SUSPENSION
About the biggest difference between the Pilot and the 350 Odyssey is the suspension! They have nice A-arm suspension with about 6 inches of travel! While enough of the sob story! The worst thing though on the whole machines is the rear suspension! I have barely seen my move since i bought the machine a year ago! See one of the problems is the fact that the fron skocks are dual rate gas charged where the backs are single rate which leads to a harsher ride! But thanks to aftermarket companies we do not have to put up we these things no more! Aftermarket shocks are made my Baja Magnum, works Performance, and progressive suspension. I would Honestly have to reccomend the works performance for superior Performance over the other two! The Baja Magnums are good but compression is non adjustable and the Works shoks just feel way better! And the progressive suspension shocks are really only a glamourus OEM replacement! But now the other dilemma what Works performance shick to get?? There is the standard model where the reservoir is mounted to the shock and then there is the remote mount reservoirs! The only differece is really price and about a 100 bucks a pair at that! Actually the romte reservoirs give better damimpning and also won't fade after getting hot as the air and liquid inside cools! The folowing is what it says about the works shocks and the Baja Magnums in Triple E's catalog!
Works Performance Steeler Shocks(Non Reservoir)
Improve the suspension on your odyssey with a set of our rugged AT Steelers. these shocks feature our exclusive large diameter piston with multi stage dampning, have a high tensile steel, hard chromed and threaded stell shaft for extra strength. We can help you choose single, dual, or triple rate springs to suit you rididng style as well as dialing in the dampning to match. Available in either fade free emulsion design or with optional remote reservoirs for the ultimate ace track performance!
Remote resevoir(Same as above just with remote resevoirs)
Works Performance offers hose moounted remote reservoirs as an option on all our emulsion (gas charged) shocks. The remote reservoirs feature an internal bladder for seperation of the gas and oil outside the shock. The shocks oil and gas capacity is increased and thus cooling is improved. This provides more consistent and fade free dampning under the most severe riding and racing applications. For recreational use, your works performance shock with standard emusion design will perform well beyond any requirements!
Baja Magnum
New Magnum O/R Shocks for Honda Odyssey Improve comfort and stability. Dual rear shcks reccomended for racing!
Yes that is all it says for the Magnums! Well I think my mind is made up I am going to buy a set of non reservoir works shocks! So unless your really loaded or demand the best from your shocks the non bladder is better especially at a $150 bucks cheaper! The works shocks cost $319 fornt and rear and the Remote reservoir ones cost $459 so there is quite a difference! As for the Baja Magnums they run $222 for the fronts or rears! So for the extra money don't be sheap and buy the Works Performance for the ultimate ride!!
ENGINE!
In the engine department there are lots of things you can do to get our things up to speed or to beet your friend on his quad or Pilot! I'll try and start from easy and work my way up but if I don't too bad its my page!! Well The easiest and most effective way to keep your odyssey up to speed is to make sure you do regular maintence!Keep fresh fuel in it and dont let mixed gas sit around too long! The first thing I would change would be the air filter! I would buy a K&N because these are free flowing and filter about tice as good as the stock filter! But because they are free flowing you may have to rejet your machine! Now don't get scarred its quite easy! Just order a jet one size bigger than stock and that should do it! I found that worked perfect for my machine but yours may be different! This should help your machine accelerate better and have a bit more power every hwere and cost about 40 bucks. The next easiest thing to modife is the reeds! I would reccomend the FMF Ram valve over the bopysen redds because if you decide to modify your odyssey a bit more the Ram valve will work much better than the Boysens, but if your on a budget go with the Boysens becasue they cost $35 and the Ram valve Cost $85 bucks! The next step is to get a different pipe! You only have two choices either the DG or the Triple E pipe! I have the DG and hate it! Dont get me worng DG makes good quality pipes and accesories its just they must of had their heads up their asses when they designed this pipe! All the power comes on well afer half throttle not mention its so loud it sounds like the world is coming to an end! Not only that it has no balls at all under half throttle! it was so bad I put the stock silencer on it and that seemed to help low end power! I would 100% reccomend the Triple E pipe! It actually has what you could call a silencer and has good popwer on the bottom right through to the top! It is louder thatn stock but not to much! It also has a spark aresster which you need to ride most places! SO to recap that if all you want to do is ride