Everything you guys are talking about is great. Its about time Suzuki gets back into the sport market. All I can say is even if the Z is close to what evryone is talking about I will have to have one. This sounds like a quad bent on causing me to spend money.

I'm not much into performance mods and from the little bits I've read about the Z I dont think I'll need to worry about pulling anymore ponnies out of the engine.

Maybe its time to send my Scram down the road.

 

Stock horsepower for the Suzuki is 35 to 37 and a pipe and filter bring it up around 40 to 42. The 450 Honda is a full on motocross machine and is MUCH faster than the 400 Honda play bike but does not hold up to the extra demands of a quad [at least not yet].
Bearman

 

400EX hp: 25

CRF450R hp: 55

I'm not a big fan of boring out the Nic-a-sil plating, I'd rather just try to bump the compression up to 12.5:1 or something, a lot more economical, but a bit less reliable. I think the engine should take it, maybe you'll need to run it on race gas at that kind of compression, but that's just what I would do... A pipe and some intake work should get the job done anyway... a little porting would be sweet... 4 strokes are great to squeeze power out of... I think that Edelbrock will or does make a good Carb for this thing, it should increase power a bit compared to the Mikuni on it right now...

I think this is going to be the best production quad ever produced yet... Just a hunch [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

As far as boring out the nikasil material and inserting a cast iron liner, i know what you mean, i would much rather have nikasil. There are companys that will renikasil a motor though so you could just have it bored out the the 436 or 470 size and then have it nikasiled, i did this with the motor in my snowmobile, you get the benifit of an increased bore size, but still haev the great cooling of the nikasil cylinder, although it is more expensive than just inserting a cast iron liner. As far as having 12.5:1 compression, the motor is still very reliable, this is what the drz-400 and 400e have from the factory, you need to run 93 octane fuel in them. I feel that the best mod for this quad, other than a pipe and filter, will be the yoshimura ignition module and cams/valve springs. Yoshimura sells this as a kit for the bike for I believe between $400 and $500. They tested it in dirt rider magazine and they said it lets the bike rev to a little over 11 grand and that it make insane mid range and top end power.

 

I would avoid boring out an engine that is very over-square (a lot more bore than stroke), if a stroker option was available. Apparently, that's an alternative that has already been developed. Hopefully, the actual price won't be as stratospheric as was suggested earlier, but it's a better way to go with the 90x63 Suzuki engine. The 400 already revs very well, and our eventual improvements to intake and exhaust will enhance that even more. The stroke increase will improve low end, without increasing the problem of reduced fuel-burn quality, which is associated with large-bore cylinders.

 

BTW, I was watching a flat-track event last weekend and there was a guy there with a screamingly fast DRZ400. I talked to him after his heat, and he said he has the Yoshi ignition/cams/springs and a 12:1 J&E piston, and that after a season of racing the engine has been bullet-roof. Sounds good, no?

 

This quad is going to be awesome. If people are running 12:1 and claiming they're bullet-proof I wonder if we'll see some guys running 13:1 or over...