mbotticelli

I'm in the market for a new quad or side-by-side, my old Honda is just about through. She's really getting weak, and I need something with 4-wheel drive that I can pull a trailer with and plow snow with. I've had luck with Honda in the past, any suggestions?
Much Appreciated!

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Country Boy

I've always been a Polaris guy myself because I have a dealer 2 miles from my house. Had a Xpedition 425 for several years but sold it due to lack of time to drive it. I don't think you could go wrong with a Honda, judging by the abuse that my friend's took. He had to submerge the thing up to the handlebars in water and mud to finally kill it (hydrolocked the motor at WOT).

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'76 IH 1066 Turbo Diesel, '73 IH 766 Diesel, '72 IH 574 Utility Gas, '56 IH 350 Utility Gas, '46 Farmall H Gas, '08 Bobcat Toolcat 5600 Turbo

Nobody puts that "C" word in front of MY International!

tractor beam

Bet that was a specticle!

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For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
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And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. _______________________________________________ Some say I have a bad attitude...... "Screw them!"

Country Boy

Yeah, we had to pull it out with my 1066 because of how deep in the mud it was. We didn't use that trail anymore. It was the top of a hill here on the farm, and there is a bowl like depression right at the top of the hill. I've been told its probably a limestone cave that is filled in with mud. Anyway, its pretty wet up there in spring and he tried going through it with the throttle pegged. That was pretty much the end of it.

As I said before, he used to jump the big drainage ditch here on the farm, fly across the plowed fields, pull empty hay racks, and otherwise abuse the heck out of it, but it just kept going and going. Pretty sturdy machine. I don't remember what model he had, but it was about 15 years old by the time he killed it anyway, so they probably don't make that one anymore.

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'76 IH 1066 Turbo Diesel, '73 IH 766 Diesel, '72 IH 574 Utility Gas, '56 IH 350 Utility Gas, '46 Farmall H Gas, '08 Bobcat Toolcat 5600 Turbo

Nobody puts that "C" word in front of MY International!

mbotticelli

Thanks for the heads up! Is there any way to get more horsepower out of a stock quad? Has anyone ever converted one to diesel? I'd really like a quad with some guts, what size motor would you recommend? I was thinking that anything 400cc's and more will do just the trick for me!

Sounds like your buddy's quad really took a beating, I love Honda's quality machines and have always been dependable for me. I too have beat on my toys, especially as a young buck. I used to have an old 250r three wheeler, boy did that thing go like a bat outta hell! My old lady's uncle has a 250r quad sitting in his barn that I've been dying to buy off of him... He's kind of a pack rat so probably won't sell it, but damn is that a nice machine!

Country Boy

I'm sure you can tune a quad to get more power out of it, but I wouldn't really know where to start. Porting intake and exhaust, rejetting the carb, free flow exhaust, maybe? I think it would be pretty hard to convert one to diesel unless they made a model with a diesel engine you could use. Those engines are pretty much designed for the space available. My Xpedition 425 could pull empty chopper wagons and empty flat racks pretty well. I even pulled a load of straw bales across the yard once, but it struggled with that due to lack of traction. I'd say 4-500cc's would be great plenty for most uses of a quad, the 700-900cc models are getting insane with the power. They are almost getting into the realm of being too powerful for their size and you run into traction issues due to a lot of HP in a lightweight package. There is a reason why big tractors are so heavy, and that is so they can get good traction. For example, the 485hp Versatile tractor I rented for chisel plowing last fall had over 12,000lbs of weights added to it for extra traction.

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'76 IH 1066 Turbo Diesel, '73 IH 766 Diesel, '72 IH 574 Utility Gas, '56 IH 350 Utility Gas, '46 Farmall H Gas, '08 Bobcat Toolcat 5600 Turbo

Nobody puts that "C" word in front of MY International!