05 yfz 450 hard to steer in the woods

[Dustin_Drews]

Hello, I am kinda new to the board I read a lot on here but do not post much... Here I go!
I have a 05 yfz with Houser woods standard travel a arms.
The shocks I have are stock but have been revalved with race tech shims and springs. The springs are there race height series both front and rear.
It does have a roll design extended steering stem.
The rims offset so the plane of the upper and lower ball joints go into the center of the tire patch.
Tires up front are 22 7s xcrs and the rears are 21 xcts.

The problem is the handle bars are hard to turn while riding in tight woods. The quad handles great it is just really hard to turn? the bars.
If any more info is required let me know!
God Bless,
Merry Christmas
Dustin Drews

[jacobw]

did you check with it on a stand to see if you had any binding also is this during full compression of the shocks its hard to turn or extention and are you sure the tie rods are mounted on the right side of the spindle??

[Dustin_Drews]

It is not binding on the stand.
The tie rods are on the correct side of the spindle.
I would say it is all the way threw the shock travel cycle.
Sitting still it turns pretty easy! Its while i am in motion at slower speeds?
Does any one make a different steering stem for the houser arms that provide more leverage?
God Bless,
Dustin

[TNT]

Originally posted by Dustin_Drews
It is not binding on the stand.
The tie rods are on the correct side of the spindle.
I would say it is all the way threw the shock travel cycle.
Sitting still it turns pretty easy! Its while i am in motion at slower speeds?
Does any one make a different steering stem for the houser arms that provide more leverage?
God Bless,
Dustin

If you picture a T or actually better yet an I where the top horizontal of the I is the bars, the vertical is the stem, and the bottom horizontal is the arms. The shorter the arms the less force on the bars you got and the longer the bars the more force you can react, the longer stem will make a little harder to steer but more comfortabe for tall riders, only +1" is probably not that noticable. Make sense?

What caster, camber, toe and tire pressure are you runnning? Are you sure there is no binding or play anywhere like in your arm bearings, ball joints, etc...sometimes play can cause binding not noticed on the stand.

[Scro]

Positive caster (top a-arm toward the rear) causes the front end to want to keep "tracking" straight, or tight steering in the woods. Negative camber (top a-arm toward the front) causes the steering to be more responsive and "twitchy" at high speeds. If the arms are caster adjustable, I would try different caster settings to meet your needs.

[Dustin_Drews]

My Caster is positive I am not sure what it is but it is right on the edge of being to twitchy at high speeds. So I think the caster is pretty close. I used the setting on the little lock who dinky they recommend. It is so posed to be in the neighborhood of 6 degrees positive caster. But I have not measured it....
I set my toe differently then most the way most people do from reading this forum. I lock the handle bars to the strait a head position then lock it down. I then square each the front tires to the rear by taking a string and go along the rear tire so it barely comes in contact with both the front of the tire and the rear. I then tie the string to something that keeps it in that position.
I then adjust the toe so that the front and rear of the distance of front tire are the same distance from the string. I then move to the front of the tire and turn the tie rod so the front of the tire moves in about a 16th of an inch away from the string. Doing this on each side gives me a total of a 8th inch of total toe in.
My thinking since quads do not use a drag link system this is the only way to ensure insure the rear axle is square to the front tires is to do it this way. If not the quad could dog track if you will...
I raced Karts and this is how we set the toe on them? Maybe I am to anal...
I have not tried more air pressure but we run 5 psi up front.
God Bless,
Dustin Drews

[Dustin_Drews]

for some reason I think my problem lies in the different steering stem. on the bottom end of the stem. I did not install the stem my self I bought it this way. But I installed everything else. Tell me everything I need to know about steering stems and how they affect steering and bump steer. When I installed my a arms before installed my shocks I moved everything up and down with the tires on and turned the wheels. When moving it up and down It seemed to me I had a bunch of bump steer.. Like the tires move in and out almost and inch if I remember right? Is this normal? I have not messed with my quad much lately but I am going to work on it this weekend and want to get my head wrapped around my problem.
God Bless,
Dustin

[TNT]

Yes the YFZ has a lot of bump steer, we have a 05 too and it’s quite a bit more than our DS450 I noticed. If I were real anal I’d check my toe setting’s on this quad at an upward travel about half way due to the bump steer. I know you Kart guy’s are real precise about your tires but quad tires I would not trust to set the front end to. On quads I think more so than karts measure to the frame center or the CG would be better since the handling revolves around it, more so in MX than XC. I mean I don’t see a prob with what your doing as long as there is a check to center since quads due to all the loads can flex and loose symmetry and square and the tires can give a sense of false square to the frame and cg …..thats just my opinion.


Sounds like you may be running too much caster too you want to back it off a few degrees more like 2-3 on the DS since it has a lot of rake too – to get more response in tight woods.

As far as stems there are pretty straight forward the bell crank fitting and tie rod ends should not bind or have any play as with the arms etc……..

Also if you are hitting a lot of bumps/etc without a steering stab it may be normal to feel hard steering.

Kinda hard to say what the prob is without seeing it…..