Me and my brother-in-law were at Little Sahara this past weekend with our new raptors. We took a trip to big sand mountain and met a guy with a raptor. He had a White Bros. R4 pipe, he had jetted it and cut out some of the plastic on the underside of the airbox lid and he had changed to a 12 tooth front sprocket and a 44 tooth rear sprocket. A guy on a DS650 asked him to race up big sand mountain. The DS was ported, geared, had a full exaust and a cam. (Both machines had strait paddles and both riders looked about the same size.) They started about 30 yards from the base. The raptor beat him off the line pretty bad but when he changed to 2nd he started to wheelie. The DS then got ahead by about ten feet because the raptor had to let up to put the front end down. I thought the DS was going to win for sure but the raptor caught up and won by about 4 bike lengths. The raptor is the fastest, best handling bike I have ever ridden.(I used to have a 400ex. Sold it to get a raptor.) It seems that there are some major restrictions built into it and with a few low cost mods it could beat just about anything out there.

 

Did he tell you what he had to change the jetting to? Sounds like he could go back to the stock gearing with those mods. That's what I'm hopping for once I decide what pipe to get.

 

I'll be going to the other Little Sahara in Oklahoma this weekend and hope to race some Raptors.

Sounds like the DS had changed to taller gearing which could slow him down on a hill climb. The Raptor having a 12 tooth front AND a 44 tooth rear was geared for high acceleration but no topend speed.

 

The guy on the raptor told me that he was running rich until he cut out the underside of the airbox lid and got the pipe. After that he was actually running lean so he had to jet up two positions. As far as gearing goes, the raptor was geared VERY short but he had raced the DS earlier in the day(I wasn't there for this one) and won easily so the DS changed his gearing and his tires for the second race, which is the one I saw. So I would think if the guy on the DS would have had a problem with gearing he would have corrected it after the first race. I wanted to talk to him after but he didn't stop. I don't think he was very happy.

 

Scooby go do the DS guys proud and do what the other guys on them are doing to the raptors...beating them! Especially this yo-yo! Oh and how many DS's are "ported with cams" out there....next to Zero! Let alone getting beat by a raptor thats next to stock...good one!

 

I have no reason to lie RaptorMasher. If the DS would have beaten the raptor I would have written about it. What I wrote is what I saw. And as far as the mods go, that is what the rider on the DS told me himself. I don't have all of the details because he didn't stay to talk. Why is it so hard to imagine that someone would do that to his quad. I read about it in these forums all the time. If he would have won would it have been a big deal? No, because that is what you and I would have expected. I don't see why you are getting so defensive. I think the DS is a great machine, I am not bashing it. It may have been rider skill or the line that each rider chose that made the difference.

 

This is actually one of the first race results, where the Raptor owner actually had figured out the restrictions, and gearing. The owners of Raptors need some time to correct restrictions, figure out gearing, get some air in ---all this.

Pre knowledge rides, of course werent going to result in peak performance of the Raptor. This particular rider obviously knows his machine, and has the air, gears, tires that he needs. Bravo for reporting this race to us.

I said this back in Sept. Just wait till the Raptor owners get the things figured out....then race. Obviously to beat a Modded DS is quite an accomplishment - and obviously can be done very cheaply. Thanks for the info !! I enjoyed.

 

DS sucks! to heavy!

 

Okay okay, it may be true , but where can you just buy a cam and get your machine ported? If you can just buy cam's withouth buying a STAGE kit, then i want to know where i can get one. The stock ds is suppose to beat a raptor in a sand drag race, i'v read it in dirtwheels. Though it may be on a hill, the stock ds looked to be about 1-2 bike lengths behind in the m agazine, and a pipe itself would give 1-2 bike lengts faster, but porting, and cam would give alot more then that, so i dont know if this situation was the machine being to slow, or the RIDER not knowing hot to shift at the right point

 

I don't know where the rider on the DS got his mods done. Like I said he didn't stay to talk. I am going out there again this weekend and I will see if I can find him and I will ask. But in fairness to all you DS owners out there, both my brother-in-law and I raced the owner of the modified raptor up big sand mountain and we got beat badly. He had time to turn around at the top and watch us come up. So that DS would eat stock raptors for lunch. I'm sure in a strait line drag race the DS would have eventually caught up and won because the raptor was geared so low. My original post was not intended to bash the DS, I was just reporting that the raptor has a lot of potential to be a sweet sand machine with the proper mods.