I’ve been riding this bike for 12 years, it took me to highschool, university, jobs, and countless spots off road; its still my daily rider and my choice for backcountry exploration. While a stock dr350s is a good choice for riding around town and alright on the trail, I insist on using it as a flyweight adventure bike. This particular example was given to me free of charge, but without even an oil change done in the preceding 19 years. It was used as a full time dirt bike, so relatively low mileage, but no life left in any suspension component. I believe a significant oil leak saved the motor from internal damage, as the oil needed to be constantly topped up it just never had a chance to really get dirty. I rode it to high school and my first year at UBCO after fixing the oil leak, and repairing things as they came up; until it lost sixth gear. I picked up another bike to ride in the interim and began hoarding parts to do a rebuild over the winter of 2022. I don’t have any photos of this process, I had just gotten rid of all my social media so capturing what I was doing wasn’t much of a priority. I stripped the bike down completely, did a couple weld repairs on broken tabs, and sandblasted the frame in a makeshift tent made of plastic sheet. I repainted the frame with an epoxy primer and oil based colour coat. Every bushing, bearing, piece of rubber, and control cable was replaced. many of the rubber components I reprinted in TPU as they are no longer available. The transmission issue turned out to just be a broken shoulder bolt that acts as a pivot for part of the gear selector mechanism. I got to ride the bike again that spring in its restored OEM state. It didn’t take long before I started to change things.

The trip was a success! The bike managed kicking horse pass, even maintaining 120kph. There was one issue that came up though, it was burning about a quart of oil every 500 kilometers. The piston rings had polished the cylinder walls to a high shine over the years, so the high rpm and high oil temperatures of highway passes caused rates of oil consumption that could only be classed as environmentally disastrous. A top end job was in order. The dr350 lineup was cancelled around the new millennium, replaced with the more powerful, liquid cooled drz400 to fill the street legal dirt bike niche. One might assume this would make parts difficult to find for this motor, but Suzuki is a strange company. A derivative of the dr350 motor is still produced today for the king quad 400. The six speed sequential was replaced with a cvt, and it was given an oil cooler, but the cylinder, piston, and cylinder head are all compatible with the bottom end of the dr350. So about 200 dollars later, I had a new piston, cylinder, and gaskets ready to swap in.

I am wrapping up the planning phase of an EFI conversion. Why EFI? I want more power without using more gas, 10.5:1 pistons are commonly available but prone to knocking. I could just run high octane fuel and not worry about it, but many of the places I want to go do not have premium fuel available. With EFI I can richen the fuel mixture when cylinder head temps get high and avoid knocking, but retain fuel efficient mixtures under normal conditions. I am using a WR250r throttle body, a KTM fuel pump, and speeduino NO2C to make it happen. My end goal is a bike that can survive any mountain pass, and be comfortable on any trail. Should I just get an EXC500? yeah, probably, but I like a challenge so dr350s it is.