Thinking about grabbing a set this winter for spring riding. Anyone that has them, how do you like them? Are they rough riding...would they rattle the shiet outta me? Do they take a lot away from the ride of the 650?

We do mostly trail riding w/ occassional mud but the trails get pretty wet in spots during the spring and I like the idea of having more ground clearance. I have 26" mudrunners now, the do well in the mud but I have gotten stuck a few times with them (mostly because of ground clearance, i.e. trying to push the skid plate on top of ruts). Should I not even bother?

Nyroc..how do you like yours?

 

They are awesome in the mud. They don't ride rough over 5mph, much less rough than other aggressive tires. At 1 mph, they are really rough (vibrate). They have excellent dirt handling and traction. They have great lateral traction. I run 5 psi, and have douglas wheels with stock spacing and they don't rub.

They are heavy, add to that the 28" diameter. They takes a very noticeable chunk of power. Not really so noticeable at takeoff as much as higher speeds. The weight has a tendency to make the 650 manuever slower. I basically drive like it was a 700 or 660. Less agile. The ride is a bit harder than my 26" set, but ride really isn't the issue. It is power and slower handling. I don't know if I am decribing it right. I just rode them 2 days ago. I turn slower. I jump slower. I cross logs slower. When I took them to salamanca, many 650's with stock tires passed me on a weaving winding trail, and I was even trying to scoot down the road. No other quads were passing me other than 400ex and 660 raptors. some probably wanted to, but only the quickest and most agile actually did.

The high speed handling is not as good. Tends to be harder to control, but it is still doable if the toe in is set to near zero.

Snow? Not great. They dig, you want to not disturb the snow and you want stay on top of it.
Ice, Icy snow? Not very good at all. Not enough biting edges.
Mossy streambed? No traction. Very very very bad.

Grass? Heck yes.

Mud? Oh yeah Baby! Goodness graceous! They made all the IRS quads at salamance look stupid (didn't see any with my same tires). I rode back through all the bad mudholes and turned with a sly look as if to say "Is this where you had trouble?". Or, I would ride out to next to someone that is still stuck and lean over to them and say "Would you like me to winch you out?".

I hope that tell it like it is.

Anybody that reads this, and is tempted to get those steel ITP wheels just because they are only $44 each, don't do it. You gotta get the tire you want, but adding an additional 3 to 6 pounds per wheel is NOT worth the money saved. No? "No" No! No.

 

Very well said Nyroc

 

Parker 650, I wish I could borrow your 26" mudrunners to see how they fit my riding style.

The surtraks I have aren't a good mud tire. The are a 10 on trails and rocks, absolutely phenominal. But they are a 0 in the mud. TRX450 has them too and likes them. But, I can't use mudrunners and surtraks on the same machine at the same time. The mix works well on drypack, but is utterly ridiculous when I get to mud. In fact, this mix is the reason my machine flipped once during a powerslide on slippery clay. The mudrunners held on while the surtraks slipped. The quad in front of me had all mudrunners, and he did a perfect powerslide.

I want to balance things out. I wonder if I shouldn't just go mudrunners all around. I still like the zillas for when the ride gets really muddy. They find traction. The extra little bit of clearance helps since the last quad dig the ruts down just a little too deep.

 

Any reliability problems when you run these big tires? I heard a couple times that the front left axle shaft will pop out of the diff sometimes. How about the power to spin(not turn)the big tires in the deep stuff?

 

I can spin em, the 650 can really crank it.

I have only ridden around 500 miles with the 28" zillas. I think the only thing is faster belt wear. Sure, 28" tires can break stuff faster. But the 650 doesn't break that easy.

Axle probs? Most mud riders aren't busting their front drivelines up, never hear of that. It was the 660 that had axles popping out.

 

Nyroc...

Some damn good info there as usual. I'm torn right now. When we ride we hammer our 650's and romp on the trails. None of us, except my father, have ever really babied their machine. We believe that you should ride the crap out of them, break them in that way (sort of). When we ride it's basically as fast as we can go, I tend to get a little more nuts with wheelies and jumps then others I ride with. Powersliding like a mad man. The mud we encounter is limited, there isn't much except for in the spring. If it's there, I will almost always give it a shot...probably why I get stuck.

I should probably do the smart thing and stick with the mudrunners. They really do rock IMO. Top speed dropped from 62 mph w/ stockers (stock quad) to 58 mph (w/ dynojet, snorkle, twinair, EPI black spring). But acceleration is better than stock, and handling is way, way better...well worth the 4 mph loss. Oh yeah, these tires powerslide awesome. They grip well on hardpack but not great like the 589 m/s.

I've slowly driven into mud that was absolute slop in 2wd and leaned over to watch the tires to see how they are grabbing. They grip hold of the mud and push the slop out of the sides and out of the way, they tend to paddle through the slop instead of digging down into it (589 m/s). The problem where I get stuck is in 2wd they will push the quad forward w/ no problems until the skid plates start to touch ruts. Then 4wd with the locker pushes you forward more just enough to get totally high-centered on the skidplate. Thats where I would love to have the clearance and nastiness of the 28 zilla, but now that I think of it, I don't think it would be worth it, maybe it will.

I'm torn....maybe I'll just have to chill on my riding style and just turn the 650 into a mudzilla monster. Maybe I can share the set with one of my buddies.

As usual, Nyroc, great info.

Oh yeah, after installing the snorkle, air filter and jets I had a slight stutter (o.5 second) on immediate stab of the throttle. I cranked out the mixture screws from 3 turns to 4.5 and it got a little better. Last week I replaced my carb screws (50% of them stripped) with allens head screws. When I was in there I took out the jets and blew them out with compressed air and replaced them. We are back in business. My 650 is a wheelie monster with the EPI black spring, even WITH a worn belt (26 mm width). I can't imagine what it's gonna be like when I put the new belt on.

Its funny, my riding buddy has a green 650 and has the same mods as me, we did them at the same time. He just put an HMF slip-on exhaust on, mine is stock but I have the black EPI spring and he doesn't. Its loud and raspy, sounds annoying when your riding with him, but is a blast to ride yourself. There is no speed/acceleration difference between the two. In 2wd I took him off the line then he caught up and we stayed dead even to 55 mph when we let off. In 4wd we stayed dead even the whole way until he pulled away about 1/2 bike length at 40 mph. He has 26 589 m/s and I have 26 mudrunners. My bike is a wheelie machine and I couldn't get his off the ground! It felt so front heavy, even with the extra umph from the exhaust.

IMO...I was gonna get a pipe, but after riding his and hearing it, I don't think I will. I think I'll send mine out to jet-hot for coating and to make it look better, but I'm not convinced it will make a significant power gain worth the noise pollution. Those of you that want to some additional low end, spend the $25 and get the black spring from EPI...it's well worth the money.