I have been reading for years how much more power aftermarket stuff does to mojave's and lakotas. I have an 01 Lakota sport, and dont know how the previous owner treated it but it had been sitting for a while. So I got to business, doing everything people said made it more powerful. Alot of money later, a new battery, dynojet kit, twinair filter, modded intake, maier hood for more airflow, new spark plug, supertrapp ids2 exhaust, new sprockets/chain, spacers, and douglas .190's and razr 2's, and it still seems very weak compared to what other people say about it. It's been smoking lately before it warms up and is burning some oil. My question is, do you think a worn piston/rings/sleeve/valves would make it that much worse? i can barely wheelie it and it's not very fast. I am wondering if the previous owner ran it with too little oil or overheated it or something causing engine damage. It was never very responsive to mods, nothing I did made a really noticable difference. I've been considering an overbore and new valves, just to get it running good. Do you think this would solve my problems?

 

u have very low compretion in the cylinder. the biggest power increase u can do is put a high compretion pistonin it. an oversize piston is highly recomended.check and see if that cylinder needs to be bored and replated or just bored

 

Yep, best thing you can do is add compression. Mill the head, deck the piston, get a high comp piston. Boring it out does nothing, basically, unless you can add at least 10cc. THere are other ways to add compression too. Get more air into the cylinder by porting, intake and airbox work, and bigger carbs (ie scarp your goofy CV carb - they all junk - and get a mikuni flat slide with KN filter - twin air is only a bit better than stock). ABout the only thing I see you did right was the exhaust. A good exhaust will up the compression by allowing more air into the cylinder. Everything else you did is "general maintenance".

Consider this... My bud has a 246cc quad with bad rings, valves, etc and it smokes and has no compression. Mine is a 243cc with a wiseco 10.25:1 compression piston and dont smoke and has so much compression you cant kick it w/o the compression release on. He is not that much slower than me. He can still wheelie, donuts, whatever... only difference is there is a trail of smoke behind him.

 

Well, I'm just basing the performance from my mods on what others have said they have gotten on their quad with those mods and appearantly they're supposed to help this quad quite a bit. CWR sells an 11:1 piston for it, I might consider that, but then will i need a new connecting rod? What ill hd valve springs do for me?

 

First thing you need to do is take a compression test. See what that tells you.

 

What's the goal? How much money do you have to spend?

HD valve springs close the valve faster to prevent valve floating at high rpms.... Worst case, the valve doesnt have enough time to close before the cam is telling it to open again.

I dont know if you'll need a new rod. Most of the time you dont with a high comp kit. The piston is probably domed. I'm building a lakota right now and I dont plan to get the 11:1 kit. If anything, I will mill the head first,,,, if anything. The intended purpose doesn't need every last drop of HP in this case.

Consider this:
My 230quadsport is 243cc and 309lbs dry.
My lakota is 290cc and 459lbs dry.

So, the lakota is 150lbs heavier and only 47cc bigger. My buddy just bought an 04 warrior yesterday... It weighs 397lbs dry and is 348cc. He has 105cc on me and is only 88lbs more. What I'm getting at is... Are you sure the lakota is worth it?

 

the connecting rod u will not need. the heavy duty valve springs u will need when a change cams. get the next size up high compression piston and a good port job and that bike will be a real rocket

 

do you have a spark arrester on it ?,check it if there is one ,some times they get pluged up.

 

You probably won't need the con rod. However if you have the cash and plan on keeping the quad for a while it might be prudent to freshen the bottom end and have a look at it anyway considering you don't know the history very well. I'll second the compression check, if your compression is bad that would explain the lackluster performance. Best of luck.

 

I have quite a bit into it and it's a great trail machine being an auto clutch and having large tires. I do alot of rough trails and mud/stream driving and hill climbs and it's great for that kind og stuff. I ride with some 400's and the better riders do pretty good, but in the mud and on rocky trails they suffer do to smaller tires and less ground clearance. The exhaust is brand new so i doubt the spark arrestor is clogged. I want to spend as little as possible, i would like to bore it out to 335 so i can keep up with the 400's on the straights,(not many) but then i would need a new cam, valve springs, valves, carb, and filter so I'm just looking for a mild bore to make it run better and maybe get a bit more performance out of it. If I could spend less than 500 that would be good including labor charges. I may need to spend the 25 bucks on a service manyual too because i plan to do a full gasket replacement and reinstall the head/parts. Gasket kit is another 75. Guess that drops my budget down to something like 400. My compression testor doesnt work right for some reason, the needle actually goes backwards instead of higher. I will see if i can get a hold of one from elsewhere. How much compression is a lakota supposed to have?