full throttle on the dunes by all means Buy the DG because it makes the most high end power, but if you actually like to be able to use your complete throttle range buy the triple E pipe because not only are the two pipes the same price of $185 but Triple E actually comes painted! The next step after getting a K&N, reeds, and pipe would be carb! That reminds me you also have to go up about 4 jet iszes for bothe pipes with the DG being far more fussy to get to run right! But know it is time to get a bigger carb! There are lots of options here! I have the 37mm Kiehen PE Which used to be sold through Triple E as a bolt on kit but I see has been discontinued! It was simply a bigger versio of the stock carb except it had the air screw on the other side so you could actually adjust it! But fr a bigger car your looking at about $200 for any good one! If you are wanting more top end favor the biggest carb you can get! If you want bottom end stay around 35mm! Just be careful when you bolt one caude you will need to jet it! Know that you have more fuel going in and more exhaust going out the only thing left restricting your engine is the head! You really dont have tom port it unless you want serious power or roost all your pilot friends! Porting cost $250 from Triple E and I would reccomend taking it to them and no body else!! I had the big carb, pipe, filter, reeds, and filter on for a long time before I got my head ported and it made real good power especially mid to top! But know that I had the heads ported it has helped bootm end allot but will really open up the power band! When I get my triple E pipe(I borrowed a friends for a day and got hooked on it) It will really have loads of bottom which I need cause I ride in the vuch like 90% of the Time! Well this is about as far as you want to go with the odyssey engine because it islimited by the fact that it is air cooled! Although from my understanding A Place in California by the name of Hillside Honda will Machine the head and Cylender for liquid cooling! The only thing though when you pay for a rad and machining and so on you end up lookint at a grand! Well one thing if you do all these mods make sure you run a good oil and make sure you run it at 20:1!!!!!!!! I use Redline Oil and it runs excellent at 20:1, i have tried it at 25:1 and 32:1 and have found no differece in performance when my machine was jetted right! 350 Odysseys run hot as it is and when modified run even hotter so they need to have the extra oil for cooling and protection!
TIRES
Well what can you say tires are tires! I personally love my stock tires!! they tale me anywere! I can go mud boggin or sand dunning, talk about versatile!! But If you must replace them get the pure sports Realator tires they are the best tire on the market in my opinion!! they work great in the sand and also will chew there way threw the mud! But every idiot knows about tires so I will skip on to rims. Well no matter how you look at it the stock rims are just junk! My ody was always run in the dunes so the rims were nice and straight! I said were! It took me 2 hours from the time i got is home to bend my fron rim! And my rer rims had just been replaced cause he hit a rock and smashed the one side rim! You may think I crashed inot a tree or something to bend a rim so easy but I didn't! I simply hit small ditch to fast and launched at a odd angle like so
Believe it or not that resulted in a bent tie rod and totaly bent rim! Well I then replaced it with a ITP steel wheels up front and the rear! These proved to be very good wheels! I pegged a tree real hard and didnt throw it out a line at all! Well after awhile I bent another front rim and decided my rims were mraked up ebough and decide to order a new set of front rims! I then decide to stop cheaping out and I bought I set of heavy duty douglas aluminum wheels! well these have stood the test of time! I have landed crooked and every other thing including hitting 2 nice size trees and they still spin straight and true!!! I would deffinetly go for the aluminum ones just be careful to keep the lugs tight or you'll wear the holes bigger!
Misecallanous
There are alot of different little things you can do to improve the performance and looks of your machine. Some things That I particularly reccomend are heavy duty tie rods which are avilable from Triple e Racing for a moderate cost. And besides if you've bent 2 or 3 stock ones then that will pay for the heavy duty ones which my friend has yet to bend. Not to plug triple e or nothing but its just they are the only ones that make this cool stuff for the odysseys! I amalos wanting to get a set of their nurf bars and some window nets too. About the biggest thing the Odyssey 350 lacks is under body protetion! If you ride anything but the dunes be careful or you'll hit a rock or something one day and rip half your underbelly out! My machine has custom aluminum skid plates fron to back! I am no longer scared to drive over large rocks and other things, know I just gun it and hold on! Other than these there really isnt that many other things you can do to the odyssey because there just isn't enough of them out there for there to be a big enough market! if you have any suggestions mail me !
