mrmatt

The good news is, it is raining right now. So I'll probably be there on Sunday with my wife. She be happy to show anyone how quick a YFZ450 is on dirt. She was spanking 3 banshees last weekend and wasn't even getting out of second gear.

Broke, congratulations on the new truck. Now all that you need is a Weekend Warrior Camper/ATV hauler and you're all set for a trip to the big dunes.

I shaved 30 thou of my stock head which then produced 170 psi of compression. This is too much to be cooled be the stock cooling system! It blew my top-end Here is a quote from the "Vito's Performance" site: "You can assume that your power output will increase 2 horsepower for every 10 psi you raise your cranking pressure. unless you drag race only for 300 ft or less we do not recommend you go past 170 psi it will build heat that cant be dissipated with the stock cooling system without a cool down rest. We get reports that people run smaller sizes than what is recommended above for the specific octane used and you may very well do it for awhile but from our experiences detonation will eventually rear its ugly head and bite the buddy you loaned your bike to." I'm buying a cool head of some sort when I rebuild my topend to be on the safe side. But I do have a stock shaved head for sale Cya I had mine milled 0.030" at a local machine shop and my compression went from 120 to 154 psi. Are you sure that yours hadn't been milled before? What was your compression before you had your head milled. 170 psi sounds like a lot.

What is the deal with painting helmets? Every helmet that I have bought has come with explicit warnings about painting the helmet. But people paint helmets all of the time, heck, some people even make a living from it. Are the helmet manufacturers afraid that the paint will react with the plastic and weaken it? Will all paint do this, or is there only a specific kind, like laquer, that can weaken the plastic?

I live about 7 miles away, so I am there at least twice a month. It is extremely dusty right now. I probably won't go back until we get some significant rain.

This depends on the brand of skid plate. The shock linkage interfers with all but the stock skid plate. The PRM skid plates and others that are designed to protect the shock linkage need to be significantly altered, such as removing the portion that is designed to protect the shock linkage. The rest of them just need a little clearancing on the front edge of the skid plate.

I guarantee you will like the sound. I run T-5 silencers with my PTmids and I always get complements on them. The sound is very similar to a full set of T-5 pipes and silencers, but I think mine has a little more raw sound to them. Maybe they just need repacked, I don't know, but I'm not going to touch them.

I've never ridden a Banshee with 916's so I can't offer a side by side comparison. But like Rod said, mine is pretty quik for having stock port timing. I can't really say that it isn't ported, since I cleaned up the intake and exhaust ports a little. But I think I was the quickest Banshee there w/stock port timing. But, I don't have a lot of top end. Don't get me wrong, it pulls as long as I need and want it too. But compared to the Rocket Pipes on broke's quad, the PT mids shut off a lot earlier. There was such a difference between broke's quad and mine that I didn't even find the end of his power band. It would reving so high that I was afraid to keep going and wait until the power dropped off. The point I am trying to make is that the PT mids may not give you any more top end, but you don't need a lot of top end to be quick. I have heard good things about the 916's, for the price of PT mids you could keep your 916's and have your cylinders ported. Without a doubt, you will be faster with this set up, than with stock porting and PT mids. Matt

I agree. I don't even read the political threads on here. If I wanted to get pissed off, I would just go to CNN.com.

As you found out, a hair dryer does not get it hot enough. You need to use a heat gun. My wife has a cheap one that she bought at a craft store. I don't have any before and after pics. But I would estimate that using this method removed 75% of the white marks on my friend's blue plastics. We may have been able to completely remove the white marks, but we were afraid to push our luck. Your plastic needs to be absolutely clean before you do this and make sure that you don't touch the plastic or you'll leave finger prints. Just keep the heat gun moving, don't hold it in one spot for too long, and if the plastic starts smoking, you got it just a little too hot. You want to heat it up to the temperature right before it starts smoking, unfortunately, you won't know where this point is until it starts smoking. I suggest practicing in an inconspicuous spot, such as under the seat.

This is what I do and it works perfectly. The key to keeping sand out is the outerwear. I don't care what anybody else says, sand will go through a K&N and a foam filter. I have personally seen it. The outerwear keeps the sand from even getting to the filter.

Being the cheap bastard that I am, I looking into doing this also. But I determined that it wouldn't be worth the effort. Here are all of the cons I can think of right now: 1. The stock a-arms are extremetly weak. Not only is the tubing very thin walled but the ball joint mounts bend very easily. 2. The ball joints are non-replaceble, so once they are worn out, you would have to build a whole new set of a-arms. 3. It would be very easy to screw up the caster and camber alignment if you weren't careful with your measurements. 4. The A-arms are, well, shaped like an A. Since the two tubes that need extended are not parallel, then you would also have to bend/straighten the tubes before you could weld in extensions. 5. You will still have to buy or build longer tie rod sleaves.

