Well against all of my good sense, I did race a banshee before it is totally broken in, hopefully I didnt over rev the engine too early in its life.
I warmed it up for about 5 minutes. we lined up on a gravel road and at the start I jumped majorly ahead due to the banshees poor traction. so we stopped and waited to restart for about 5 minutes so i could go easy on the new engine. then again same result jumped so far ahead i was covering him with gravel so he stopped again. so we waited a little while and said ok start the banshee in 2nd gear to get traction. This time we launched fairly close but the raptor instantly pulled ahead all of the way over the distance of about 1000ft., we cooled the raptor for a about 15 minuetes. then we did a run to just from mid throttle cruising to top end. Over all the run was very close with the banshee having only 2-5mph over the raptor on the very top after I had gotten topped out.
Test results:
So although comparing to a SandTraxx ported and FMF fatty Piped Banshee Is not a fair comparison, I can tell you this. Overall the power is very close in the amount of HP. In mid to low traction the raptor will jump and leave the banshee, On pavement Id guess the banshee would probably have better traction and do better in a drag race, The overall atttitude is that it will smoke a stock banshee.
Although we tried for a new stock banshee to ride against No one could be found. So this is a 2000 banshee and is in a mild state of tune(piped/ported) for around here. Most older ones here have wild modifications and are totally decked out.
So Im happy to say that the Raptor is probably the most powerful stock bike made. I feel it may produce a little more power once the engine is fully broken in.


also a side note:
either quads will smoke a new Arkansas State Police Car on a Gravel road. Dont reccomend it but we didnt get caught.

 

hehehe, state police.... should've had that on film...

Even if the engine doesn't loosen up more, I still think that a less restrictive pipe will give you that 2-5 mph needed. So how many quad lengths was he ahead the time he won and was it in about a 1,000 ft. distance?

Looking foward to more video on your site.

 

He never one in any considerable length of drag race of course on very topend he could catch up and slowly pull away. Those radails hook up. I could launch hard enough to jump way out and would cover him with rocks. But the banshee is still the king on the powerslide into donut action due to its low traction.
Yes I wish I would have had the camera out for that but we were away from home aways when that happened. It may be on film, our state police run the onboard cameras during chases(previous experience) and they love to have film to show the judge in court. But it was near dark and we spun around and launched. I bet after 5 seconds all he had was a dust cloud to chase.

But enough about that, kiddies may view that as something to try. I do believe you on the pipe thing, for an engine its size I would think it would need a little less restriction than what it has. Id like to also see a carb kit or atleast a pro-flo filter kit. I think any of these modifications would give enough boost to put it about even with a ported banshee. But as of now Im totally happy with it. No stocker comes close.

 

Good review, yamaraptor. Keep them coming!!! Inquiring minds want to know. (Hey, find a DS650 and report back!!!)

 

Yeah, DS650 next please.

What do you estimate the Raptor top speed to be? You ran out of G's and the banshee started to pull ahead?

 

Due to the mountainous terrain with tight wooded trails No one within 40 miles of here owns A ds that I know of. But if I find one when my Raptor is more broken in I will surely give it a try. If a stock banshee only does 71 then I expect I would do about 76 or 77mph. The difference of the banshee is that I seemingly ran out of acceleration and leveled off in speed, while the banshee probably did the same it is ported and runs probably near 11000rpm, thus pulling longer and further ahead over the last of the runs while I was still holding at top speed.

 

I pick mine up in a couple of hours (blue!) It's going to be a looooong hard afternoon, night, then tomorrow for me and the Raptor. I'll have it fairly broken in by the end of the weekend so I'll have to try out a top speed run on pavement. I have a GPS that I've found to be VERY accurate. It will record the highest speed reached for later review. I'll let you know what I find. I have on order a one tooth shorter front sprocket (for a YZ 250) that I hope works. If anyone can confirm or disafirm whether this sprocket will work I'd like to know. If it does work we'll find out next week sometime if and how much the top speed will be affected by the loss of a tooth.

 

That would be good info. Keep us posted!!!
BTW, I/ve clocked my Banshee between 72 & 77 MPH on top speed depending on wind and slight differences in grade on a paved road with my Garmin GPS III. It's stock with just reeds & K&N filter.

 

Hey, that's the exact GPS that I have! Nice unit, huh? I rode my Raptor for over 12 hours yesterday but I left my Garmin in my other car so I didn't get a figure yet. Will do today. My impressions thus far are that it runs about 75mph but it definately needs one less tooth on the front sprocket for my riding habits. I don't think that it's pulling all the way through 5th gear. It's as if it has a different rpm limit for 5th than 4th. It seems to have plenty of power but it just tapers off in 5th. I don't care if it slows down to 70mph with the new sprocket. It'll be worth it to me!

 

I was in several drag races this weekend with my buddy on his Raptor. We were in sand and we all had paddles on. He was right next to the stock Banshee everytime. He was beat everytime by a modified Banshee and a DS650. He beat me everytime on my piped 400ex. I am waiting on my Raptor to come in, however I really wanted to see him beat everyone. This guy has been riding for years so it wasn't the rider. It is a great bike, I just wish it was faster out of the hole.