congratulations on ur new duke - its a good ride indeed!
u crossed 85kph @ virgin ride? surely u cant be serious?
u seem to disregard the running-in period & if u do that u gonna end up in many bad things happening to ur piston block & engine & power delivery later.
i reckon u stick to whats suggested by the service & the owners manual meticulously - as if the damage were already not done! :-/
I.M.H.O. the running-in period is the most critical phase for any bike, regardless of the make.

Hey Congrats Buddy for getting this Baby.. and welcome to the club. The limit is set to a max of 7.5k for the first svc, so that the indicator gives you a signal that you are reaching the mark, It doesn't stop you go beyond that. Go through the manual to set the RPM limit by yourself. But suggestion is to maintain the speed within the limit for letting your engine break in and also to get settled.

Take care of your Duke well.

The only way to limit the revs to 7500 rpm is if they remap the ECU, which I highly doubt they do. As samschenker said, the rev limiter is 10,500 in first hour gears and 10,000 rpm in 5th and 6th gears.

It's only that the red light in mid top of console (which is a programmable gear shifter INDICATOR LIGHT) starts blinking at 5000 rpm and goes fully on at 7500 rpm. At the first service they'll change it to higher values. If you look in the manual you'll see how to change it yourself, it's a simple thing, you can do it the first day if you want. It's just an indicator light...

The fan should kick in one bar below the top of the first segment. And goes off when the temp comes down to 2 bars below the top.
I've never had a situation where the temp meter goes into the higher second segment, the fan is quite efficient.

The important thing to remember is not to turn off the bike while fan is running. Always wait until the fan brings the temperature down and only then switch the engine off.
If you switch off the engine while fan is running the temperature can go even a bar or two higher in next minutes, and that's usually when it can happen that some coolant gets spilled out, if there's plenty of coolant inside, like two thirds or more.

Sorry to say this, but I'll ask you the same - you can't be serious?
The ONLY recommendation in owner's manual is to keep the revs below 7500 rpm during first 1000 km and to avoid opening the throttle fully.
At 6th gear you're going more than 100 kmh at 7500 rpm, so 85 kmh is nothing (unless he was in 3rd gear, which is where the rev limiter kicks in in 3rd gear, which I doubt).

It's actually advisable to push your bike every now and then past 7500 rpm but only for several seconds and under a load.
The piston rings NEED TO set in against the cylinder walls for optimum performance, and they CAN NOT set in if you baby your bike and never push it to higher revs. What you'll get if you baby your bike is glazed cylinder walls because piston rings never properly set in and you'll have lower performance engine with oil leakage.

One thing that'll harm your engine during run in more than redlining it is to lug it, ie. ride in low revs in higher gears. Don't do it.

Another thing to have in mind is that today's engines are built with much better quality materials than 20 years ago, and most better bikes can now be safely ridden in higher revs straight out of showroom.

Yeah, I do agree with all that is said above. Run in periods are recommended to sooth your riding comfort with the bike & also to bring on it's steady set in. But as they actually say this, "It comes ready to race", makes the entire difference. We should never lug or restrict too much, this Gen engines & parts are way more capable & sound to adapt & reform as we delight.
Plus given the point that rev limiter is recommended to be at 7500, 100kmph speed being its mark, fact, & previous edition/age bikes had 40-50kmph mentioned to be the limits for the run in. This plainly suggests the evolution of the heart there...
Ahhh these days the tech impresses u more than anything else if u look at it in that way...

thanks for the insights splus & s.roy0717 - perhaps i stand corrected then
i would still advise against riding like a hellcat during the run-in period.

Riding downhill on neutral or idle isn't always a good practice. Perhaps you wanted to check your mileage, that's okay. Because with engine running in higher gear steep downhill and netural or even worse with the engine turned off isn't a good idea to reckon with. Many people lose control of their bike going downhill with all these above mentioned errors. Make sure your engine is on and the engine is in a gear that's neither too low or high, in this case second third.

Surely, one is not gonna save much going down hill by either idling/neutral or turning off.


