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bradley300
03-28-2005, 09:16 AM
Belly skid in depth-By bradley300, prices from www.prm-atv.com
this is the first in the next part of the Blaster project. Along with a small review within the articles and race coverage, i will also be going farther in depth with a few products in seperate articles.
The first products will be the PRM belly skid plate on our project. All of my reveiws will be on projects made for the blaster, but all the products I review "in depth" will be for most sport class quads (not anything that is specific to one model) all though set up may vary between different models.

One of the first mods any good XC racing machine should have is skid plates. Most quads come with cheap belly skids and sometimes no belly skid at all. Everyone knows after the first weekend of trail riding or racing, the stock skids are probably junk. Even if they are'nt, everyone would be wishing they had more protection. So after that first weekend I did my research for a good belly skid. I also wanted a grab bar (thanks to a 400ex that followed to close up a hill:mad: ) swingarm skid and bumper, but those will come later.

I have always like related parts to be the same brand when its possiblle. Dont know why, its just a thing of mine. Anyway, as i got to looking at different threads on this board, it seems that there are two companies that everyone seems to be in agreement with for xc racing. These are PRM and Pro Armor. So off to thier respective websites I went. After looking on Pro Armor's website, i found that they have sold all of there Yamaha parts to Yamaha directly and are now being sold under the GYT-R name. So off to yamaha's web site where they have an assortment of GYT-R parts for a Blaster. I personaly just didnt like the way the small stock style grab bar looked. There isnt a very good descrition of anything on the site and some of it seems kind of pricey (like the GYT-R bumper for 126 bucks). Having used PRM in the past, it didnt take long on the yamaha site to make my choice.

bradley300
03-28-2005, 11:46 AM
Looking on PRM's website showed me a wide variety of options for the Blaster (as well as most every quad ever made). They have two belly skids in different thicknesses, three swing arm skids, and numerous bumpers, grab bars and even a-arms skids.
All we nee today is the belly skid, but they have everything i want, so PRM is who we are going with. There are two options, a .125 inch thick and a .190. Both are made from 6061 aluminum as are all PRM products.
The .125 is a thin skid. For a light weekend trail rider it should do alright. Also, a mx'er looking for protection with out the weight would really like this skid.It retails for 99.95 and as of this article they are in stock and ready to ship from PRM. For a full time xc racer that is known for being hard on his stuff, i just dont think the .125 thick skid will cut it for long. So I opted for the big beefy .190 thickness. Also in stock as of this article.
This is quite a bit thicker than the .125 skid and should hold up alot better. Retail for the .190 skid is 119.95. Its not cheap, but neither is replacing a sidecase after a rock sqeezes its way thru the frame and into your motor.
Both skids come with all mounting componets as well as new bolts and nylock nuts. Mounting is pretty easy, the best way to do it is to put the quad up on its grab bar, but you will need a c-clamp or a friend to help hold the skid in place. The mounting brackets mount on top of the frame and the frame is sandwiched between the plate and brackets,holding it all together. the mounting brackets are not labeled, so you'll have to play with them and find out what goes where. All in all, its a easy job, and anybody should be able to do it in less than half an hour.

bradley300
03-28-2005, 12:05 PM
Riding with this skid plate gives me more confidence, no more trying to go around rocks and other obstacles. Now I just go over them since I can hit them without having to worry. A added feature is that during a muddy race, the skid help glide down hills with huge ruts that I couldnt with no skid when it was stock. Stock, if i tried to slide down a hill, i would high center on the rut and stop moving usually because of a root or rock. With the new skid, i can high center on pupose and slide right down without having to rock back and forth or get off to push.
I have had this same skid since the Georgia gncc in 2004, and at the end of the Georgia gncc this year, you couldnt tell I had been running the same skid for more than a few months. This is one of the best skidplates on the market. A little expensive but worth every penny. So get ahold of PRM directly at www.prm-atv.com or call our site sponsor C And D racing for your membership discount.