You need a chain guide, not tensioner. With a chain guide I run my NON-ORING chain loose and it still stays on in the worst of trails. Everything else is crap. You may do ok for a while with good bearings and new chain adjusted properly, but all it takes is one time and BAM! Now you're looking for a $200 cover. With a guide it can't come off... no way no how.

The 250s arms are like an inch or so wider. Not enough to get super excited about, but they are wider.

 

Dunlops (aka stock tires) are thin:



I was just riding along, nothing special, a stick popped up and there you see what happened. It took 2 plugs and some slime to fix it. The fix lasted until I wore the ***** off (a year or 2). In 7 yrs time this has only happened once. Personally, I like dunlop tires. Yup, they're thin, but I'm not lugging around 4 extra layers of tire just because I'm scared of a stick popping up. I'll be more careful next time now that I know something like this can happen. I'm a big fan of lighter tires and punctures are the risks that go along with it. So, you have to ask yourself what your goals are when selecting a tire. If all you do is putt around slowly, then get a thick tire. If you're milking every last drop of power from your quad, get a light tire. If I had it to do over again, I would buy 18's and I'd never buy 22s for any sport quad unless it was shaft-drive and the only way to make it have a higher top speed. 22s are power sapping hogs! I know because i bought a set of 22 kendas for my 250ex (shaft drive) so I could have a higher top speed. Now the thing barely has enough power to even get to top speed (which is only a few mph higher). I cut off 4 lbs of lugs, which I'm sure made a difference in theory, but I can't feel it. Having all that 6-ply weight concentrated 11 inches from the center of the axle is hard to accelerate. I'd rather have 9 inches or less of 2-ply weight (18 inch tire). It would be much much easier to spin. But with a shaft drive my options were limited to attain my goal of higher top speed. But, when selecting a tire you have to be able to state what your goals are and what you're willing to lose in a trade off.

Goals

For my quadsport, my goals are acceleration and not too much traction. I'm willing to lose durability and ground clearance. If I get a puncture, a patch kit is like $1 from the dollar store n has 5 plugs which can be cut in half to patch 10 holes. If by some remote chance I get a tear so big I can't fix it, then I'm willing to gamble n have to buy a new tire. I think the odds are pretty low of that. And ground clearance isn't an issue because I smack all sorts of rocks as it is and its meaningless... my forward momentum carries me right over. I'm not building a swamp buggy afterall lol. Top speed isn't an issue because I can change sprocket sizes. So the only thing I'm worried about is my tire being too heavy and having too much bite. Too much bite leads to unpredictable handling. Maybe not so evident on a wimpy quadsport, but put some holeshots on a 660 raptor and you'll quickly find out what I'm talking about. Goose the gas and you have no idea if you're going to slide or launch into the closest tree before you have a chance to even think about hitting the brakes! You want a tire to do what you think it will do and not surprise you.

KN filters

I didn't know I'd be carrying on so much lol. One more thing I want to add is to be careful of KN filters. Improper cleaning (which to me is ANY cleaning AT ALL) leads to letting dirt in your engine which leads to worn intake valves. EVERY engine I've ever seen that had a KN filter, had a worn intake valve. And I've seen more than a few! Yes, KN filters flow better than foam, but ask yourself if its worth it. The next time I design an air filtration system, I'm going with the largest foam filter I can squeeze in. I'll never buy another KN in my life.

K&N air filter or OEM, why OEM is better

And my god don't ever put one on a car. The oil will ruin a MAF sensor... and let dirt in!

 

The 230s that came with 22 inch tires had a gearing of 12/41 and the ones with 20 inch tires had a gearing of 12/39. The speeds are the same. If you can find a 36, I'd go with that. A 12/36 will beat a 13/39 even though its the same ratio, but the trade off is more wear on the chain, swingarm bearings, and axle bearings. The power difference is something you can actually feel. Most people don't want to believe it, and that's good... I'd prefer my secret not get out too much

 

You're going to have a hard time beating a blaster. The rule of thumb is to double a 2-stroke's size to find the equivalent 4-stroke engine to match it. So to beat a 200cc blaster, you'd need a 400cc 4-stroke. Roughly.

