I stand corrected, yagerzzz. Thanks, and my apologies to those I contradicted.

I also agree with something else yagerzzz said. I have always thought the early Quadsports and any year Quadracer rank as the best looking quads ever made. The Tecate 4 looked awesome too. The TRX250R, though it was a great machine, had a very generic and plain look to it as compared to its competitors. That's my opinion, of course. The original Quadsports just had that fun look of a machine that was willing to go anywhere and do anything you wanted to do.

 

They quit making them because they ran out of replacement bolts that either vibrated off, broke or sheared off....lol


Nocando

 

If that was so they should do the same with raptors cause eventually they will run out of replacement tranny's.... I was just riding with a guy who has a 2001 raptor at about 10 o'clock last night. His tranny locked up in the middle of nowhere and we could barely even push it cause its such a heavy load and the rear wheels would not budge. I helped him push a little but I mean the poor guy was probably in the woods till 2 am pushing that thing to where his truck was parked.... The big execs at yamaha should come help him push with their suits and ties on for ripping him and all those other yamaha owners off... at least he wasn't outrunning a cop when it happened!!!!!

 

Just so you know I had a Quadzilla for about 8 years there is a pic of it in my pictures. I like the quad but it vibrated allot and bolts would just break, At one point or another every motor mount bolt was replaced. I was not ragging on the Zilla just telling the truth. Never considered a different quad until the new performance quads started coming out.



Nocando

 

Suzuki stopped making the quadzilla over sales.Its the same reason you dont see hardly any kx500's,rm500's,or cr500's,and the same reason yamaha never made a yz500 after the 490 in the late eighties. i dont know about on a quad,but a 500 two wheeler unless your on a straight will slow you down.For most of us,the more power the better so quadzilla's are cool.But what mom or dad is going to buy thier son a 50 horse death machine.Im willing to bet i could run way better trail times on a lt250 than a lt500

 

I agree with Super. This is one of the most realistic replys I have read. 50+hp is fun, but at what cost. The majority of riders don't drag,dune or mx race, so the Zilla or even a Banshee doesn't have the appeal one of the four stroke sport quads have. Why ride a quad that handles like PRCA rodeo bull that you have to pre-mix gas, doesn't have a reverse and who wants to kick start? I love Zillas and Banshees,however,they are not for everyone,or should I say 90% of todays riders. I own a Banshee and have ridden several Zillas and I would still go with a YFZ if I had the $$$. Sure my Banshee will beat a YFZ in a drag race,but I promise you the YFZ is way more fun,reliable and handles better in most situations.I haven't rode a Honda 450r yet,so I can't comment on that,but I have read a few magazines that have compared the two and the YFZ is on top in almost any category. The big plus is the electric start on the YFZ (- points for no reverse). You can build a Banshee or Zilla to produce ungodly hp numbers, but is the power useable or just straight line speed. Can you putt putt around on it withought fouling plugs or spend less $3-4 dollars a gallon on gas and premix and have the same fun and reliability of a four stroke? No way! As soon as I can afford a YFZ my Banshees gone. Not to take anything away from the Banshee, but I just like the four stroke power and reliability.

 

The 87's had a three bolt head and blow the gaskets all the time. 88-90 have a 5 bolt head. But I do know that the lt's were made from high quality parts and based on the model changes made though the years, the decision was made in 89 to cease production. The 87 was the lasrgest production year. and Yes some prototypes were able of speeds of 110. no b/s. and just for you guys that haven't riden one agod tuned zilla can bring it up in 5th and you can get it on one will(personal exp.) also if you haven't noticed 2-strokes are becoming rare. emissions and people not wanting to mess with 2 stroke maintainance could be the big reasons. No asian company will ever make a big bore 2-stroke, but I have seen an a spot in the magazines about a euro 700cc 2 stoke called the "black widow'' don't know much about that but could be interesting.

 

Actually, the 87's have a 6 bolt head and the 88-90's have a 7 bolt head. I don't know any quad that has a 3 or 5 bolt head. This was a major change but there were several other changes, some small, some large that most people don't know about. I won't bore anyone with all of the changes I know about because a lot of them are pretty useless.

As far as the prototypes, I have a magazine from late '86 that talks about the prototype Zilla's before they were in production. There are some very unique characteristics about them, but it doesn't say anything about top speed. In the pics, it looks pretty much like a stock 87 except for a few notable exceptions.

1. The suspension springs were black instead of yellow.
2. There was no overflow resevoir for the radiator like all production zilla's have.
3. Unique rear hubs. The bolt pattern was the old 85-86 lt250 4 bolt pattern. The hubs can't be the same as the 85-86 lt250's because those were gold and had smaller splines than the zilla (the 250's didn't get the Zilla splines until about 1990). And most people know that the 250's got the same 5 bolt pattern as Zilla's starting in 87 when the zilla was first released. So there was never a 4 bolt large spline rear hub in production.
4. Unique rear wheels. Because of the rear hub bolt pattern, the wheels are also unique because the 85-86 lt250 4 bolt wheels where gold and weren't reverse rolled like the 87-93 250's or the lt500's. The 87-88 quadsport 230 and 89-90 quadsport 250's had aluminum colored wheels, but they were not reverse rolled plus they were only 9 inch wheels as opposed to 10 inches for the zilla's and 250 racers.

 

a dyno reading from the 80's and a dyno reading from today would be over a 20% decrease as the numbers are much more accurate and the technology is much more advanced. The problem with the QZ is a weak motor that had a poorly design. I too owned a zilla and it wasnt fast, nor anything id consider getting aggresive on.

Best looking quad imo of all time is the trx250r

 

Kind of new to the forums, but this is all great info.

I learned a lot in the past few minutes. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img] ...anyway all in all I wish I could get my grubby hands on a zilla one day.