Hey,

well after several weeks of working on my warrior, i finally got to take it for a trail ride. still don't have rear brakes on it, but hopefully soon. my riding buddies included a Scrambler 500, and a Predetor 500. the trails were tight woods with hill climbs and some steep creek bank crossings and a long gravel road.

overall i'm happy with the performance of the warrior. i went everywhere the other guys did and didn't get left behind at any point. yes, both the other quads are faster than me, but for the most part i held my own.

my pro/cons list:

- crappy turning radius - good thing the warrior has reverse cause i was doing 5pt turns to get turned around. plus when it gets really tight it's hard to really hit that spots you need to be. this may actually be my biggest complaint. sure the back end is fairly easy to throw around, but that's not always a good idea in some percarious spots. any way to improve the turning radius?

- no ground clearance - good thing i've got a DG skid plate cause i banged it on everything. it never got me stuck, but it's still a hendering factor when you're going slow through a rutted section. of course my 20" tires don't help matters.

- suspension - over all it handled well, and soaked up the small jumps i threw at it. it was a jarring ride though. i was black and blue with envy for the polaris guys. any body know how to soften the front springs?

- first gear - it seems rather low, which is nice for climbing really steep embankments, or for slowing you down in a steep downhill. only problem is that on a longer hill you tend to run out of first gear and have to make a shift into 2nd.

- GBC Shedders - over a good tire. the muddy terrain sections were a bit out of it's element though, but they still did just as well as the Razors on the Predetor. the was one spot where the soil was soft and i needed to back uphill and i couldn't get the tires to bite, which was annoying. for the gravel road, the shedders had very good traction, even in the turns. the stock tires on the Scrambler where better in the muddier sections cause they allowed you to go slower and crawl up stuff rather than have to hit it with gusto. but in the end, there was no spot i got stuck that they other quads didn't get stuck also.

- DG pipe - boy is that thing loud! far louder than i'd like. even with all the disks removed from the predetor exhaust, the DG is still a lot louder. so wether you have a warrior or not, for the sake of everyone's ears, avoid the DG pipe and get something quieter.

so overall the warrior is a good trail quad. it seemed to be capable in a variety of terrain, good power and decent handling, and since i bought it used, good price. also, it's a lot lighter than the other quads, so it's easier to man-handled it and pull it out if you get stuck.

any ways, just thought i'd share my initial thoughts after my first ride.

later,
bigmac

 

for the turning radius, learn how to do extremly good powerslides and 180's or 360's for that matter, the warrior doesnt like to flip over so you get the hang of them pretty quickly. For the shocks, lift up the quad so the fronts wheels dont hit the ground, then take a flathead screwdriver or something and hit the little gauge adjuster things (<lol) on the bottom of the shocks, the farther down, the softer the shock, a little hard to explain on writing but you'll probably get what im saying. Dont get all excited though, I had my shocks on the softest things and it still rode like a rock, but a little better from stiffer settings, also ahem.. youll lose a little ground clearance, I split my stock slidplate in 1/2 on a rock, was careful the rest of the ride and got a C&C metalworks the next week, they hit everything and anything, for anyhting else just ask, hope your carb situation is getting better,

Patrick

 

Hey,

yea, the carb situation is getting better. it's not perfect yet (rich) but atleast i've got the carb where i can adjust it w/o too much trouble. my problem in adjusting the needle was that the plastic block was stuck in the slider, but i finally got it out.

well at the moment, the front sits pretty high, atleast compared to the rear. it's also a lot higher up than the front of the predetor (set soft). the PO split the front skid plate, so i'm not too worried about that, lol. if something is already messed up, you don't feel as bad about beating on it. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] oh yea, i think i understand what you mean for adjusting the front shocks. i may try softening it and see how that works out, cause right now my arms are pretty sore, lol. i also need to build up my right-hand thumb!

later,
bigmac