Rincon...... its not just holding the throttle wide open..... its when the throttle is wide open it has to be producing enough power to throw you back to last month if you want to be competitive on the track. The stock 400 doesnt have that.....

Honda has always dominated the motocross ATV scene and i think they always will. Cannondale is competitive, but the 450F quads still rock everyones world, no doubt about it...... Peace

 

dont get me wrong dale makes a great quad and has done great things for OUR sport but for the price you would pay for a moto you could pay less for a all or all most all aftermarket 250 (or plus) r or ex all hoped up. that would hold its own with a moto on the track.

 

I just came back from the MX national this past weekend at Lorreta Lynn's and I will give you a break down of what kind of quads that were on the race track. You had 1/3 custom built 450 or 426 engines, 1/3 400EX, 30 to 40 C-dales, about 5 Raptors, about 1/3 of the rest that started out life as a 250R. In Xc racing the 250R will be dead in about 2 years because of the new 4-strokes, look at the numbers this year at the GNCC races. At the national MX it will take 1 or 2 years after that. There are more custom built quads than 250R's.
The C-dales are very good quads, built they are still in the testing stages from what I see at the MX tracks. I would wait to next year to get one. Those of you who want a 650 or larger quad you don't need that much power. The engineer from the companies have found out that after 500cc you do not need that much power on a sport quad. Why did the truck people not or limited the cu in over 400? it is not needed unless you have a very big load.
Of all the Raptors and the Blaster sold by Yamaha, how come very few are seen at the race track(MX or XC)? The Blasters are bought by the average ride because they are low priced and the Raptor because they think that the big engine will make it the fastest and the most power.
I will stop with this. I could go on, I hope you understand what I am saying.

 

TRX 440,

I missed the party ! I was out for 3 days. About 40 e-mails of replys this morning. Is there a way to take off those replys confirmation ? If there is any old time hockey fan in this forum, I had dinner with Jean Beliveau (Montreal Canadians) and Edde Shack (Toronto Maple Leaf) yesterday. Me and Shack were drunk like crazy [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]. I am going to Scottsdale for a credit meeting. I am a Credit Manager for a garage door manufacturing company so that is were creditguy comes from. So I guess I am not part of that ACN thing. I am gone be around having drinks on the Thursday night so ask for Fred with the NACM-Chicago credit group.

I am late but why a ''race'' Honda vs Cannondale. Simple, because of price (Honda volume of sales), reliability (don't tell me Cannondales are bulletproof like Honda !) and I can't buy a Cannondale (US territory only). I think this are three good reasons.

 

Cannondales may not be up to the reliability standard of Big Red YET, but they are working extremely hard to that end. Also, what other company can compare to C'Dales customer support and warranty coverage... none that I can think of.

I think that most serious riders have owned a Honda at some point in their lives, just out of their sheer volume, high reliability, and affordability. But none of those things define utter performance. Cannondales are designed and tested for competition, and in a few years they should be the dominant machine to beat in the GNCCs.

That is how I see it, anyways...

 

TRX440 - You had a long post and I didn't read every word, but from the looks of it, we pretty much have the same thing on mind. Trust me, I would not want a Tecate or LT or anything else to race at that time. So all you were saying is basically the same that I was saying, but I'm not to good with words.

Rincon - A friend of mine has a 440ex that's already built up to $10,000 +. He has triple rate works shocks, stock a-arms, and stock axle... by the time he gets up to a moto's rank, he'll be way over the MSRP of a moto. As far as speed goes, he's BARELY faster than my Cannibal. He also did the motor work himself, so instead of spending $2500 on having the motor built, he spent $800 (he's good with motors). So he's saved a lot of money, and yet compared to what he could have w/ a moto, he's already spent to much.

Creditguy - Stock vs. stock, the Honda is more reliable, but for the most part, people here are talking about quad racing. A MX built 400ex (or anything for that matter) is flat out, NOT reliable. Yall can tell me all you want about that R you've been racing for 5 years w/ NO problems, but you're either not riding hard, or you've got God's hand on you. Because even Tim Farr's quad is not reliable (compared to a stock 400ex used for trail riding). As far as reliable goes in "MX terms" the Cannondale is just as reliable as anything out there. My Cannondale has had a few minor "stutters" and some bent parts, just like my friends 440ex has had some minor "stutters" and bent parts.

I'm gonna get bashed pretty bad for what I'm about to say, but from what I've seen, the 250R is hands down, the MOST UNRELIABLE quad I've seen on the track. I'm usually at a MX track 3 times a week, sometimes twice a week, and the 250R's have had more problems than anything! But hell, they ARE all atleast 15 years old! That's why the R USED TO BE the best quad around, but that ship has sailed my friend. There's one Pro GNC rider that races around here and there isn't one bolt on that R that's stock, and he's seized his motor plenty of times. It's like most of yall see a quad that uses a 250R frame, and yall automatically thing the R is the GOD of quads. The Honda frame geometry IS AWESOME, but it's the motor in those frames that are being WAY outdated.

 

all that honda is going to do is throw a big displacment motor (like a 650) into a 400ex frame and call it a catchy little name to try and make it different from all these other dumb new "sport Quads" thats why i will never stop riding my R.

 

YoDaddy hit the nail on the head!

Can you PUMP-UP your 400ex(or Suzuki z400) to compete with a C'dale? YES

But then you can kiss your warranty bye-bye.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]think about it,Why buy a NEW quad just to VOID the warranty.


Biggerisbetter.

 

<< all that honda is going to do is throw a big displacment motor (like a 650) into a 400ex frame and call it a catchy little name to try and make it different from all these other dumb new &quot;sport Quads&quot; thats why i will never stop riding my R. >>



well it has almost the same frame as your &quot;R&quot; so tell me what's wrong with the 400EX frame????

for the guy who said that the EX doesn't sit you back when held wide open, well that was my point, not many people can hold a quad wide open on the track, so all that power isn't needed, unless you're a pro, in which case you'd have a 20 000++ dollar quad.

 

well the thing thats wrong with that is that &quot;almost&quot; word that you put in there. plus that big stupid motor they put in that frame screws up the handling a whole lot. because it is too heavy and too high. so even though it is based on the 250R frame that means nothing because of the big heavy and not to mention slow 4strk.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]