The Quickshift
- ATV drag racing is a wild sport
- This YouTuber swapped a snowmobile engine into his drag quad
- It's two-stroke motor is great for eighth-mile drag racing
Now, when you think of swaps, you generally think of motorcycle engines getting swapped into things that absolutely aren't motorcycles. Think your Hayabusa swapped jet skis, classic Minis, quads, and even now-defunct EVs. It's generally the way to go, as they're light, powerful, and scream to infinity.
But motorcycle engines aren't the end-all, be-all, as they can still be complex and a pain to swap into a smaller chassis. And when weight is the enemy, as it is for drag racers, something with a transmission is just extra weight that'll cost precious time in the quarter or eighth.
That's why YouTuber Vasily Builds chose to swap a two-stroke snowmobile engine into his drag-spec ATV. Oh yeah, this thing screams. And does wheelies.
The ATV, if you can still call it that, was once a Yamaha Banshee. Well, part of a Banshee as the whole thing was cobbled together with some custom framing. The heart of the drag racer, however, is a 600cc two-stroke triple paired with a 56-tooth rear sprocket. That's actually down from the 72-tooth sprocket Vasily originally had on the ATV, as he was pulling too many wheelies to get through the eighth fast.
Yet, even with downsizing the sprocket, it still pulls wheelies.
This video also comes after Vasily finished his other ATV project: a 'Busa-swapped Yamaha Raptor. While done and driving, that build is still being tweaked and the YouTuber brought out the Banshee as potentially a last hurrah for it.
He does, however, set his personal best ET in the eighth, but it took a bit to get there. After a few runs, Vasily cranked out a 7.46 at 85.06 mph. That's just so freaking quick for something that doesn't have a wheelie bar, did a wheelie most of the way down the track, and didn't have the best reaction time. Like, you're just moving. But he wasn't satisfied with that, so he made some modifications and went back out.
I won't spoil the end, but you should check it out. Now who's ready to build themselves a drag quad using the new Ski-Doo motors?
