2005 Yamaha Raptor 660

[Blue_69_malibu]

Nice Job!!

I'm not sure if John's old trailer.....the one that I used to pick up that Matco box in Columbus.....had the same issue with the plate getting beat up.

My trailer plates all seem to pick up sea weed.

[GMJohnny]

Nice Job!!

I'm not sure if John's old trailer.....the one that I used to pick up that Matco box in Columbus.....had the same issue with the plate getting beat up.

My trailer plates all seem to pick up sea weed.

My trailer had the same license plate issue. My solution was to bend the plate length-wise
about two inches from the bottom of the plate to give clearance when it tilted. Mine had
no gate like this one does.

BP, The way you have your plate there’s no license plate light. Not sure if you care or not,
but a cop with nothing better to do with his time might give you a hard time. Also, for not
too much money, you might want to consider upgrading the tail lights to LED. The style you
have has a bulb in it and they quickly will lose ground and your lights will be out. I converted
mine to LED and never touched a light for over ten years. Not even a Matco box ( or two! )
could make them waiver. Just a thought.

GM

[Basement Paul]

These are already LED lights all the way around. They look old school but...

The license plate light I just gave up on. Even the small t-bracket for the license plate would get bent if it didn't have the plate on it. There's pretty much no way to use their design. So I mounted the plate nice and high so it can be seen, and if some d-bag would pull me over for it, I can at least explain the ridiculous design. But I expect to not have any issues with that.

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

Matco Box....OR TWO.....is absolutely correct, Sir GM Johnny!!

[GMJohnny]

Matco Box....OR TWO.....is absolutely correct, Sir GM Johnny!!

When it comes time to buy the third Matco box, you’ll have to reach
out to BP!

GM

[Basement Paul]

The Raptor got it's new wheel / tire combo installed yesterday. It's a much more streetable tire, really designed for hard packed dirt, but certified road worthy in Europe. They definitely transform the handling of this thing on dry pavement. It's like going from an 18:1 steering box to a 12:1. Turning is instantaneous now and does require a recalibration to ride. But doesn't take long.
The new front wheels and tires weigh exactly what the original set does. Each one weighs 15.6 lbs. So I don't see a whole lot of reason to be switching the fronts back and forth for different types of riding. The new rears are heavier vs the old rears. 21.5 lbs vs 19.2 lbs each. I will be running the stock rears in the dirt anyway, but swapping them is so easy and simple.
And it looks cooler IMO with the polished wheels and smooth tread pattern. I do plan to try to polish the factory wheels so when I swap them around, they will look pretty similar at least.

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

Looking REAL good!

[Basement Paul]

Lately any ride I took since I put the new tires/wheels on the thing has been pulling to the right pretty badly. I tried some eyeball tie rod adjustments to no avail, so I got out my trusty Factory Shop Manual and did the specified adjustments and the thing still pulled a lot to the right. Scratching my head, I decided to recheck tire pressures and the RR had less than 2psi in it where I normally have them around 12psi. Mystery solved... duh.

I ordered a state license plate for it. It's good for three years and although it doesn't really allow you to ride legally on the road, it shows that you're probably not a street thug doing something stupid, so for $35, I gave it a shot. But since there's no designed place to mount this, I had to improvise. I had to drill a couple different holes in the plate, and do a little griding too, but it seems to fit well under the taillight assembly.

I ordered a tach / hour meter a couple weeks back and was able to get that mounted this past week too. I like it most for service intervals, but I think it will be helpful launching at the dirt drags. It's not in a place that's conducive to using it as a shifting tool, although it will light up at a specified RPM so it could theoretically be used as a shift light. I could have tried mounting it on the handlebars, but it seemed pretty hokey, so I used the stick on velcro and stuck it just between the tank and seat. Seems to work well for the short amount of time I used it.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

Since trailer exists because of the quad, I'll post it here. I loaded it up with my old mower and fridge headed for Tony's place on Friday night. So far I'm super please with the functionality of this thing. I got a new mower and fridge so he's taking these as upgrades at the House of Bricks.

The mower is a Gravely ZT HD 44, also a size that will fit into the trailer if necessary. Got to cut with it yesterday too. Big adjustment from the old Troy Bilt as far as the drive goes.

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

The Groundskeeper at the House of Bricks is most pleased with the donation.....and thankful for it!!

That little trailer is SUPER cool and handy.

