Thoughts about doing a XS650 swap into a Blaster....

[Clydedog]

...Has anyone out there done or heard of this swap? I figure that Yamaha XS650's have been around forever, are a fairly narrow twin, they look very cool in a retro kind of way, have an electric starter, make great torque and are available very cheaply on every local craigslist. The only negatives are that they are a tall engine and weigh quite a bit. You can't do anything about the weight, but the heighth of the motor might be overcome by slating the engine forward a bit to get it in the frame and under the gas tank. So, what do you think? With some high mounted exhaust and a free flow muffler, it would sound very, very mean.....I:I

 

[Triplecrown421]

yea i dont see how you could get a motor that large into the blaster frame. Ive personally seen a ktm250 motorcross motor installed into a blaster that needed alittle "slanting" to fit it in. THAT 650 twin WOULD NEED TO GO IN UPSIDE DOWN!!!!

 

[Awk08]

power to weight ratio.....
somewhere on here is a chart/calculator showing all the most popular atv's in order of power to weight ratio,
of course the quadzilla 500 was atop that list.
do the popular major mods to a blaster, getting near the 40hp. mark, and it quickly moves from near the bottom of the list up into the top 5.
swaps are overrated !

 

[Triplecrown421]

power to weight ratio.....

swaps are overrated !

could not say it better myself

 

[92f150300six]

I say do it. I have a soft spot for the xs650 use to have a dropped hard tail bobber xs . Loved that bike but it had to go cause it was a soar spot between the wife and me.

 

[Clydedog]

....I've been doing some on line research and it looks like a XS650 motor is around 170 pounds . Blaster shocks can be upgraded to handle the extra weight, but one other issue is the size of the motor. Does anyone out there have an XS that they could check to see how tall and wide the motor is? I've got a rolling frame Blaster sitting in the garage collecting dust. I still think this might be a cool swap.....

 

[Paulie B]

Your talking about an ancient low 50's horsepower motor with heavy bunch of parts to break + a whole lot of fabrication to just get it to fit.

Forget about trail riding or jumping. With 50 something hp forget about racing.
Unless you just like saying you have a 650 4 stroke motor in your Blaster that's gets beat by a ported 240 blaster- in pretty much every category a 4 wheeler is used for.

 

[scotj77]

I believe 79xs put a 550 or sumthin like that in a blaster. check out his build thread and talk to him about how useful that machine is before this endevor

 

[79xs]

Do I hear talk of XS and XJ motors? Who would ever want to use something like that?


The 650 twin is 21 tall, 15 wide.


No matter how tall or short the motor is the output shaft on the motor will be your starting point. Just assume either the bottom or top of the frame will need to be re-made. If you don't mind the work then give it a try. Blaster frames with missing titles go for less than 100 bucks. Buy a extra frame, chop/weld it up as needed then swap your parts over. If its too much work then just put it back on your real frame. My $150 XJ550 motor ended up with about $600 in parts bolted to it .. so it doesn't always end up cheaper than a good rebuild on the stock Blaster motor.

 

[79xs]

Your talking about an ancient low 50's horsepower motor with heavy bunch of parts to break + a whole lot of fabrication to just get it to fit..

I thought Harley had the trademark on that?

 

[best]

It is funny, those of us that have built successful swaps still say FIX THE BLASTER MOTOR!

The Blaster motor is a light, simple, cheap motor cheaply and easily capable of over 30hp and fitted with a wonderfully geared 6 speed transmission.
How can you beat that?

Steve