Just curios and I've never ridden one, how does an Odyssey or a Pilot do on steep hill climbs?
Does it have much ground clearance? What's the differences between an Odyssey and a
Pilot? Any way to pull wheelies on one of these?

 

They can do ok depending on the hill and setup. The biggest problem with these is the clutch. they work pretty good when you get them set up right though. The stock clutch on the 350 is pretty bad. I have only had a 350 and my brother owned a 250 for a while. Wheelie riding is pretty hard. The machine weighs about 600 lbs or so. HP is about 40 or so. The belt takes a lot of the power you would need to wheelie. It seems that you can get the tires to break loose and spin them pretty good, but if they hook up good the belt tends to slip.

Ground clearance is not very good on a 350. if you do a lot of rocks, tight trails and water, it is not the best. Water is ok, but you have to remember that you are sitting in it if it gets real deep. It kind of sucks driving through puddles on cold days. Rocks are very hard on the undercarriage. Tight trails are hard, since the rear end is about a foot wider than a quad, has no diff,and is kind of rear heavy. It works best to break the rear end lose to turn it. The odyssey is best suited to sand. It is also a blast in mud and snow--only problem is keeping belt/pullies dry.

The differences between ody/pilot are mostly in the suspension and motor. They upgraded a few other things too. The motor is a water cooled 400, whereas the 350 is aircooled. The suspension on the pilot is double wish bone, while the ody is trailing arm. The frames, weight, seats, controls are very similar. The pilot has better modifications available for it. You can get long travel suspension kits and CR500 jug conversion kits and stuff like that.

Another big difference between the ody and pilot is price. You can find a 350 for 2500 or less, while pilots run about 6k.

 

A stock 350 is 28HP and I believe a Pilot is 35. I have no idea what a 250 is. Just like any 2-stroke, you can squeeze out a lot more with bolt on items. A cheap and easy mod on the 350 is to clip off the three tabs holding the three layers of a stock head gasket together. Throw away the middle layer and use one of the two remaining layers. This will bump the compression up from 138psi to 150-160psi.

Stock Pilots can do wheelies with a starter hill. They have more torque than a 350 because of their long stroke. I know of someone with a ported Pilot that can do wheelies on a hard flat surface. Both can be modified to accept a CR500 cylinder. A pilot has the same stroke as a CR500. The 350 is shorter so it makes 410cc. The 410 flat out screams and can outrun the 500.

 

have you figured out how to make the 410 yet? I was reading the pilot board, and it didn't look like any conclusions were made, or anyone knew how to do it.

 

Jerry Awana put a post a while back saying he had one for sale. There were requests that he post where to have it done, but he never did.

Jay at ATV Racing quoted me a price on doing it, but backed out after I bought an entire CR500 top end. Someone at http://www.crankworks.com/ once told me they could do it, but I am trying to find a place that has done it before. I have been meaning to call Klemm Research and see if they have or know who has done this.