[Basement Paul]

Since my last outing at Dragway 42's dirt drags, I decided I could use more power (duh). The easiest way to make substantial gains on this is a full exhaust and some carb tuning. I was leaning towards and HMF full system and really liked the way they looked and sounded, and once I found out they're in the Cleveland area, it was a no brainer. I ordered up my system on Thursday and it arrived on Saturday afternoon with no special shipping, which was sweet. Along with my system I ordered a jet kit for the carbs too.

Sunday we had plans that took up most of the afternoon, and Monday turned out to be a beautiful day after the heat spell we had, so I checked with the boss, and he said I could work on the quad instead of work and that's what I did. All in I had just under five hours swapping out the exhaust and installing the jets which requires about half the bike to come apart. But since I had done this before, I wasn't too concerned. The exhaust went pretty quickly and fit really well. The carb jetting took a little more time, but HMF provides you with a rough idea of what jets to use based on your combination. Sadly, they recommend using two 155 jets based on what I have, but only include one size from 140-160.. As I learned though, the right carb does more work (because of two intake valves on that side of the carb and one on the other) so I fattened up the right to 160 and ran a 155 in the left. Running more fuel in the right side is pretty commonplace so I felt good about this move.

After reassembly, it fired up immediately and seemed to do everything like it did before, only a lot louder. Under normal cruising, it's not a ton louder, but when you whack the throttle, it will wake the neighbors now. I'm happy that under normal riding it seems to perform as good as stock, but at WOT it's making a LOT more power than before. Depending on what you read and who you believe, it could be up to 15hp more than stock and it only makes about 37hp in stock trim. Time will tell for sure, but I expect to be solidly in the 14's in the quarter and hopefully will touch the 8's in the eighth. Most important though, I would like to knock at least two tenths off my 200' time in the dirt. That will make me a lot more competitive there, and I think that's very realistic.

It does make a lot more heat than before on me, the rider, but that's the price you pay for more HP. That, and potentially going deaf. But a helmet will tone it down some.

-BP

[Blue_69_malibu]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t3m_Fl0rxU

Borat says......Very Nice!!!

[Basement Paul]

After Lake County's dirt race, I decided maybe finishing the 200' in the middle of 3rd gear isn't ideal, so I went about learning about gearing and changed the rear stock gear from 40 teeth to 43 for now. This required a new chainring and a new longer chain. I found a Renthal superlightweight aluminum sprocket that weighs just 5.4 oz... This seems silly, but it's at least half the weight of the stock one and since I'm upgrading to go faster... It really was not much more than a steel one anyway, pricewise. I switched from an o-ring to non-o-ring chain based on advise from Two-Stroke Tony.
The install wasn't terrible. But I got to learn about cutting chain to length as the new chain was way too long out of the box. I bought a tool to push the pins out but you still have to grind the ends of the pins for the tool to do anything. I also learned how to adjust the chain tension correctly. My neighbor gave me a bootlegged Yamaha service manual when I bought the Raptor from him and I use it all the time. I also had to remove the rear skid plate as the new sprocket was too big around and would not have fit otherwise. This will get me to remove the middle skid plate too as there won't be many scenarios where I will be skidding the underside of this thing on anything. Hey, a few pounds is a few pounds. I had several SUPER close races at Lake County, and a few pounds and a gear change would have put me on the winning end of the ones I lost.
I'm hoping to gain another tenth or so from the gear change. We'll find out in September. Seat of the pants tells me it's noticeably quicker, but my butt dyno has been wrong before.

-BP

[Basement Paul]

With the North vs South race coming up in a couple weeks, I wanted to be quicker again than I was the last time out. Weight, and especially rotating weight is an easy way to achieve this mission. I bought a one size smaller front tire, and a one inch narrower rim, that is already lighter than the stock ones, and then is CNC cut to take more weight out of it. Then, since the tread on the sides of the tire don't really do anything in my application, I borrowed Two-Stroke Tony's tire cutter and chopped all those off, but still leaving a little on there to not look too obvious. This has netted me 4.6lbs lighter per front wheel. So over 9lbs of rotating weight. I could have gone smaller and lighter, but it would have cut me out of at least one class I like to race, so this is where I landed. It definitely feels snappier on the street with this setup.
This will help it go quicker, but my racing advisory board tells me I need to be launching in 2nd gear and not 1st. 1st is too short, and since I changed the gearing, the 1-2 shift has become almost impossible to navigate under power. I think it just winds up too quickly now. I understand the how and why, now I just need to execute. This will be my focus at North South. I think it will knock another two tenths off my time and get me real close to the magic 4.0 second mark. We'll see how consistently I can launch this combo on a pro tree... I have tried it on the street several times, but won't really get any accurate feel until I'm on the dirt.
Otherwise the bike is basically ready to race.

-BP