First Test Xtreme Typhoon 125

Over a year ago, we told you about Xtreme’s plans to release 70cc, 90cc and 125cc high performance youth ATVs. The wait is over. Until recently, Xtreme Motor Co. has been best known for their high performance pit bikes, which have been developed with legendary two wheeled motocrosser Guy Cooper.

A few years ago, Xtreme approached K–Fab, a company specializing in building high performance mini parts, and asked if they could build a conversion kit that would turn their pit bikes into ATVs.

Seeing the demand for a high performance youth four stroke mini quad, Xtreme decided to take their prototype pit bike ATV conversion and send it into full production making it available as an ATV racer right off the dealers showroom floor.

Their line of ATVs were labeled Typhoon and they were to be made available in 70 ,90 and 125cc displacements.

 

What is the 125 made of?

We were impressed with the appearance of our Typhoon 125 when it arrived last fall. Unfortunately, the Typhoon has several issues hat need to be addressed before you turn your child loose. For a complete list of updates read on and check for information iAt the heart of the machine is a 124cc two valve single overhead cam four stroke motor that shares its bore and stroke numbers with their 125cc pit bikes. Actually the overall design of the motors are extremely similar, however the stud pattern on the ATV motor is different – thus keeping top end parts from being interchangeable. The Typhoon 125’s air cooled motor enjoys the benefit of an oil cooler which is an additional option that can be added to the 70 and 90.

The Typhoon 125 doesn’t feature an air box mounted to the rear of the carburetor like most ATV’s instead, it comes outfitted like most mini race quads, with the filter attached directly to the carburetor. While this makes accessing the air filter real easy and saves on the cost of developing an entirely new air box and intake setup, it does put the filter right out in the elements which could prove to be an issue in wet conditions.

Unlike the pit bikes which feature manual clutches, the Typhoons come with manual shift trannies equipped with auto clutches. This was done for racing legality and because Xtreme’s research showed that more people purchased semi auto and fully automatic machines in the youth classes. One thing that sets the Typhoon’s transmission apart from its smaller siblings is its use of their higher performance Cooper Team Transmission. The gear box features a super close ratio four speed design, which not only helps increase acceleration, it makes it better suited for use in an ATV. The gears in the transmission are constructed of chromoly for greater strength and durability.

The front end of the Typhoon sports seven inches of preload adjustable suspension travel, but looks more impressive than it actually is. The shock’s piggyback reservoirs are for extra oil capacity not for charging with nitrogen for cooling. The biggest problem with the front end is with the A-arms design. When the front shocks bottom out, so does the machine’s ground clearance!

The Typhoon was originally designed as a conversion kit for their pit bike customers, so it shares many parts with Xtreme’s pit bikes. Even the machine’s main frame is based on Xtreme’s pit bike frame. The frame has an open section between the back of the lower frame rails and the single spar upper frame rail leaving the motor to work as a stressed member of the chassis. Xtreme included this bolt in plate that closes in the gap increasing the chassis strength and rigidity. The chassis is where the Typhoon breaks from conventional designs. To start with, since the chassis was designed around Xtreme’s pit bikes, the frame does not fully encompass the motor. There is an open area between the back of the lower frame rails and where the single spar upper frame tube curves down behind the motor. This means the motor is actually working as a part of the quad’s chassis.

Another interesting part of the chassis is the use of the dirt bike’s head tube where the front forks would be mounted. That’s right, no standard steering stem on this bad boy, instead there is a complicated assembly that relies on the remaining head tube to connect the handlebars to the tie rod ends. We will tell you now. We don’t care for the design. It develops a lot of play in a short amount of time. It’s over complex and one of the first things that should be changed for next year.

Moving forward, the Xtreme features a conventional dual A-arm front end, however the arms are fully camber and caster adjustable, giving the pilot’s mechanic, “dad”, the ability to fine tune the steering of the machine for different track conditions. This is a cool feature for those who understand how to tune front end geometry, but could be a problem if you aren’t familiar with the procedure. If this is the case your dealer should be able to set the front end up. The machine’s front shocks are preload adjustable and feature remote reservoirs. Xtreme says you can add nitrogen through the valve on the reservoirs; however they are mainly designed as extra oil capacity. Front end suspension travel measures in at an impressive seven inches.

Out back, the Typhoon borrows the pit bike’s triangular swingarm. The swingarm features a linkage-less rear suspension system, where the shock is mounted horizontally between the top of the triangle on the swingarm and the frame. The Typhoon’s preload adjustable rear shock features 6.5 inches of travel. Along with the swingarm came its chain adjustment system. Adjusting the chain is more difficult than we would like.

For some reason Xtreme decided to use plastic foot pegs with their nerf bars. What’s worse is that they are simply screwed into the top of the nerf bar’s tube.

We broke off our first peg within five minutes. The only safe fix is to install a set of nerf bars such as the AC Pro Pegs with heel guards seen here.

