Finally got a chance to ride my Dave-Co pilot. I must say i am thoroughly impressed. The LT, Power Steering, and 670HO rotax are a killer combination. The shocks he set up for me are set up just right, most ditches or bumps are not even a problem at full speed, jumps land nice and soft. i just cant say enough good about it. I end up getting myself into a lot more trouble because i am going faster and faster. add the disk brakes up front with the 04-05 TRX450R spindles & with aftermarket thicker rotors so i can actually get this monster slowed down.....i love it.

I Got in my old pilot with a 670 and fox airs/yoda front +2 arms, rode it down a trail and parked it. it sucks to drive! my thoughts now are, why the hell would anybody put that kind of
power in a machine that doesn't have the suspension to back it up. On the same trails, the bumps that would pogo my stock pilot, are barely even felt with my Dave-Co pilot.

I find myself still getting used to the added width. Not a fault of dave or anybody, it is just the outcome of the added travel. I know some people have had concerns that the use of welded on nuts would be too weak and prone to stripping out or braking off. I can now tell you, that that should not be a problem. if you have enough force to strip out the nuts, you will be glad he did not use thread in bungs or else it would rip the suspension mount right off the machine. I was cruising down the trail, at damn near full speed, and clipped a tree that had fallen over the trail. It had fallen across the trail, and someone cut the center out of it so you could still get through. well the lower end was buried in the weeds and i did not see it. When i hit it, it damn near stopped me dead. spun the machine sideways and slid down the trail sideways and nosed me into the ditch. the picture is the outcome. That was a douglass red label wheel. it completely destroyed it, and bent the grade 8 1/2" bolt on the lower outer suspension pivot. No other damage was done. all of the arms are straight, no threads are stripped.

I also want to thank DMoneyAllStar for his stainless brake lines front and rear. my squishy lines never gave me a good handle feel. after his lines i get all the braking pressure i can ever want

And, last but not least, Speedchaser for his beautiful bumper. I haven't had to test it out yet, but they sure do look sharp!

I don't have pictures of the whole machine. It is a bit ugly. Needed the room in my shop so i went ahead and wired the Engine up to make it work and plumed the fuel/cooling system. No paint or any finishing touches on it. it is purely function at the moment. sometime down the road i will take it all back apart now that it has proven itself for 5 hard days of riding with only that wheel, and the starter bracket coming loose. id say its going to be a reliable machine!

Congrats on your "new" ride!

Sounds like fun.

So the next thing to do is to remove a shock front and rear remove the springs install the shocks no springs and measure the as found suspension travel.

Your description is about the same as mine was when I went from stock front shocks to the FOX air with the stock arms, then it was that much better again when I went to the 2.5" longer arms after the 2.5" arms you could feel the rear needed work because I was running that much faster over the rough stuff to max out the rear For the most part my Pilot with the 2.5" arms was used on trails mostly cut by quads (48" wide)

IMO anything over 90HP on a LT Pilot sized buggy is a waste, I guess more than 90HP could be useful on some of the groomed race tracks I have seen or a section of desert where you run WOT (Wide Open Throttle) for a 10 mile stretch that is no more than a rough gravel road.

Historically wider than stock width on my Pilot would not work on about 80% of the places I rode.

Glad your getting some seat time this season., maybe de-tune the 670 a bit like I did with my 440?

Nice Review, what shocks did Dave-co build for you if I may ask(Brand)? That Douglas wheel is Done! Who doesn't like carnage photos... Lol. A better pic would be of your power steering set-up and more pic's of your new LT. Great to hear you are happy with what you paid for and it's suits your riding conditions(except the width, all LT owners live with that one on trails). I hope to get my Atvr LT looked at one day, and Dave-co may be the one to help as you describe a suspension that actually works. Ultimate travel is not needed in my case, I will trade a couple of inches for plush if I had to, but I agree with Hoser, what are the actual travel numbers on yours now to compare with what you had before? Others may need this before proceeding to contact Dave.

Fox coil overs. Don't know my actual travel numbers off hand. Too hot to work on it. Better to just cruise at the moment!

And, as far as de-tuning the 670... No way no how! I love it. Just perfect IMO. It has worked excellent trail riding, and perfect in dthe dunes on my other pilot. Now I will say much more power would be silly..

Eventually I'd like to install a skidoo etec 600 efi 2 stroke. Has about the same power but better fuel economy than these old rotary valve beasts!

i wonder where you got that idea?

I as well are very happy with my 1 Dave-Co Pilot. I contracted with Dave to use hiems and hardware that I new were readily available and the design of my particular system was with my input about long term maintenance, etc. I have ridden it only a limited amount of times last year, wish I could ride this year but that ain't going to happen lol! My performance was top notch, felt like riding on a pillow. I agree with Hoser and others the width is sometimes a hindrance in trails like we have here on the east coast, but in the coal mines and such it really shows it strengths and performance. I have not had an form of accident on it so I cannot add to nitrosports thread.
I have another Pilot still at Dave's and he has been keeping it in storage for me since my accident, but we expect to get the project back into the garage in the coming months for completion.I am also looking forward to that Pilot as well, since Dave has fixed many frame issues I had on it from the previous owner/s.