The power valves are part of the cylinders, not an add-on feature. The RZ cylinders are different enough that they use a different head than the banshees.

The cheapest by far is to us an RZ motor. I think broke is the resident expert. Minkia was talking about selling his RZ powered banshee a while back, maybe he still has it. I rode broke's RZ powered quad at Silver Lake. I was amazed. I thought that my motor had a nice broad power band. His was awesome. I didn't even have to shift. It was like riding a four stroke except it sounded a lot better.

Alright then explain this if you can: My 87' starts easy if it was started earlier in the day or even in the morning.It can sit all day and by nighttime it will still fire on one kick. If I wait till the following day,it takes about 10 good kicks even with full choke to get her started. She runs and idles great and shows no sign of hesitation anywhere.It even puffs out a little bit of smoke at idle After shees warmed up. It doesn't bother me since it doesn't effect performance and a fresh plug will produce a tanish brown color if I just let it idle fo 5 minutes after warm-up.Basically everything looks good. The compression is 185psi and I usually run 110.Any ideas Banchetta?Could the compression cause this/Or maybe the fuel? Its got me scratchin my head. My guess is that your fuel and oil are separating. Shake the quad back and forth a little before you try to start it. This should help.

I assume you mean the bar. It it closed for the season.

Armadillo after 1 1/2 years of abuse. Notice the deep gouges, but no deformity or cracked welds.

White Brothers (exact same as DG and a couple of others) after three rides: The weld broke on the first ride.

Correcto-mundo...depending on the design they will help distribute impacts evenly across the hole front side of the arm, rather than in just one point; thus strengthening up the arms. I never realized the front impact resistance that the A-arm guards provide. Thanks for the info.

Armadillo swingarm skid plates are extremely tough. I beat mine on a regular basis. I don't even bother avoiding rocks anymore. Don't waste your money on A-arm skid plates. I don't even know why they make them. I haven't tried PRM, but like the other guys said, I have heard that they are also tough.

The extra money offer won't help. That approach has been tried before. There are a number of reasons why I quit cutting these down. Most importantly, it was taking too much of my time. There is a reason why aftermarket swingarms cost $550+. I now understand this. I don't know for sure, but I have heard that Quicksand Motorsports will shorten stock swingarms. Here is their website: http://www.quicksandmotorsports.com/

I'm not one to haggle and try and get every last penny out of a deal, so those numbers seem pretty good. I always get excellent service from people when they know that they made a couple of bucks off of me instead of just $.25. I guess you can look at it like tipping. Just like cars, aftermarket parts don't necessarily increase the sale value of quads. Do you still have the stock exhaust? Put that on and sell the Big Gun kit on ebay. Just a thought. Alba. I hate their exhaust systems. A friend put one on his Z400, it was so loud that I refused to ride behind him. And since it was a Z400, he really didn't have a choice in the matter. I wouldn't run one of their pipes if it was given to me, let alone pay $2000 for one plus some stickers.

This will be a good move. You should take her 300EX to the dealership just to see how much they will give you for it. We traded my wife's Warrior in for her YFZ450 last week. I wanted to wait a while before she got one, but they offered her more for her Warrior as a trade in than I would have sold it for outright. Plus I didn't have to deal with all of the dreamers and idiots wanting to test ride it while we had it for sale. Hell I didn't even wash the Warrior before we traded it in. An added bonus is that we only had to pay sales tax on the difference between the sale price and trade-in value. I never would have guessed that we could get such a deal at the local dealership. I think that they were just highly motivated to move the YFZ since riding season is coming to an end here in the East and the YFZ is a 2004 model. Maybe you won't get such a good deal, but it is definately worth looking into. After you get it, I think that you will want to ride your Banshee more. I was totally frustrated with my Banshee for most of the summer because I could not get the jetting worked out. I was really close dumping it for a YFZ450. Now that I have my Banshee running good and have been able to ride both machines in the same area in a head-to-head type of comparison, I'm happy I kept my Banshee. Don't get me wrong, the YFZ is an excellent quad, but it just doesn't put the smile on my face that my Banshee can . By the way, have the dealership rejet the YFZ before you bring it home. Yamaha jets these way too lean, (at least for my altitude). My wife's was sooo lean that it would not idle and the entire header pipe was red hot after a couple of minutes of riding. The first couple of inches of header pipe still get red hot now, but that is normal for YFZs. Matt

Where are you getting this information? The Honda website only has specs for the 2004s. This sounds exactly like the quad that a friend wants.

Mike, thank for answering in my absence. I haven't been on the internet for a few days so sorry that I didn't reply earlier, but Mike has the right answer.