[vman]

We live 3 miles out of town on a dirt road and do a fair amount of trails, dirt roads through the mountains, and along and through rocky river bottoms, I also do a lot of my riding on asphalt because ATV's are street legal here in Costa Rica, besides it is a lot more fun to take my mula as they are called here to town then my SUV. It is almost time for new rubber and I am looking at the Maxxis Buckshot 27x8.50x14 which is an SUV all-terrain tire with an aggressive tread pattern and I was wondering if any of you out there are running street tires and how well they are performing off road.

My 2012 600 has 9 1/2" of clearance so the 27" tires and the 2" lift that I just finished on the rear should be a huge improvement, the front will get completed in another few days. I was intending to go 3" but after reading some of the posts about this and some response to an earlier post of mine I decided to play it safe and stay at 2", between the 2" lift and the 27's I should have about 12" of clearance, I realize that 12" is a starting point for most of you but it should be at least a 25% increase for me. Not meaning to offend anyone because you guys gave me the idea to do this in the first place, but after looking at the bolt on lift kits and reading about adapting them to fit I felt like it was an erector set approach and decided to have new brackets made of heavier stock and to lengthen the bottom bracket 2" and leave the tops alone. I also decided because of the extra load caused by the additional height to lengthen one rear bracket on each side of my mula and weld it to the side of the lower arm as opposed to setting it on top of the lower arm and welding it in place, we also left the old brackets in place and welded the new ones to them for additional support...probably overkill on my part due to the fact that we still need to weld in a new mounting plate for the differential because the old one literally ripped from the frame. I can't wait to get everything completed and back on the dirt to see how it rides, also anxious to see if the new muffler I had fabricated makes my ride a bit quieter.

This is a tremendous site full of great information from the really deep tech stuff...not me, to the simple just plugging holes that NMK is constantly doing...that's me. I appreciate all of the effort and thought that goes into making these mods and repairs but even more so the effort it takes to make videos, take pictures, document everything and answer the same questions asked repeatedly by newbies like me. This site has inspired me to "Pimp My Ride" sorry I couldn't help saying it, but I do have a load of goodies coming in from the States to make riding more fun and it is due to all of you on this forum.

[chuddly]

I know a few guys out west that are in Utah that run light truck tires on their UTV and have no problems at all.  They do well in rock and on roads and such.  I dont think you will have a problem.  Only issue is that those tires are likely very heavy compared to UTV tires and they wont do as well in the mud but if you know that and can deal with it then you should be good to go.  Also you dont need the 2" lift to clear those tires.  If you just WANT the lift then thats fine.  But its not required to clear them.

[REDRIDER]

It looks like you are going to get a lot more than 2 inches of lift with those brackets, I got more than 2 and mine are about half the height of the brackets you have there. I would put a few sets of holes in those brackets so you can easily adjust your height, I was going to do that on mine as well.

[vman]

I was concerned about the weight of the street tires as well but from what I have found on line both the Maxxis and the 26x11x14 Abuzz weigh in at 27lbs. We have a lot of muddy roads and trails but not the deep stuff that you can get stuck in, I try to avoid that kind of challenge anyway, I was more concerned about the loss of overall traction due to the Maxxis having a cross section 2" less than the Abuzz.  On the plus side, for my type of riding I think the narrower tire with less floatation and additional height, along with the 2" lift will be a big help when I am crossing rivers which I do a lot, I have actually got in water a little too deep a few times and started to float down river and I think this was due to the large amount of floatation that the Abuzz tires have, the added height also helps me climbing over rocks and will also keep me from dragging on my trailer when going up and down the ramps.

[vman]

Redrider, I think my brackets look much higher than they are because they pass to the bottom of the arm rather than sitting on top of it, the shock mounting hole is exactly 2" higher than the factory brackets and I did not modify the top brackets. If the shocks were perfectly verticle I would expect a 2" lift, but with the shocks being mounted less than verticle I would expect a bit less than a 2" lift, in addition, raising the mounting point causes the shock to be more inclined towards horizontal forcing them to compress some reducing the lift as well, conversely if I had moved the brackets inboard from the original points causing the shocks to be more upright I could see where the lift could be more than 2". All of this is only my opinion and you have actual experience with doing this modification, I have read a lot of your posts and respect your experience and opinion so please explain what I am missing and why I am going to get more than a 2" lift because the last thing I need to do is break something. I was actually planning on 3" of lift but reading your concerns about this on another post I decided to reduce it to 2". I didn't add additional holes because I thought I wouldn't need them, but I can easily do that if I need to.

[REDRIDER]

I really don't know why it happened with mine, I did not bring the shock in any closer to the body and kept the same geometry and the mount is set up pretty much the same way your is except you went to the bottom of the A-arm, my rear brackets are much shorter and when I put the lift on I ended up with about 3 inches of lift, I lowered it down by unloading my preload all the way.  I am going to add holes so I can put the shock in a lower hole and increase my preload if I am going to do faster trail riding. I am not a suspension guru and what you are saying makes perfect logical sense. Just check it out when you get it back together, I have a feeling it will be higher than 2 inches. But that is not a bad thing, you can do what I am doing and add different holes so you can adjust to how you are riding, raise up and soften suspension for rock riding or lower and stiffen for trail/racing around.

[vman]

Thanks, I will let you know how it all turns out. This mod was super simple and looks factory but you need to be a welder or have access to one.

