Project Machines

-- Dirt Wheels reader builds a National level ATV MX race machine -- Hi Dirt Wheels, my name is Mack McDermott from Rhode Island. This is my 2009 Kawasaki KFX450R. Bought it a little over a year ago in bone stock form and after riding a track a few times I decided to get full blown into racing and build my KFX450 to as close to a national level build as I could. I Teamed up with Tranghese Motorsports out of Springfield, Massachusetts to help me build it and race in the NEATVMX series. Photos by Mike Fig Photography…

-- Part Honda, part Suzuki -- Dirt Wheels magazine has the best readers. They have the most passion for ATVs and UTVs. This is proven by the machines they build. Take for example this quad here owned by Donald Lovell. We'll let him tell you about it... Hey Dirt Wheels, Here is the quad I built. It is a 2007 Suzuki LT-R450, but I took out the engine and put in a built  engine from a  2005 Honda CRF450. ENGINE SPECS: '05 CRF 450, Hot Rod 3mm stroker crank, Mayhem ported head, +2+1 Kibble white valves, DCR cam,  …

-- Drifting from the dirt onto the pavement --     Jeremy Othelet is a Dirt Wheels reader who lives in Margut, France. In his country ATVs can be made street legal with the proper equipment. As you can see here Jeremy has turn signals, mirrors and a license plate on his quad.     His Yamaha Raptor 700 is a good quad to make street legal, because it has enough power to cruise along at speeds above 70 mph. To improve the power Jeremy added a performance exhaust and intake system, fuel controller and hotter cam shaft.…

-- How to get a brand new Honda TRX250R -- Dirt Wheels reader Frank Raneiro is in the process of building an awesome 250R. We're going to let him tell you how he's doing it and what all is involved. Check it out... > Hey there Dirt Wheels. Just wanted to share with you The MX build I’m doing. It’s a completely brand new TRX250R Build. All parts are new or new old stock. Nothing on this bike is used. Took me 4 years to acquire all the new parts. Here’s a few Pics of the Current State. Will be finished within the…

Hunter Lovelace hails from Muskoka Canada and likes to build brilliant old school custom ATVs. He took one of his old prized machines, a 1988 Yamaha Blaster, and decided to rebuild it better than before for his younger brother. A lot of the parts that Hunter installed are near impossible to find these days and give it a custom look and feel from the 90's! The mods include: Motor: Duncan / Paul Turner ported, decked and polished motor, 175 PSI compression running on VP C12, Pyramid reed valve, factory 7 air box,…

-- Sara Price's King of Hammers UTV -- By the staff of Dirt Wheels Sara Price is one of the most driven, capable and impressive ladies we know in the off-road industry. We have featured her racing machines and adventures throughout our magazine, social media and web presence. Sara and her remarkable co-pilot, Erika Sacks, have raced in Africa, competed in high-horsepower Baja trucks, and continue to battle for top finish at the infamous annual King of the Hammers UTV race. Last year’s KOH was tough, and this…

-- A wild old-timer custom build -- By Casey Kramer Most of the builds we feature in Dirt Wheels magazine are all about the bling and the speed. This diamond-in the-rough XP 1000, on the other hand, was chosen because it caught our attention with its unique design and purpose. Being a mechanical engineer by trade, project owner Jonathan wanted something with style that would withstand his “work hard, play harder” mentality. The inspiration for the “Old-Timer” originally came from a love of classic ’30s-era trucks…

-- Looking back at Trinity Racing's Banshee build of 2003 -- The 535cc Cheetah cylinders were the popular choice for Banshee builders back then and Trinity started with that for this project Yamaha we featured in our May 2003 issue.  With a bore and stroke of 72mm x 64mm and 26 ports this twin cylinder two-stroke cranked out 138.7 hp on the dyno.  We have a reprint of that original article you can read below. . .

-- CT Racing  builds a "Best In The Desert" winner --  By the staff of Dirt Wheels CT Racing has been a dominant force in off-road endurance racing since the 1990s, winning three SCORE off-road championships and 11 Best in the Desert (BITD) championships. Seven of those BITD championships were in a row! For two years, CT quads placed first, second and third in the championship. All of the BITD titles have been won on Hondas—a TRX250R, TRX450R and a hand-built XR650-powered Laeger quad. Eight championships,…

-- 2019 Honda Talon gets ready for the mud -- Down in Louisiana there's a good deal of mud that you may come across while riding off-road.  4x4 quads with big mud tires are quite popular in the bayous and the same is true with UTVs as well. Honda of Covington is located across Lake Ponchatrain from New Orleans and they've had plenty of experience setting up ATVs and UTVs for trail riding in marshlands. The new Honda Talon wasn't at their shop for long before it began getting accessorized for the mud. This 1000R…

-- Hey wait, that's a 4-cylinder engine! -- Upon further review that's not a single cylinder engine. It's got 4 exhaust pipes and 4 intake tracks, so there's no way it can be a YFZ450 engine. Maybe we should read what James Masephol said about his quad in his Email to us. Well, it did indeed start out as a 2005 Yamaha YFZ450. However he took the engine out and installed the engine from a Yamaha R1 street bike. Those 1000cc 4-cylinder engines make about 180 horsepower stock, and James figures his gets more like 200 with the…

-- SUZUKI'S 500cc MONSTER 2-STROKE QUAD -- Suzuki gets credit for coming out with the first quads as we know them today. First they introduced some little 4-stroke versions and then in 1985 they unleashed a high-performance 2-stroke machine known as the Quadracer 250. Suzuki gave us a couple of years to get used to that great machine and then in 1987 they totally blew us away with a 500cc version. Its official name was the LT500R Quadracer, but it was such a beast that everyone began calling it Quadzilla. You had to be a…