You'll be much happier with a Raptor over a Banshee. The Raptor has a much broader powerband and out of the box bone stock vs bone stock Raptor is faster. Banshee is great if you want an all out drag machine. For MX Raptor or Shee isn't the greatest.. you'll have to spend some bucks to make em MX worthy. Trail riding the Rapter is superior over the shee.

 

I love my 02 when it's running but have had a laundry list of problems with it. The real problem I have is that when I look for a big bore sport replacement, the rappy is still the one I would choose, especially with the fuel injection. Here are the unacceptable failures on my raptor: tranny, main and rear frame cracks/failures which sheared my exhaust in the process, one way bearing, rear axle bearing and carrier failure, and probably some other s&%$#@ I am blocking out. I am not a guy who gets alot of seat time and yes, I do regular maintenance, myself and in a shop.

I widened out the raptor +2 like you said you wanted to and had 1/3 of an axle and wheel pass me up on the trail as I dragged a skid plate on the ground a couple of weeks ago. I bought a durablue eliminator axle, you are officially warned on that purchase.

It is great when it runs but is expensive to maintain with big ticket item failures, jmo.

I was excited to see honda come out with the 700 but after reading the specs on it, it sure did not impress me. Waiting for some write ups on it in a few months. Good luck, you will have fun on the rappy but have a few bucks in fun money tucked away for repairs.

 

Hey man, just get a Raptor 660R. I hade a KFX 400 that had a few bolt on parts and it was quick. A friend had a Banshees that he let me ride and i did not like it. My 400 had more ***** than his banshees. Buy a Raptor. It has plenty of torque and horse power. My black 660R will put about 6 bike lenghs on a TRX 450 from a 2nd gear roll. When I go to 3rd gear I just wave by. Its bad because I like honda. I have a cr250r 2 stroke. The big bike companies spent a lot of money when they re-designed the 4 strokes.