Someone had mentioned the 450 can run bigger tires due to the gearing and that is actually a false statement. Not taking anything away from the 450 because honestly I think it's a great package. The gearing was done on the 450 to make it reasonably comparable to the 660 in acceleration. The 660 will still handle bigger tires better due to the extra power and torque the engine makes. I have a friend with a 450 and it's very impressive with 26 589's on it. The advantage it has over the 660 is the price and snorkeling is less complicated on the 450. The only down side to me is the climbing ability. It does pretty good but it can struggle going up steep canal banks. The 450 needs a bit of a head start to really make it all the way up where the 660 pulls up pretty easily. Top speed isn't off by much but that doesn't matter to most and accleration is pretty close.
By the way there are CDI's out there for the 450. Not sure how much top speed you pick up with them but it surely can't hurt.
Bill
"The gearing was done on the 450 to make it reasonably comparable to the 660 in acceleration." You are right, geared 18% lower to accomidate the lack of power the 450 produces, the 660 will still beat the 450 in every way but to me does not in price, how many times have you been in the woods and a 4 cylinder buggy made it twice as far as the V8 buggy? Ive seen it tons of times due to the gearing, not saying the 450 is that dramatically lower and the 660 will still beat it but I think they did a good thing with the design to make up for lack of power. If you check over in the highlifter forum a couple of quys with 660's are trying to figure out how to switch out there trannies with a 450's
The gearing was defintely a smart thing to do on Yamaha's half. If it had the same gearing as the 660 it would litterally be nothing more than a glorified golf cart. Gearing is everthing when it comes to accleration, I raced cars for years and know how to get the most out of a small package.
By the way I'm one of the people tha brought up swapping the trans gears into the 660. It doesn't really seem to be a feasible option but it would be cool to have some better acceleration.
Bill
