How-To Tip: Battery Life

SAVE YOUR BATTERY
FROM WINTER'S
ICY DEATH GRIP


Here in Ohio, winter temperatures can drop well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's optimal battery killing temperature for most sport and utility ATVs. By late October, the temperatures are getting cold enough frequently enough to start draining the sealed acid batteries common in today's quads. If you don't already own one, now is the time of year to go buy a battery tender or low-voltage battery charger for your ATV.

At TPR, we're pretty anal about our quad maintenance. Sport quads with highly modified internal engine parts - even just a high-compression piston - like the TPR project YFZ450R put an added strain on the starter every time you crank over the engine to fire up the quad. That added strain is shifted to the battery by drawing a little extra juice than a stock quad with no modifications, and that means your battery will start to lose its charge quicker. So we hook up our project Yamaha to the battery tender about every other ride, or during long periods in between rides, to make sure our battery has an optimal charge.

You don't have to get extremely technical and monitor your battery's exact charge with a volt meter. Most low-voltage battery tenders, like the Optimate 3 we use and purchased at a local Yamaha dealer, will charge the low-voltage battery of an ATV to the optimal 12 to 14 volt range without over charging it and damaging a wet battery's internal cells. Such chargers plug into a standard wall socket, have positive and negative clamps for your battery terminals and are available at Wal-Mart or a local dealer for about $50.

During the cold winter months, our charger is almost never disconnected from the YFZR battery. We also typically remove the battery from the quad during the winter just as an added precaution, so if there is an immense charge or overload to our shop system that the breaker doesn't catch we won't fry our expensive Dynojet PCV or other electronic components on the new Yamaha.

On a precautionary note, don't expect to use your dad's rolling charger/starter to maintain your quad battery. Those big rolling chargers are designed for truck and car batteries, not the small unit on your ATV. Using one of those chargers could seriously damage your battery by melting the lead terminals, and that would put you out some big bucks. Today's ATV batteries can cost more than $80 to replace, so spending $50 on a trickle charger or battery tender can keep your battery breathing life into your quad for years.

For more How-To tips, check out the link at the top of the page. Next, we'll be showing you how to change the oil in Yamaha's new YFZR models, a tip that applies to the YFZX and most other sport quads. Stay tuned for a product review of Motoworks SR4 full exhaust system.

R&D - Part 2

New foot pegs for Race Safer Pro nerf bars

Stronger, lowered pegs will make you safer and faster

In R&D part one, we explained how every product at Tarantula Performance Racing undergoes a rigorous research and development phase before it hits the market and gets bolted onto your quad. In R&D Part 2, we're going to show you the results of that process with the re-designed foot pegs on the TPR Race Safer Pro nerf bars.

Before.... and after. The picture on the left shows our original design for the foot pegs on the TPR Race Safer Pro nerf bars. The picture on the right shows the production design for the pegs. The re-designed pegs are made of thicker material and feature more bracing for added strength, yet the slimmer design of the new pegs did not add weight over the original.

Testing on the pegs showed they stood up well to the abuse of motocross riding, but we wanted to make them even stronger. The thickness of the material used for the pegs was increased to one-eighth inch steel. Additional bracing near the frame mount improves the peg durability for handling hard bottoming situations. The added bracing maintained the large drainage areas to allow mud and stones to fall through the pegs.

The pro-peg style foot pegs use the same mounting system, which allows the nerf bar to slide easily onto the peg bar mount. The peg teeth also retain their 5 degree angle towards the quad, which fits naturally with a rider's stance. These new pegs are also slightly lower than the original design and are a little more than one inch lower than the stock YFZR pegs. For most models, the pegs are approximately 1 inch lower than stock.

The new pegs have proven to greatly improve cornering by keeping the rider's body weight lower on the quad. The added leverage of the longer pegs allows the rider to more easily whip the rear wheels of the quad out when power sliding through a corner. The lowered pegs also greatly reduced leg fatigue compared to stock height pegs by reducing the rider's time spent in transition between sitting and standing.

The Race Safer Pro nerf bars are available for most sport ATV models, including the Yamaha YFZ450R and YFZ450 models, the TRX450R, Raptor 250, Kawasaki KFX450 and Suzuki LTR 450.

To order a set of TPR Race Safer Pro nerf bars for your quad, call TPR at 330-273-3456.