I know at the dunes they are chick quads. They aren't made for the dunes. They're trail quads, and great at freestyle though, you gotta admit that. If not ask josh Lanphear, how he thinks they are[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

wow that was very funny




sarcastic

 

I honestly tried my best to stay away from this thread or posting in it any more etc, but this is just insane to even consider bashing on any quad for its use at the dunes only. I could just say well at least they can borrow their wives or gf's ex when the rappy is broke, but I dont want to start any new flame wars on this stuff.

The 660 engine in the raptor is an excelent example to make major or even minor mods on and get great results. I have done this with a couple of them and they produced great power and gobbs of torque, but this is also where so many other problems became more obvious like clutches, starter gear and clutch, trans in some of them, and you still have a raptor (or as a guy I talked with recently when he was looking at a new 450r that he was going to try to buy etc, is that its a "craptor" and though he was happy to have never been beat in a straight line he thought it was time to be able to keep up when the road isnt so straight" and this makes sense too) and all the other things that come with it.

I find it odd to even think of making any kind of comparison exclusivly on dunes which account for such a tiny percentage of the land type avail across the country. Dont get me wrong here as it looks like a total blast that I look forward to doing in the future, and we even have some of the nice soft stuff around here with a few man made dunes thrown in for luck, but I can even begin to think of using this terrain to judge a comparison. This is especially true for anyone in the other 3/4 of the country where riding is mostly done in the woods and on the track.

Anyhow since I and many others cant debate the popular or better performing quads at the dunes all I can offer is that its been proven over and over that the little POS 400ex (when modded "correctly") give the modded raptor more than it can handle, and yes this is why you see so many hondas on the podium.

And for those who couldnt get the power they needed from the old school xr400 engine there were many different engines put into the 400ex all over the country, and the reason is that the rest of this machine performs better than most are willing to accept.

Before anyone jumps down my throat I want you to understand that there is some method behind the madness here, and this is that just as the current debate of yfz450 v trx450r is the hot topic so was the raptor v 400ex and the BS that gets thrown around is allmost the same also.

Although I think there is a better or more of a comparison between the newer models as Yamaha has really made some changes and is producing what is most likely their best quad to date there is still some very mfg specific differences between all these machines. I am not sure if anyone else has noticed these things but I cant be the only one who looks at the YFZ frame and knows its a Yamaha product from the design and even finish, and the same goes for the TRX as it has some very distictive honda traits in it also.

Weather we like it or not these machines (all 4 but mostly the new ones) are very comparable and truely much better thought out and performing than what we had to choose from just 4-5 years ago, but dont be suprized if neither is blowing the other away and you still get trouble if not beat by a properly modded 400ex. Sure the new models will not have as much an issue with the older technology of the 400ex engine or the frame and suspensions of the raptor once they have been properly modded, but till that happens dont forget where both these quads engineers got their education from (the trx400ex).

As an example I was laughing when recently cleaning up in the garage and came across some old magazines that were touting how great the 400ex and raptor were just like what we are seeing now on the new models. There was even one that fell and opened up to a hot mods for your 400ex in atv action, now that was a laugh since it was from 2001 and some of the mods were out of date allready and some of the ones we have now were discussed as future projects, but the point is that this was the top machine for this time etc.

This is too long already so I hope you get my point and dont take this as a flame or anything else that its not.

 

and then you will wake up realizing it was all a dream!

 

To the person who started this thread, as long as we have many manufactures building machines simular to the same species, there will always be bickering a.k.a b.s. between the people who chose to buy a peticular machine vs. over another one. wecome to the real world!! THAT'S LIFE!! Thank God we have many choices!! Your taking what you read too serious