Kona 'Explosif' frame - expert opinion please!

Re:

If that's a rattle can respray then take a look inside the head tube and see if there's any original paint over spray. That might pin point the original colour and the year and at best even the model.
 
Re:

Seat post size and frame weight might help. For reference, my 1993 Kilauea was 2.2kg and my 1993 Explosif is <2kg, both are 19". Both take a 27.0mm seat post from memory.

SP
 
Hi, thanks for all the replies - I did mean to reply to this but got sort of waylaid. Picking up again, I have more details:

• Weight: approx 2060 grams (for 16" frame with the respray)
• Seat post: 26.0mm
• Seat tube: measures 29.0mm in the middle; but at the top it's more like 30.5mm (not sure if that is natural variance or something else?). As a consequence, not sure what clamp is right. Looks like the previous owner used a 30mm which has distorted and took quite a lot of paint off the frame; but a 31mm would surely be too big.

I have tried to see original paint colour from headtube/BB but no luck.

I'm going to build it up anyway, but if anyone has any more thoughts, please do post!
 
Re:

Seat colours are always 29.8/30.0 for these Konas.

26.0 seatpost is small
It's probably 26.6 and that's the size of most the 93/4 frames.
Explosif was 27.0 (sometimes 26.8 iirc)

4.5lb frames bring it well away from a budget frame (so not the heft hahana/Fire mountains.
Could mid midrange or high end at that weight for that era.
 
Re:

Hmm it does seem to be 26.0mm post.

Anyway I think I am resigned to never getting to the bottom of the mystery but that's ok.

I think I read somewhere (most likely here on the forum) that the correct fork for the '93 frames is a 39.5cms. I'm thinking of a 42.5cm though — guessing that it will be ok; just makes the geometry a tiny bit slacker?
 

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