air entering and exiting the carburetor. At half-throttle, the air entering the carburetor is very inefficient, because it partially hits the slide and begins to tumble inside the throat of the carburetor. The POWERNOW'S septum, also known as the power blade, splits the air and

increases forward momentum. The rear POWERNOW™  has been around for a while, but the plus is a dual setup that uses a POWERNOW in front and behind the carb.

Installation is pretty straight forward. Once you remove the sub-frame, simple slide the POWERNOW™ into the back of the carburetor. To assure proper alignment inside the carburetor, the kit comes with a locator pin that, when inserted corectly, will line up with the two small holes in the back of the carb. Once the POWERNOW™ is aligned on the front and the back of the carb, remove the locator pin and re-attach the sub-frame.

Roughly 20 minutes later, our CRF was buttoned up and ready for the track. For the test, we put the little red thumper back in stock form. Immediately, our test staff noticed a difference in power. The normally lasy roll-on received major gains, and the added boost was apparent all the way into the middle of the powerband. The CRF pulled harder out of corners and required less clutch to build rpms.

For it's price, the POWERNOW PLUS™ is among the best performance hop-up values on the market

MX Racer   Oct. '04