[REDRIDER]

As far as your tires go this would be my input. Just about any truck tire is going to give a little less traction than the abuzz tires in dirt or sand, the Abuzz are super luggy. The truck tire you are looking at looks like it will give better traction on pavement and rocks, The more space between tire lugs generally will give you more traction in softer situations and less traction on hard surfaces. for hard surfaces like rock and pavement tighter pattern helps due to more rubber meeting the surface. More space between the lugs is great for soft surfaces as it allows the lug to actually dig into the surface and act as a claw while the tire spins. After changing to 29inch tires and reclutching the weight new tires being about 10lbs more than stock for each tire I found it really didn't hinder it at all. from all stock to changing tire size and reclutching I have more acceleration now. I did keep in mind tire weight when I decided to go with Dirt commanders they are 8 ply and were not a HUGE weight jump for the size tire. Seems like you do a lot of hard pack pavement and rock riding so the tighter lug pattern will likely help you and the tire will last longer. Plus it is probably not a 2 ply tire, within 100 miles I put two chunks in the sidewall of my Abuzz, they had to go.

[Cosmosdan]

I think after you have it all together and there is still a little play in the cv shaft, you will be good to go. I think the street tires will last alot longer if your on tar alot. The laws are changing by where I live. I am seeing more UTV's on the street and most have gone to a tire your are looking at. Maybe not as big. Off road tires just don't last very long on tar. The abuzz tires are ok for trail riding. I wish they would have put on the Ancla ones they use on some other cfmotos. I put a set on my outlander and was pretty happy with them. I think how they mounted that rear diff sucks. I was pretty mad when mine broke loose. Weld in a thicker plate, drill some new holes, and you should be fine. Make sure they didn't put too long of a bolt coming up through the bottom. It will bottom out and not tighten like it should.

[vman]

I went trough 2 sets of Abbuz quickly and I am sure it was due to my riding on asphalt, in addition, on the asphalt they  seemed noisy, rode rough, and traction is terrible, a few times I started to get sideways when going down hill on our windy mountain roads and I assume that the traction issue is due to the minimal contact with the road caused by the spacing between the lugs. I am not finding fault with Abuzz tires, they were not meant to be ridden on asphalt roadways, but now that it is time to change them I figured I would try a set of LT  tires to see if I can improve the ride on asphalt without giving up to much when running off road, I am also hoping that the LT tires will throw up a lot less mud and dust, I love running into town in my mula to do errands or grab  something to eat and it would be nice to get there without being completely covered with road dust.

So I am not the only one to rip their differential mount riip out, it kind of sucks. Easy enough to fix but annoying that the metal in that high-stress area was so thin, what do you think caused it to fail. There is a silver lining in this for me in that while I was trying to locate U-joints and find some info about this problem I stumbled across this forum and read about the different lift kits available and I decided while the whole back end was out and we were waiting for the U-joints to arrive from the States that it was the perfect time to add some lift to my machine.

[Cosmosdan]

I think it is thin too. The flex up and down did it in. Like taking off a can tab. bend it enough and it will break. How does your rear prop shaft look. mine is sloppy at the joint and the u joints are getting bad too. the noise drives me nuts.

[vman]

I thought it was the constant flexing caused by the suspension pounding up and down also, my mechanic thinks it was my bad U- joints that caused it, his theory is that the bad joints caused the shaft to oscillate as it rotated causing the plate to flex up and down which eventually fatigued the metal, were your U-joints bad when yours ripped out? My shaft looks fine.

[Cosmosdan]

He might be right, but it was too thin. I broke a bolt on mine. one that holds the front bracket from below. i might have made a backing plate for mine, but can't remember. It was trip #3 that I came home with something wrong so I was wrenching angry and don't remember it all. I do remember wanting to set it on fire. My joints are bad right now. I think they were bad new. It has made the noise the day I took it home. It still drives OK so I'm putting off doing anything about it.

[vman]

Whatever caused the repeated flexing you are right the metal plate is too thin, my bolts were still attached to the differential along with a 4" piece on the mounting plate when we pulled it out. I would've been twisted if I had bought a brand new ride and it happened to me. I knew nothing about ATV's or UTV' and was leaving a restaurant in the city one afternoon and drove past this thing sitting in the middle of a plaza parking lot with a for sale sign on it, I slammed on the brakes, backed up, got out and walked around it and then walked into the dealership and bought it. It was a used model that was his demo, I being naive thought wow all shiny and clean, dealer maintained, it's a demo so all the kinks were already taken care of, andon top of all that it was only driven around the parking lot or down the side road for a 5-minute blast, after all, what else could he do to demo it in the middle of the city, boy was I wrong, I found out a few months later that he sponsored and ran all types of off road events and tours throughout Costa Rica and had run this thing hard, all that being said I have only had a few minor problems with it until now, a few sensors and a cooling fan over 3 years... not bad.  I run it fairly easy off road, but I do enjoy flying down dirt roads over the potholes every now and then while everyone in their jacked up trucks and SUV's are slowly crawling around and through them to keep from jarring their teeth out, so I don't know if he started the damage 3 years ago and I finished it, or if it was due to fail no matter what because of the plate being so thin.

I think I have read the majority of posts on this forum and have not seen another post in regards to this problem. Yous and mine are earlier models and maybe the factory has beefed these plates up on the newer ones, regardless I think it would be wise for the other members to get underneath their machines and check their mounting plates for stress cracks, I think if they found any they could weld or bolt a backing plate the same size as the original from underneath and avoid  removing the entire rear suspension to get at it from above, I had to remove the differential on mine to replace the U-joints anyway so we installed the new plate on top of the old one.

[Cosmosdan]

They no longer make the Z6. The Z8 and newer Z5 both have a different frame and the diff is mounted like it should be between the A arms. I have had mine for a few years now. I would have sold it already if my little girl didn't like it so much. She is getting bigger now so I will be looking to Get a new Outlander Max to replace it this fall. I don't regret buying it. I had my back fused not long after buying it and having it kept me riding while I got better.