Doddy

Then cut the fucker off.

Is the bike on a stand of any sort? Did you pop the bottom bolt off the dog bone yet? It's going to be hard to get that bolt out if the suspension is under load so try putting a bucket under the bike so there is no load on the suspension.

Looks sick! Did you get your pipes ceramic coated or what?

I'm looking for a nice set of FMF Fatty pipes. Would prefer that they come with silencers, but don't have to. PM me if you have anything.

I would ask who ever did your port work what they suggest. Different pipes are going to give you different results depending on what kind of porting and other engine mods you have done.

PM Sent.

Do you have pics?

Wish I would have seen this last week, just paid $100 for it from RMATV. Bump for a great price on a good product.

I forgot I never posted a pic. They have held up just fine. No chips or anything. As far as paint stripping goes I hear the easiest way is to go buy some paint stripper from an automotive or hardware store. I'll tell you now sanding those things is a pain so I would go with the stripper.

Time for an update. I finally got around to painting the A-arms, I painted them with spray on bedliner and so far they have held up pretty well. While I was at it I decided to paint the stock foot guards with the beliner as well. When I was doing my rebuild it was time for a new chain so I picked up a Yellow O-ring chain off FleaBay and the paint on it is actually still in good condition. I also changed out the stickers on my gas tank from the solid yellow to the black O w/ yellow outline to match my grill. Obviously the powder coating on the pipes didn't hold up, I didn't realize that it couldn't take the high heat so that was a waste of money. I'll either get new ones, have these ones cleaned up and polished, paint them with high temp paint, or have them ceramic coated, I haven't decided yet.

I took my motor back down to the same guy who built it this last time and he said that there must be something else going on with the motor. If I had just lost the coolant and that was it there should have been some damage done to the other piston as well, but the other piston had normal wear on it. He thinks there may have been an air link on the crank seal on that side, or possibly a problem with one of my carburetors causing that side to suck in too much air and run extremely lean. He's doing a leak down test on it now and is going to check the clearance on the head itself to see if it may have warped and started leaking coolant and basically steaming that side of the piston. I bought new pistons and a Trail Tech Vapor Computer so I'll know next time it starts overheating.

Hey Volcrano chill and take some midol...I wasn't blaming anyone but myself and I was just throwing some humor at the situation with Captain Obvious not trying to get at anyone. Anyway here is the main damage: I talked to my builder today and he said the water pump could have gone out and not been circulating the coolant properly or there could have been a leak that I didn't notice somewhere in the radiator. I'm hoping that my jugs aren't fucked to the point where I will need to re-bore them, hopefully I can just clean them up and get a fresh hone, some new pistons, clean out the crank, and replace the water pump if that is the issue. It's not a big deal just part of owning a toy. The weekend wasn't a total loss though got to ride my buddies 450 all weekend (he had a broken wrist):

Thank you for your comment. Sorry couldn't help myself.

All I can say is "Fuck me right?". Took the bike out for Memorial Day weekend down to Coose Bay to ride with some friends. It was running fine and I was cruising along in 4th gear and all of a sudden POP, BOOM. I got it back to camp finally and it looks like some how I completely ran out of radiator fluid, my radiator was dry as a bone. I haven't had a chance to tear into it yet, I was too pissed to do it over the weekend so I'm prob just going to do it tonight. I just had my motor re-build a month ago and this shit happens...Fucking Banshee's!

I'm heading to Hauser for the weekend...First trip to some real dunes this year! I'm tired of the Sand Box.

When you sand the plastic you run the chance of getting that scratched white look rather then the flat black you are trying to achieve. If your plastics are already black then just hit them with a couple coats of spray paint and when it starts flaking do it again...or you can use automotive paint with a hardener and flex agent. There are a couple issues that I have with spray paint. 1) If you still have full fenders it doesn't flex very well and and will crack at stress points and where your seat meets the gas tank. 2) It won't hold up against gas spills or any other chemical for that matter (I had some radiator fluid spill on there and it stained it) But it is cheap and easy to go back over...and over...and over...and over

If it's an 87 I highly doubt it is on the stock bore. There has to be some thing done to it. I highly doubt that a two stroke engine is going to last 23 years with out having it rebuilt a few time unless it has just sat in a garage it's whole existence. I would take it to someone who knows what they are doing and have them go through it thoroughly that way you will know exactly what has been done to it and can address any issues you may have at that time. If it's still working tight now then just wait until you get back.

I just rebuilt the top end of my Shee about 2 weeks ago. You don't need new jugs unless you banshee has already been bored out as far as it can go (.65 over I believe is the stopping point). If you take your cylinders off you need to measure the size of your pistons to see what the next size up would be, if you don't know what your doing then send them into a reputable shop and have them measure for you. You will need to take them to a shop to have them bored, honed, and cross hatched any way and they can tell you what size pistons to get. Go on ebay and find a wiseco piston kit that will come with new wrist pins, bearings, the appropriate piston size, and a new top end gasket kit. I bought mine on ebay for $179.99 shipped. You may also think about having a port job done while you have the jugs out, but you don't need it but if you have been thinking about it anyway and you have the extra cash now is the time. You don't need to split the cases if all you are doing is freshening up the top end. But if your crank hasn't been trued and welded now would be a good time for that too. If all your doing is replacing the top end then you should be able to tear it down order your parts take it into a shop and have it all put back together in a week (depending on how long it takes to get the parts).

It depends. The TRX is actually faster out the box with the HRC kit which is a factory option. The YFZ feels a little more like a race quad in my opinion, on the TRX I feel like I'm sitting up a little higher on the bike than on the YFZ. The TRX's are nice but I really like the YFZ a little better. And if you are anything like me you wants to get a 450 "for the wife". I'm probably going to end up getting a YFZ 450 "for the girlfriend" so that I have both. They are both excellent quads so my suggestion is try and ride both and see which one you like better.

Sounds good guys...That's what I figured as well, I just didn't want some catastrophic failure do to a freaking tiny piece of carbon fiber. I'll relay the info and let him decide.

My buddy lost a reed pedal when we were out at the dunes on Sunday. We can only assume that it got sucked up into the crank case. It was just one half of one side of a V-force III reed, so how bad could it be? Do we really need to tear the whole thing apart, split the cases and clean it up? Or do you think we could just put some gas in there slosh it around and dump it to get most of the debris out?

I just got my engine back from Dave Moore and was very pleased. I had him bore and hone my cylinders .20 over, ported it, trued and welded the crank, and shaved the head all for a very reasonable price. I took it out yesterday and it rode hard all day long. I will definitely be heading back down there for any of my shee needs. He tore the motor apart right in front of me and explained everything to me in detail, answered any questions I had and kept in close contact the whole time. My buddy had his motor built there too and Dave called him the day after he took it out the first time to see how it ran. Then he had my buddy take his bike back down there and dynoed it for free before he headed out to Hauser for the weekend.

AKheathen All that VHT stuff says you need to bake it at 600 and then 1000 degrees for the last two cycles. I don't know about you but I don't have access to an industrial oven to heat them up. How did you cure them?

I just got back from a place called Top Dog Racing. They had a quite a big inventory of Banshee stuff and they do engine building as well. www.topdogracing.com

Painted them this weekend. Look good fresh but I'm sure they are going to chip like crazy once I get them out there riding. I used truck bed liner and it turned out descent...I really should have spent more time on the prep, but after about 2 hours of sanding those things down by hand I was tired of it so I cleaned them up and started painting. I'll post some pics later, and then again after the first trip out so you can see how the paint held.