Is there a “best” factory edition?
Who doesn’t love shiny parts and trick looking bikes right ??
As dirt bike enthusiasts, there is nothing that excites us more than the race bikes of top professionals like Jett Lawrence, Chase Sexton and Jason Anderson. Actually getting to ride one though is a close equivalent to getting a date night with Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian or Zendaya depending on your vintage.
As a result, I really want to commend Kawasaki, Honda and the KTM group on their efforts to give the everyday rider a slice of the factory pie with their special edition models namely the KX 450 SR, CRF 450 R WE,? and 450 SX-F Factory Edition. (Yes, 250 models are available as well but for this article I’m going to focus on the big bike class.) It’s true that Yamaha also has a “Racing Edition” but I think it’s more fair to put that specification in with the Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki anniversary editions, where the changes aren’t beyond cosmetic.
In this article then, there are three questions I want to answer:
1. What are the differences between the special editions and the standard bikes?
2. How much would it cost to upgrade a standard bike to a special edition?
3. Who is offering the best bang for your buck?
Let’s start with the 2025 Kawasaki KX 450 SR.
The list of upgrades are as follows and “C” and “P” after each price indicates if I have categorised them as Cosmetic or Performance upgrades. The prices shown may not be 100% accurate, but they are my best estimate so don’t hold me to it if you find some different numbers ?? (To my US audience, I apologise the price is in Euro, but with sales tax variation and so on, I felt it was the easiest way to compare between the three.?For the upgraded parts, add around 5% for the US$ number).
Kawasaki is coming out of the gate swinging with some really really nice parts listed like the Pro-Circuit pipe, X-Trig clamps, polished cylinder head?and coated Forks. If you read?my last article on suspension coatings,?you will know that while the Kashima coated uppers offer significant performance improvement over annodised aluminium, the TiO2 lowers may not be as drastic an improvement from chrome as what you think. That said, you may find that this fork and shock is very close in performance to?A-Kit offered by Showa, where the price is around?€5,000, so the?€800 I’ve listed may be under selling it a bit! The Rideology App comes as standard on all KX’s and allows for adjustment of the mapping so I have given it the same value as the KTM CUO which is an upgraded part that doesn’t come as standard on the KTM.
Next up is the?2025 Honda CRF 450 R WE.
Something I noticed while doing my research is that I don’t see the polished ports being listed as an upgrade on the current WE like it was in the past. I may be wrong on this though. Here’s the list of upgrades I did find:
The list of upgrades on the Honda doesn’t his as heavy as what we see from the Kawasaki, but there are still some items to note like the Yoshimura exhaust, and something I think is really important on the Honda, the Hinson clutch basket!
None of the Honda models come with an app to adjust the mapping, but I believe there are tuner devices available to purchase. I have also added in the front disc guard and given it the same value as what KTM have for their guard.
Finally we have the?2025 KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition.
The KTM has the longest list of upgrades at 20 compared to the Honda’s 12, and Kawasaki’s 10, so let’s take a look at what you get:
There is a lot of coloured bling on the KTM list compared to the others, but performance is there too in the CNC triple clamps, Akrapovic exhaust and Connectivity unit, but the suspension is the same as standard and the exhaust has the limitation of only being the muffler and not the header. I believe the slip on won’t fit the Akrapovic header, and that is noteworthy. A couple of parts I have listed as performance like the skid plate and brake guard because I can see these as being necessary purchases on the Kawasaki and Honda.
Let’s take it down to brass tax, and answer our second question, how much would it cost to upgrade a standard bike to a special edition?
The graph above shows the total value of the cosmetic and performance parts I have in each list.? You can see that the Kawasaki is the clear leader with almost?€4,000, while the Honda and KTM are close at around?€2,250. I did think it was worthwhile to compare the KTM without the slip on exhaust and that’s shown in the final bars. With a standard header that can’t be changed out, to me it seems a bit unfair to hold it as equal to the complete systems that come on the Kawasaki and Honda.
Finally, I want to answer the third question, who is offering the best bang for your buck?
To do this,?I came up with a “value” number. The value number is basically saying, if you bought the standard bike, and purchased the performance upgrades yourself, how much would you save by buying the special editions.
The graph above shows the MSRP for each of the standard and special editions, and then the value number. Kawasaki barely edges out KTM by?€17 while the Honda is a negative number at -€251 ?? This means you could actually be better off to buy a standard Honda and then buy the performance upgrades afterwards, but the Honda may have the head polishing which I have valued at €400 for the Kawasaki which brings the value back up to?€149.
There is still a lot of nuance to take into account from this research. For example, the performance of the suspension components on the Kawasaki is really high, especially in contrast to the fact that the KTM comes with the standard air forks and shock. You may also disagree with me classifying the wheels as “cosmetic”, and there is a point to that. The DID wheels are stronger than what you get on the production bike. And, you might also value graphics and coloured parts more than I do, but I really wanted to focus on what I thought could improve lap time, and for me that mainly falls into two categories; engine and suspension.
What it all boils down to is the question; if I am racing on the weekends, which bike can I line up to the gate on without having to do much more than possibly some springs and valving, and for me that is the Kawasaki.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
Jens K?pke