It's always a good idea to not keep the throttle at the same position, especially during run in. If you want your engine to be set, irrespective of the rev limiter kicking in either at 7.5 or 10.5K vary the engine speeds accordingly, short bursts of speeds as opposed to throttle held on at a same position for a long time. This ensures the engine gets stressed at the proper intervals for it to set in accordingly.

Heat is almost a given in most of the bikes during run in period, that's not something to worry about. As the engine gets smoother and free, the heat will almost gradually fade off.

Cheers!
VJ

Is there a way to find out if the coolant is getting circulated properly? I have just completed around 2.6k Km and find the temperature indicator filling up all but the topmost point just after 5-10 minutes of ride. The coolant level is just below the MAX level indicator. Is it normal?

I would also like to know if there is any way to know is coolant is being circulated properly.

Thank you for replying everyone, i was under the impression that the engine rev's are limited to 7500 RPM, thank you for clarifying that they aren't actually restricted but it's just the indicator that come's up once you go above 7.5k, As for riding my baby like a hellcat i assure you i am not a bike abuser, but i do like to give the bike what it's meant to handle, so touched 85 in like 5th gear so i guess it's no harm done. Also i think it's recommended to run the bike hard in the first few kms for a few second's to facilitate proper setting of the piston ring's. So i rev it up once or twice a day and let it rip to 80-90 , while shifting early through each gear. have to wait little more to hear the duke scream like chimp on fire.

I would never suggest that either. But it's a whole lot a different story to take it out on the highway, make steady shifts till the final gear, ride out for awhile for short intervals at around 7k rpm, rite? Can be done at a free long stretch too with min to no traffic conditions. The point being, ride your style, keeping in mind about the safety & conscious ride quality, but also to using the potential of the bike to it's betterment.
I do sense that there is still a lot of confusion about the rev limit thingy among most of us here.
I'll just state my knowledge again here, probably to help or be helped about it.
Rev limit hits at around 10.5k in the present duke till 10k kms. That's there warranty period or ruling period. Then after they, if so asked to or desired, remap it to 11.7k. Recently collaborated with a certain group ( can't recall the name ) to bring in more effective ECU remaps for the dukes. Suggested run in period, till 5k I suppose, consists of 2 rev limit set ups which will act as an shift indicator acc/to their norms, suggested to be kept at around 5k & 7.5k. We can do the settings ourselves too as I was told.
The coolant issues still need a bit of work & research as I believe the SVC guys don't provide the accurate or satisfactory info about it. But as I've seen on net, European ppl/dukers usually use dyno tests, along with other things integrated to find out all & every data they wanna know on their bikes. I'll try to put up a link to such info based file or video soon.

Duke 390 0-100 in under 5 secs.

Cheers!
VJ

thats a h00t of a ride ;-)

Holy crap!!!
And that's with bad gear shifting, it actually makes a pause at around 80 kmh!
0-80 kmh was like in 3.5 sec...

Damn, I already wrote Duke 390 off my upgrade map because of "supposed" 2.5 lakhs price (we'll know for sure tomorrow), but after seeing this video..... Argh, how to resist not getting it??? Damn you KTM, you'll bankrupt me!

hi guys just got my orange monster a week ago and i am really enjoying every bit of it.
I have a query about duke's service interval as didn't get the service manual at the time of delivery. I would be very thankful if someone could tell me whats duke's service interval is.Thanks

Whoa!!!! That is fast.. I think with proper shifting this could even crack the 5 sec barrier!

On the other hand, I just hope the people buying this bike would exercise their thinking a bit more than their wrists! Using my favourite quote of all time

"With great power, comes great responsibility"

Originally posted by vikundefined View Post

hi guys just got my orange monster a week ago and i am really enjoying every bit of it.
I have a query about duke's service interval as didn't get the service manual at the time of delivery. I would be very thankful if someone could tell me whats duke's service interval is.Thanks

Service interval is 1k/45 days -> 5k/120 days -> 10k/240 days.

Congrats on your new bike