bbertran, u-joints are actually better at extreme angles than cv's, its just that cv's have no wobble at high speeds, thats why they are used on cars and IFS trucks.

people just dont give Suzuki enuf credit. they revolutionized the atv world in many ways:

1)FIRST atv, the 125
2)FIRST IRS machine
3)FIRST selectable 2wd/4wd


but they dont get any credit...

 

How come Honda takes credit for the first atv in 1970 the first three wheeler? they have information alla bout how they were first with the atvs...???....

 

lemme rephrase that, Suzuki added the important 4th wheel to atv's....

IMO, you cant consider a ATC 70 a ATV, unless you mean by that that when you get stuck you pick the thing up and carry it...also three wheelers arent all terrain vehicles because they are only 2wd. plus they tip too easy.

 

I know, I really love Suzuki but the IRS on the cats won me over. They were the inovators of the industry then they fell behind for 10 years and now they are starting to come back. I would buy a Suzuki over an AC only if the Zuki's had IRS. Thats all the cats have over the Zuki's in my eyes.

I wonder what else there is to inovate? What else can they make besides big CC quads? We already have IRS, lockers, smooth rides, power, reliability is fairly good on all makes. I think weight is going to be the next big thing coupled with high performance smaller motors. What do you guys think?

 

Hey.. I was just saying that Honda was taking all the credit. Honda also takes credit for developing the first 4 wheel drive atv.... I am not the biggest fan of Honda [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] I actually prefer Suzuki and AC.....

 

IMO, the first 4wd atv made(Honda 350 foreman) was the most reliable EVER made. i know people who have these that are stock, probably never change their oil, and run 28's. if you dont know about the 350 foreman, it was the only STRAIGHT front axle 4wd atv ever made. they made it for three years(86-88). they are geared super low. saw one at gator run that was turning 28" mudzillas, no prob.

 

Cool... Yeah I read on the Honda web site that when they introduced it, they lowered it down on a helicopter so that you could see all 4 wheels turning!

 

U joints are not better than CV joints at extreme angles. A U joint will break if it is constantly run at angles of greater than 17 degrees. Anything over 20 and they fail in a hurry. There some physics involved here that are hard to explain, but I'll try. At extreme angles the Ujoint doesn't have the same velocity at all points of it's rotation. A CV joint does, hence the name Constant Velocity. The varying speed of the roataion of a Ujoint is what causes them to fail.

 

you can get cv joints for jeeps that are just two u-joints together...i know that is oversimplification, but thats what it looks like and they call it a cv joint

 

Here is the place to go to find out the differences and limitations of both types of joints. They explain it much better than I.

http://www.pami.ca/PDFs/Pami743.pdf