So did you already have this in the works before scpilot started the thread about his problems or did you go ahead even after reading his problems? If it was after you got some balls my friend ,that thread would have scared me off.But I'm glad it worked out for you.
I only know of 5 people that's had dave-co do their suspension,you,Mudbogger,cruz01,scpilot66,and kuma I think was the other.2 unsatisfied customers and 3 happy ones .Theres probably others I just don't know about them.

maybe 6

I am glad you are able to go out and enjoy your toy. I am so jealous. That thing must be like a Cadillac to ride.

Yup -- this is the reason I don't make my liquid cooled heads and cylinders for anyone but myself.
Randy J. in my post titled "Hey B.S" asked the question when will you build those heads for others. I would love to help out others but if it is not "perfect" (and everyone has their own idea of perfect) then the bitching starts. So it is just easier to share any info a guy has and then it's every man for himself. That's what I like the most about this site --- we share a lot of info. Nobody seems to hold back on that info.

Well said! My LT kit has weld in nuts too. I really don't see how it could be a weak point with normal riding. If I was racing or doing a the score 500 then maybe I'd do fully threaded bungs. Then again, after seeing what nitro did to his rim with little damage to the suspension, I'd say that's pretty impressive!

Nitro: You are one crazy SOB rolling a 670 in a pilot! I rode Dave's 580 drakart and I almost soiled myself! It's like the power band never lets off! Better start designing an airbag system for the good old pilot chief!

Ive had this in the works for quite some time now. Dave is a stand up guy and it is too bad he was run off of these boards. People need to hear both sides of the story before forming an opinion on the guy. He has been willing to help me out with any issue i may have had. shipped me different upper rear arms when i was having issues with binding to find out it was an axle that was incorrectly assembled (by ME and not him).

I don't understand why everyone is so focused on the numbers. i measured mine but cannot remember the exact numbers. mine are going to be different because i am using 04-5 TRX450R front spindles. Maybe you get 1/2" more or less than advertised, but go ride the damn thing before bitching and you will see how good this thing really is. Much better than an ATVr kit and half the price. Yes the arms may be slightly different each time they are made... because they are made by a dude in his garage and not on some precision tubing bending machine that stamps them out for you. Alot of the complaint stemmed from someones idea of perfect was different than Dave's idea of perfect, so he was flamed for it. When setting up the suspension there is almost an infinite amount of adjustment that can be done. If you adjust it slightly one way, you are going to get binding and all sorts of fun stuff. Adjust it back and the suspension will cycle smooth as butter and the CVs are happy throughout the whole suspension range.

This is just my .02. take it or leave it. If your idea of perfect is a smooth ride and an awesome handling pilot, give dave a call he knows his stuff. If your idea of perfect is a pilot that looks like it was stamped from a mold and looks great on a trailer, id call someone else (NOT that his parts don't look great)

Oh it is excellent. I am 110% more than satisfied with the way it turned out. Now i just need to disassemble it some winter when i am not riding and make it pretty. I am going to need to LT/power steer my second pilot now because i cant ride it for more than 10 minutes.

Not crazy at all. Now, what was crazy is running my other YODA pilot with a 670 in it the way i did. I cant even ride that one any more after this pilot. It works so good, having all the power you could ever dream of. Can break the tires loose pretty much any time you need to no matter the speed. I wish there was a racing circuit closer to me, i think it would be cool to see how this setup would do in a competitive environment. My cousin races his SxS can am somewhere, i need to get in touch with him and see if i can whoop up on some SxS guys.

Everyone that sees that wheel in person cannot believe that i didnt mangle the frame or the arms. Id say if something was going to give, that would have done it. Going to make a good wall hanger though! My buddy wants to go riding soon. ill get a picture of the log i hit. I swear it moved it a good 6"

Count me off of that list, I'm still rolling in a near stock '89, I'd like an LT sled powered pilot but out of my pilot budget.
Halo is the other that you are probably thinking of.

Yeah, I couldn't imagine riding a 670 pilot with a yoda kit. I had the yoda kit too with DC's rear brackets to fit the fox shocks before I got Dave's lt kit. World of difference and that's with a semi modded 400 Engine. I'm about to start a CR 500 build so we'll see how that all turns out.

I'm not going to go back and read the whole thread that scpilot started but from what I remember there was more to it then just the threaded bungs.Whether those are actually needed is another point,maybe they arent necessary but that's what he wanted and that's what dave-co agreed to provide was it not?
And from what I remember about halo's thread the rear arms we're welded on crooked as shit.
Yes there are 2 sides to every story.
I am glad you are happy with your setup,that's all that counts.

come on now..that wheel will buff right out lol..

i have wondered for some time now if a person had some bead stiffeners welded on to the douglas rims if that would help much. would be easy to have them cut and welded on, just make it a lot harder to clean all the crap out of the wheels from riding.

you need to get some good video of that pilot ripping it up..not just from the driver seat, get some fly bys and set up somewhere on the frame so we can see the suspension cycling

Done right the the welded in rings make the wheel very stiff and durable. The force of a blow has to go somewhere though, frame.. Suspension... Tip the bug on it's lid etc..
I love the reinforced rims, I recommend them.

We will see, I had these welded onto the inside of the Champion wheels. Nothing fancy. If I had It to do over I would only use a 1" ring, awful close to
The front calipers.

Wow that's serious. How much if any does it throw the wheel out of balance ??

What about doing an OMF beadlock rim?

I would drill some holes in that ring for mud, small rocks and water to exit.