Today me and my buddies were fooling around on this dirt road when a couple guys not from around here come up to us. One had the new yamaha YZF450 quad, kfx400, and a blaster. Well to make things short..we all dragged race and I have a Z400 ..but man did that yamaha move, it had a hmf pipe from what i could see. We raced down the road and it got me about 10-15 bike lengths. And killed my buddy's DS too. My buddies Ds has the ron woods pipe, pro design air filter kit, and some engine work..he wont tell me. Well I rode the 450 and man did that thing pull, it felt like my z on nitrous, everygear it wanted to pull a wheelie. And I thought my friends DS was fast...the DS doesnt even feel powerful after riding the 450...but. I dunno... I wanted a DS..but now that i rode that yamaha, I think im gonna change my mind. What do you guys think..

Kory

 

Welcome to the fourm Kory
Yes there are fast. As far as if you should get one or not depends on you. If your a big dude then the yfz will certainly feel way to little. If thats not the case then it may be worth considering. The only prob I've herd so far is that there is a platic plug on the head someplace that blows under hard load conditions. Not always...but I have herd of it. Maybe next years model will have that corrected.

 

well just to let ya know the 450 wont be as snappy stock as it was piped cuz they said piped and jetted its a whole diff. machine

 

well my bros buddy has a ds, and his lil brother has a yfz, they're both basically stock, except ds has the spark arrestor and restricting tubes, and the yfz is always behind, plus i think the more sportier yamaha makes a quad the crappier it is built, that lil yfz is built like a pop can, hes had some accidents with the yfz, his last one he got hit by a car, rims got bent so bad that the outter edges were almost touching so he tire was pinned, they had to bend it to get the tire off, top shock mount, the bolt ripped rite out of the frame, instead of it being an O shape for the hole, it is now a C shape, and they were gunna give the rims to a buddy who brings in scrap aluminum, and he wouldn't even take them cuz they weighed so little, i know they're fast and everything, but i'll take my tank, never hafta worry about things gettin bent after lil accidents,

 

if any 300-400lb quad gets hit by a 2 ton car there will be some considerable damage to the quad. its simple physics. if the ds got hit by a car it wont come out unscratched.

 

the 450's are fast and can get nothing but faster. my friends have all riden both 450's and all of them say that the yfz is faster stock but the ride sucks compared to the 450r. One guy we have riden with had a built yfz rode the "R" one time and came home and traded the z in on the R . If you do decide to get one, one thing I would suggest is that look into retarding the exhaust cam 1 tooth. I have talked to a few guys that have don't it and they say it is the biggest change of any mod they made.

 

If you make a checklist of all the possible factors that could affect your decision the list would have at least 100 items on it. There are soooo many reasons I chose my first DS, and my second DS over the competition. A couple would be:

If you like long rides, IE: more than 30 minutes - nothing is more comfortable than a DS. I've been on rides lasting six hours and didn't feel like stopping because of a sore ***, how many other ATVs can do that?

It is well built - it is heavier because everything is re-enforced, so as a basic consumer I don't have to worry about my toy breaking which makes me very happy - I know some people enjoy working on their machines; but I like riding my ATV 100% better. I've watched Raptors & other machines break from pretty minor accidents while my DS has suprised me by what it's passed through WITHOUT breaking.

The DS in stock trim is longer & wider than other quads - most people once they buy a quad covet the idea of buying a wider axle, longer swingarm and wider A-Arms to make the quad more stable. The DS has all of these from the get go.

Comparing your buddies DS to some other guys YFZ is *ONLY* a good comparison of those two machines, not those two models. (Unless they are both 100% stock, and even then it's not always a good comparison. For example: no one compares their machine to a 100% Stock Banshee - those tires are a joke!) There are plenty of DSs out there with only a small investment that have gobs more power than a stocker. If drag racing is your thing a person also has to remember that one of the key factors in a drag is tires - you have to have tires that match your HP level, too much tire and you can't keep your RPMs up; too little traction and all you do is dig a hole to China.

The other factor about drag racing: the winning is virtually always the person with the biggest investment of Money / Time / Technology.

If you are looking at picking up a new quad decide where you plan to ride, what type of riding you'll be doing or might do (some people don't like drag racing at all, I never used to but I find it mildly amusing these days.) Make a list of what features you think ar important and see how each model compares. Perhaps your important features are different from mine, however in 1999 on the ATVing.com forum there was a thread about what each person's 'dram quad' would be - what I described was almost exactly the DS650.

 

i'm not sayin that a ds would not have a scratch, but i would definetly do much better than that thing, and as i said, hes had accidentS, as in plural, meaning more than one, hes already bent 2 a-arms and a shock on it, and wow are those ever light,

 

It is simple. If you need to save weight, you need to make things as light as possible. The YFZ is made to be light, pure and simple. Unfortunately light parts are not as strong. The new DS also now uses aluminium parts and they don’t fair so well either. Saying the quad is bad because it has lots of lightweight parts is stupid. Any quad hit by a car will have something bent.

Face it. The YFZ is a damn good bike and give it credit. It is the quad to beat and for a 450 to stick and even beat the 650's and 660's take some doing.

The DS is not a perfect quad and it also breaks down and bends things. Bomb changed the 04 models to lighten them up and make them shorter. They are now not as strong as they use to be.

You make the choice. You either ride a rocket or you ride a tank.

The lighter YFZ 450 is not built to be a tank. If you want to win races you need a rocket.

 

yeah theyre fast, faster than my raptor!!!!