Making the YFZ450 ATV REALLY race ready - Part II - - ATV at Off-Road.com
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Making the YFZ450 ATV REALLY race ready - Part II
Publish date: Jun 1, 2004
By:  Justin Waters
Source: ATV at Off-Road.com
Every now and then at the motocross track you will see a guy with paper plates to his bumper and a number put on with electrical tape. We'll admit - even some of us here at Off-Road.com have been seen sporting those awesome numbers. Not only does it not look very professional, but it makes it really hard for the officials to read your number for scoring.
 To get our YFZ450 ready to race, we put on white GYTR number backgrounds. Standard rectangular or square number plates or backing stickers will work, but these give your YFZ a little better look because they are shaped to fit the curves of the plastic on the fenders and nose. We decided to go with white, the standard Expert Class requirement. You can get them also in black or blue if your class specs call for that. All you have to do is clean your fenders, slap on the backgrounds, put on your decided numbers, and you're ready to go. Cost - $27 from GYTR The next step to getting your YFZ ready is to install a kill switch. Almost every motocross track now will require you to run a kill switch. Not only is it usually required, it is a very good idea to have one no matter where you are riding. It's a danger to have your bike going all over the place on the track if you make an unplanned exit and your engine is still running. It could run over something and damage the quad, or even worse, hit someone else. The only hard part about installing a kill switch is that you have to cut into the factory wiring harness. So that we didn't having to go through this hassle of cutting into our brand new wiring harness, we bought a Baldwin Motorsports kill switch kit. This kit allows you to plug into the harness instead of cutting into. After installing that we went ahead and installed our Pro Design Kill Switch.$25 for switch kit from Baldwin Motorsports
$35 for kill switch from Pro Design
Simple components from Baldwin...
allow you to plug into the harnesss.
Nerf bars are another often-required thing at the motocross track. In our previous article we said a little about why you might not always want nerfs, but we didn't really get into why they are a must-have at times. The main reason for them is so your foot doesn't come off the peg and get caught in the rear tire. This can turn out nasty (sadly, I know from experience) - first it pulls you off the quad, then it proceeds to run your leg over and most-likely more of you. At best you'll come out with a bad bruise. Worse case - let your imagination go. Also, while battling for a position you don't want to have another rider's tire come in to your feet! Nerfs will stop them from coming quite as close. We installed GYTR nerfs on our YFZ. I had three main problems during installation - first, no fault of the product, was since the left peg was slightly bent (it had previously hit a rock), I had to pry it back into place for the nerfs to bolt into the peg. Next, since I still had the stock skid plate on because I do more than motocross, the side straps of the nets had to go over the fins of the skid plate. However, this bends it out of shape. This can be fixed by taking the skid plate off, since you probably won't want to run your skid plate in a motocross race. Finally, the side straps don't go quite straight across. If you try and go straight across, you hit the frame supports. We just had to get it as close as we could and go with that.$220 at your local Yamaha Dealer
Before - without Nerfs
After - with nerfs and webbing
The next must-have to be competitive on the track is motocross tires. Motocross tires will lower your center of gravity, and make your cornering easier and faster. We chose 18 inch tires in the rear and 20 inch tires in the front. There are many types of tires and wheels out there right now. For competition, the two most-recognized names are Kenda and Maxxis. For our MX application, we decided to go with Kenda Klaws and Douglas Ultimate Conventional Beadlock Wheels. Most serious ATV racers, motocross or not, run beadlocks. In a motocross race you can't stop and change a tire, so if you get a flat somehow you have to be able to finish and not have the tire come off the rim. Bead locks will stop this from happening. $150 for four Kenda tires from Rocky Mountain ATV
$530 four Douglas Beadlock wheels from Rocky Mountain ATV
Bead locks aren't cheap, but they aren't real difficult to mount yourself and can save you costly flats on race day.
Kenda Klaws LOVE MX dirt.
With these simple upgrades in place, we recently took the YFZ to the Quad Squad-sponsored race in Richland Washington, taking second place Expert and third place overall. Not bad... Now that you have all of the bare minimum upgrades you need to be competitive at your local track, it's going to take a little more work to keep up with the top Experts or Pros. Watch for upcoming articles on what are doing next to make the YFZ even better.
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About the Author

Justin Waters

Contributing Author, Test Rider

A young gun from way back, Justin began racing ATVs and writing his impressions for Off-Road.com at 12 years old. Now an experienced hand with a wrench or a computer keyboard, he's a key contributor to several sections of Off-Road.com. His current 4x4 series includes Project "Off Road Toyota." Articles by Justin Waters

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Source: ATV at Off-Road.com, 6/1/2004
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