That's why the 450s are so popular... they take the place of the 250cc 2-strokes. And the 660 raptor replaced the 350 banshee. To replace the zilla, they'd need to come out with a 950 something or another lol

As heavily modded as my 250 quadsport is, I can't even keep up with a 125cc 2-stroke dirtbike. I can run cirlces around 350 warriors and keep up fairly well with a LT400 (in trails, not open road), but the 125 will flat run off and leave me like I'm on a kid's tricycle. I can't imagine keeping up with that thing with anything less than a modded 450. The 660 raptor might have a shot. It would be close.

 

Thanks randy. I'm sure I will end up asking you the same questions over and over since I have until spring to get it finished so I won't be working on it every day and that will let me forget a lot of stuff.

 

Bookmark the page or write it down or something. I may not be around when you need me. I usually show up a month too late lol

 

Justrandy, you use a wirebrush on alluminum? really? haha, that always scratches the hell out of it haha. But if you are going to polish some of those cases, which I have done about 6 lt230 polished cases already and I know what it takes, but if someone is up for the challege. I can tell you everything you need. Don't take a wire brush to it please haha, you wont ever get the deep scratches out. First it takes a good gunk cleaner, then paint stripped, then every single grit sand paper ranging from 600 (maybe 400) to 2000 grit! Thats it, nothing else. Let me know if you guys want more details. We will get those cases polished in no time (meaning if its your first time, 50-70 hours for all the cases, and if its not your first time, I can probably do it in 10 or so with breaks). I will look into four valves for everyone haha. Not sure if any of you guys are in michigan, but Im hitting silver lake sand dunes next summer, so if you guys want to ride, let me know. You can see my decked out 230. Picks will come in the spring once everything is together.

It consist of plus more:

Lt250s engine
Lt250s a-arms
Westcoast Swingarm
Aftermarket custom rear shock (still trying to figure out brand)
Works Front shocks
Durablue rear axle
Nerf bars with custom black and white nets
White brothers front bumper
DG exhaust w/ supertrap silencers
Holeshot rear tires w/ red label rims
AMS Front rims w/ razr front tires
Brand new white plastics
Black Frame
87 frame, with 86 round axle carrier
Swingarm will be white and so will the a-arms
Customized Suzuki front hood, its sexy (amazing what some tools and wire can do)
PRM Rear Grab Bar
Aftermarket (forgot what brand) handle bars (They costed like $100 new)
Lt250s carb
Lt250s throttle housing (way better housing)
White shock covers probably or black, not sure

Obviously there is more, I just cant remember.

The front hubs I believe are from a raptor if I remember correctly so there is a different bolt pattern in the front. The brake disks are drilled already for cooling. Aftermarket rear disk brake.

 

I use a wire brush on the jug and heads. Obviously anything shiney I wouldn't scratch the hell out of it for no reason lol

I'm not that much into the looks. Its gonna look like hell after the first ride anyway. I remember I finally got my quad together a couple years ago and everyone wanted to go riding. I said "let me get pics first because this is the nicest its EVER gonna look!" So I pushed it out in the grass and snapped pics from every angle. And we went riding. I didn't even get out of the parking lot good and hit the first jump and the plastic hit my tire... snapping a piece off. Since then the paint has chipped n scratched, mud/oil mix covers about everything, the rims have been rock tumblers, the pretty tire design is worn off, the seat has a tear where the kicker is, anything aluminum oxidized and any clear coating turned yellow/cloudy, etc, etc... It just ain't worth all the trouble to keep it looking nice and therefore not worth the trouble to make it nice to begin with.

 

This is what it used to look like







The side cover used to look like this



Getting all that brown crud off was a nightmare. I tried paint remover that usually makes paint turn into jelly, but only worked marginally on this. Acid didn't do anything. I'm pretty sure I had to resort to abrasives. Maybe steel wool. You can see scratches in the pic where I was trying everything and anything. I took this pic so I could post on forums asking everyone how to get this crap off.

 

Here's what the cover looks like today. I just took these:



And here is the plastic (was sitting outside in the rain lol). You can see the big hunk I took out of it the same day the pretty pics were taken. Hard to believe that tire came that far up, but it did.



Here's a closeup of my thick paint job:



Paint so thick it measured almost .007 (7 mils). That's as thick as some tarps!