four or five years ago i was looking at the different honda models on their website and there were two models of the 400ex. one was labeled a fourtrax and the other a sporttrax. i'm not sure if they where both offered the same year but if i remeber right the specs showed that the sporttrax had diffenent gears in the gearbox than the fourtrax. it said the sporttrax was geared more for woods and trail riding. i don't really remember if this is correct but i was wondering if anybody read the same.

 

A few years ago, the entire lineup was called fourtrax, then later they called all the sport quads sportrax.

What you may be thinking of is the year they put reverse on it and changed the body style to match the 450R (can't remember exactly what year that was). I do indeed think they made some minor gearing changes in the newer models, but I can't say that I payed any particular attention to it. I do think it got geared up slightly (????).

Doesn't really matter much, because you have lots of options for change the final gearing (both front and rear sprockets) to suit your personal riding style.

 

in 05 it got the new plastic but the years i was talking about were the 01 02 models. i was just wonder if the earlier models had the same gear spacing. because my 01 has a good even gear spacing from first through fifth. on my friends 02 its seems like first is almost lower and then second to fifth is evenly spaced. when we raced stock for stock he had better accleration until about fourth gear then in fifth i could walk away from him. i'm going to buy a used motor and send it to four stroke tech to get it built so i can still ride and have no down time. but i wanted to see if there was a difference in gearing before i bought the motor. sorry for the long post.

 

I don't think there were any changes back in those years. There could be all kinds of differences between your friends machine and yours. Things like different pipes and headers, jetting, tires, etc., etc., can make th powerband different and make it seem like the gearing isn't the same.

 

they were both bone stock besides holeshot tires on both but both were the same size tire and tread design. it isn't a big issue, i was justing wondering before i bought a used motor. i could be wrong about the whole gear thing but i just wanted to check. thanks for you input