Alrighty, am calling Web tommorow to order my Cam and valve springs! So, this is my newest list of what I am doing:

HMF Sport Exhaust
FMF PowerBomb Header <<Aesthetics; got a heck of a deal, too.
K&N Airfilter with the box lid mod
WebCamshaft .430" lift
Stainless steel valve springs/retainers
14 tooth front sprocket

This has me at $490, plus the price of the WebCamshaft and the valve springs. What shall I do next? Go with a high compression piston, or lay the mulah down on the Edelbrock carb; or both?

This thing was topping out at 58mph all stock per GPS, and I am wondering what types of gains all this is going to net me; if I go with the carb and high comp piston, on top of the rest.

 

That list looks much better than before. You will be getting a lot more bang for your buck. I would say get the piston first because it will add a lot more torque and power than the carb will. Then later you could get the carb. I'm still running my stock carb with no problems. I'm OK with it because I don't know what I'm missing because I've never had an aftermarket carb, and I'm not spending any more money on performance on this Warrior. With those mods you could expect to run 65-67 mph and stay with modded 400EXs. FYI I raced a stock '08 Honda 450R yesterday and we were neck and neck through 4th gear then he pulled past me and beat me by about 4 bikes. I may have gotten beat but I was proud of my wimpy little 350.

 

What do you all recommend for a piston? Should I keep it stock and just go high compression, or get it bored over?

EDIT: I should probably mention, after all this, this quad is still going to have only set me back $2400, as I only paid $1400 for it, and it was in damn fine shape. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Do you think you will be able to install the high compression piston yourself? If you can, you might be able to swing both the piston and carb. With the piston, a Wiseco high compresion piston kit runs about $120, and a slightly better designed, lighter weight JE pistion kit runs around $150. Then figure about $50 for the shop to bore and hone the cylinder, and maybe 20 bucks or something for the gaskets. The edelbrock carb will only run you about $350-375, at least that's what mine cost brand new on ebay. That was over a year ago, by now they might be even less.

In my opinion, the carburetor was a much more worthwhile mod than the high compression piston. The piston came mostly because I needed a top end rebuild anyways. But that carb makes a night and day difference when it's tuned right, makes the ol warrior like a totally different machine. Instant throttle response, better top end power, and more torque throughout the powerband. Plus it'll make the rejetting process a lot quicker and stress-free.

Only thing I warn about the edelbrock is that it makes cold starting difficult, because for whatever reason edelbrock didn't incorporate a choke or enrichener system into the carb. It's still not that bad though, I managed to start mine in a 7 degree blizzard, after the machine had been sitting outside all night in the snowfall, and the throttle cable had frozen and the battery was barely working from the severe cold. We had a really cold riding trip last year at paragon, we made the choice to camp in my van for a night instead of getting a hotel room. Turned out to be the coldest night of the winter, and another 10 inches of snow had come down to add to the 4 inches that had came down that day. Sometime during the night the propane bottle actually froze and the heater quit working. I woke up the next morning shivering in my sleeping bag, laying next to a case of frozen beer, not good. But somehow, and i'm not sure how, the warrior still started with that frozen throttle cable and barely-functioning battery.

 

I would probably say get the high comp piston since you will have it apart already have it bored out the next size on the piston and go with a higher compression piston with new rings and that way you will have the top end rebuilt with nothing to worry about. I have a wiseco piston kit in my wolvy and its quite a bit bigger than stock but is a lot lighter as well and in my opinion made very well.

There are also some stock carbs that could be swapped onto a warrior I am sure to make it a little better, I am surprised that noone has mentioned one by now though, so maybe not.

 

I have been reading that boring it over really compromises the integrity of the cylinder head, and I do not want to do that. I am going to ride the hell out of this thing and need it to not overheat and crack a head. How much of a bore are those 366cc 10.5:1 JE pistons, and will they hold up well?

 

The 366 kit is 80 over which is punched almost to the max. It is very reliable and will hold up well. I have had two of these kits and as long as your jetting and everything else is right you should'nt have any problems. I never had any over heating issues either.

 

Would an oil cooler be a necessity, you think, or just a good idea, with all the extra juice I will be pumping from this motor?
Also, I can't seem to find any info on spark plugs and the like on this thing, and I know they call for the D8EA stock, but will it cause me any problems to go up the temp range to a D7EA?

 

Also, been looking around, and with that PowerBomb header, will my HMF slip right onto the end of that or will I need another piece of exhaust?

 

In my opinion, the 366 kits are just a joke. I'd take a smaller over bore any day. That .80 overbore means that you just took your sleeve to the max that it can go before it needs replaced. Which means 2 things. First you have more heat and less metal to dissipate it to. Second, when it's time for a rebuild again you need to resleeve your cylinder. All for no more than 1 horsepower. I don't even know how they get away with calling them a big bore kit, because that's not really what they are. To me a .80 overbore should just be the last resort to get one more use out of a sleeve before having to replace it.

The fmf powerbomb should just slip right onto the hmf like the stock exhaust did.

The oil cooler depends on what kind of riding you do and the climate you ride in. Most likely you can get away without it. I could ride all day without overheating without one, but I elected to get the oil cooler anyways. Aside from the obvious benefit of keeping the engine cooler, it also increases the amount of oil the machine holds, so you get even more additional cooling there, plus the oil lasts longer because there's more of it and there's less heat breaking it down. My biggest motivator though is that it helps stabilize the transmission. Before the oil cooler I had transmission troubles when it got hot. The clutch would get hot and drag, and I couldn't get it into neutral when I wanted to, the only time it seemed it would go into neutral was when I didn't want it to, shifting from 1st to 2nd. I also couldn't even get the thing out of reverse without shutting the engine off once the engine got heated up. The oil cooler helped a lot with this problem.

The more slow riding you do, the more likely it is that you will notice benefits from the cooler. Usually you won't have any kind of issues with keeping the engine cooled if you do mostly fast paced riding which gets a lot more air moving over the motor. Tight trail riding is what really heats these things up.