this is getting interresting, I would like to see it on paper though in a shootout...

 

Hmmm.... no offense to anyone but I myself am starting to question the reliability of GPS. I dont know..... It seems like every one that has GPS is usually coming up with a little higher number. All I can say is that 80 or even anything over 70mph is dang fast on a quad. I dont have room to go top speed most of the time. I dont know about you guys. I would agree that the zilla is the fastest stock quad and I wouldnt doubt that it does over 75 but people give out so many different numbers and not all quads are tuned the same even stock. Elevation, temerature, tire size, sprokets, terrain, etc. all effect top performance. You can get any 400+ atv to nearly keep up close with any other 400+ size quad with equal riders in nearly every situation.

I think that after the 80's 2 strokes we started trading pure speed and power for more handling and suspension etc. (I would like to ride a 250R but I have not had the opportunity. I wouldnt doubt that they good handling, fast quads.) It seems now we are starting to come back to more power with the big bore 4 strokes. But how close is a 700 4 stroke raptor to an evil 500cc 2 stroke zilla? I havent ridden either so I dont know but it seems the zilla would have a slight advantage at least in overall stock HP.

If you think about it as a whole its not that important which atv has the highest top speed or is the fastest but it is an interesting question. It just depends on who you talk to and what atv they have. Whatever atv they have is usually the fastest.......

 

i have never had the privlige to ride a lt500 but i do have a lt250r. i know how much power my little 250 has and i couldent even imagine a two stroke engine with twice the ccs.i can keep up with a raptor so with the 500 it wouldent have any problem beating one.

 

OEM ATV Consent decree ruling back around late 80's limited quads to '75mph.' However, the wind, rider, conditions may have you going faster or slower.

I thought the story went like this....the 86 Quadzilla prototype reached 100 mph. The insurance companies weren't going to let a quad fly by at 100 just after banning trikes for being so dangerous. And restricted quads to a top speed of 80mph. The official speed of the 500 is 79.8 mph. They brought the speed down with a smaller carb and restrictive exhaust. I believe the speed limit established at that time still stands today.

 

im pretty sure my gps is accurate, it is consistant with my trucks speedometer, and this wasnt on flat dirt trail or nothing, this was on a hardpack gravel road, going downhill, that i was able to pull 79, but its weird, not that i ran the gps again, it says i can only do 77 or so at the rev limiter, maybe it was a freak occurance that it gliched.

 

I dont own a GPS device so I cant really say for sure but I just thhough it seemed like all the people claiming numbers with GPS seemed a little high. Not to say that your wrong or that I dont believe you, but still I dont think you can really be 100% sure with anything. You always risk being off 1-3 mph. Who knows... maybe they are that accurate.

Think about this though.... the gear that any atv will unrestrictedly go the fastest is neutral.......down a really steep hill......

 

storm- im not thinking we disagree here so im not sure why you quoted me...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-confused.gif[/img]

i said 79+ mph- ... I do know what you are saying about the ins companies but i think i remember that part of the consent decree mentioned it as well...there's like 5 parts to it that average 50/70 pages each. they are on the CPSC webstite. i'll dig through them to see what it says. (Interesting just reading some of their meeting notes: nearly all of the OEMs meet with them yearly and the CPSC wants a youth transitional model on the market to help keep kids' injuries down. subnamed Y-14 transitional model.)

bottomline is that quadzilla 500's are still the fastest production quad ever made. i know its not hard to get 100mph out of a quadzilla.

i wish i had one of them! one day i will...almost bought one from florida last summer but i decided against it. good thing too b/c when the hurricane happened, it kinda reset priorities a little.

 

Mine is for sale...wanna come up to Canada?

 

For those who want to read the '88 article on top speeds that twenty referred to, go to this thread and read my post:

http://forums.atvconnection.com/mess...TARTPAGE/3.cfm

I give a link to the article in it.

BTW, I have a stock '88 zilla that was clocked at 81 on flat pavement. Only thing that wasn't original when I did it were the rear tires which were very slightly taller than the stockers. Everything else was mint stock.

 

Guys its simple. What do they race agaist a 250cc 2 stroke in supercross. A 450cc 4 stroke. And Mcgrath, was pulling whole shots for a while. If it takes a 450cc 4 stroke to match a 250cc 2 stroke. Then it will take 900cc Raptor or whatever to hang with a LT500!