The Typhoon is powered by a quick revving 124cc air cooled four stroke motor. Specific to the Typhoon 125 is the use of Xtreme’s more durable close ratio four speed Cooper Team Transmission. Unfortunately shifting on the auto clutch four speed is notchy. Being a builder of performance minis, K-Fab’s Kenny Vaughn wanted to make the Typhoon as race worthy right out of the box as possible – and its dimensions indicate just that. The Typhoon measures in at 41.25 inches wide and has a wheelbase of 41.5 inches. Combining this with a 26.2 inch seat height and the Typhoon has the numbers to be a stable performer. Weighing in at 261 pounds it is 11 pounds heavier than the TRX 90 but more than makes up for it with its six inches of extra width.

Braking on the Typhoon 125 is handled by hydraulic brakes front and rear. The front brakes are actuated in the normal manner with the lever mounted on the right side of the handlebars. The rear brakes can be activated with a conventional foot pedal or the lever mounted on the left side of the handlebars, however the rear hand brake is mainly there for the parking brake mechanism.

Xtreme offers a ton of hop up parts for their Typhoon ATVs. Ours included a complete FMF exhaust and a Fox MXR rear shock. The FMF pipe is said to increase power output by 10%.

The Fox rear air shock is spring, compression and rebound adjustable. Rear wheel travel remains the same at 6.5 inches.

Typhoon issues, fixes and high performance parts.
Before shipping our machine Xtreme offered us a few aftermarket goodies for the Typhoon. First off, the full FMF exhaust system developed for the 125 pit bike is a perfect fit and is said to increase horsepower by about 10%. Next was a Fox pit bike air shock to replace the Typhoons stock rear shock. The Fox shock is air pressure compression and rebound adjustable. It’s said to improve ride and shaves some weight off the machine as well. Finally Xtreme equipped our machine with their accessory frame brace which connects the lower frame rails to the lower part of the upper frame tube for greater strength and rigidity. We asked Xtreme to send us the stock and aftermarket parts for comparison; however we received the bike with the Fox shock and FMF exhaust installed with no stock parts in the crate. No big deal, everything we have heard from the aftermarket indicates that these mods are definitely worth the money.

While we normally like to wait till after our ride impression to tell our readers about any issues we encounter, the Typhoon has a few problems that require attention before the machine goes out for its maiden voyage. We mentioned that the head tube used on the Typhoon that came over from the bike is an issue. Xtreme performed some preventative fixes before we received the machine. Ask your dealer about implementing any necessary steering updates before you take the machine home.

The Typhoon borrows its triangular swingarm from the pit bike world. While it does its job, we think a more conventional swingarm with a longer shock would work better due to the extra weight of the ATV.Another issue is the machine’s rear brake master cylinder. The stock location of the master cylinder is too low. When the rear suspension fully compresses the center of the swingarm hits it resulting in a wrecked master cylinder. Xtreme rounded out the mounting holes to slide it up a bit, but we still wound up smashing one nonetheless. Xtreme mailed us a new master cylinder and we ended up drilling two new holes to relocate it even higher. We also had trouble with the stock rear fender braces. The rear fender braces were weak and needed to be re-welded. While these two issues are minor, they are still problems that need to be fixed by anyone who purchases the machine.

While the other things can be written off as design flaws on a first year machine, there are several issues that need to be addressed by the manufacturer immediately. First off, the machine’s A-arms feature the shock mounts on the under side of the A-arm. From what we were told by K-Fab’s Kenny Vaughn, (the ATV’s designer), the Chinese moved the shock mounts on the A-arms from the top to the bottom of the arm. This made the front of the machine around an inch and a half lower which upset the attitude of the machine and lowers front end ground clearance. We noticed dirt on the bottom of our front bumper where it had plowed into the bottom of the whoops at our test track. That’s not good! Also, putting the shock mounts on the bottom of the arms makes them weaker. Not ideal for a machine that seems to be targeted at performance minded riders.

Our fix for the A-arm issue came from DC Motorsports. Their replacement arms are identical in shape and width as the stock arms, but are constructed of chromoly for added strength. They cure the stock arms ground clearance and ride height issues by relocating the shock mounts to the top of the arm. They also moved the shock mounts outward ¼ inch, decreasing the leverage on the front shocks, making them a bit stiffer. All in all an excellent improvement.

Another concern that Xtreme should be addressing is the stock nerf bars. We were thrilled to hear that the machine was coming standard with nerf bars; however we were less than impressed when our machine arrived. First off, the stock heel guards weren’t installed on our machine. We have been told by several aftermarket companies that the stock heel guards are flimsy and break off, that’s most likely why they had been removed. The even bigger concern is the nerf bars plastic foot pegs. That’s right, plastic pegs! Instead of drilling all the way through the nerfs and putting a nut on the bottom of the tube, the pegs were simply screwed into the top of the tube. Our test rider, Ryan Wheeler, ripped his first peg off within five minutes of riding it. We re-drilled both pegs and within another ten minutes he had broken one of the pegs teeth off. AC racing is now offering a set of ProPeg Nerf bars with heel guards. In conclusion to this, just do yourself a favor and replace your kid’s nerfs with a set of these before his or her first ride.

Along with the nerfs we installed AC’s new aluminum font bumper. This mod alone shaved four or five pounds of weight off the machine. The bumper comes with a removable mud screen and we removed it to allow maximum air flow to the machine’s air-cooled motor.

DC Racing’s chromoly A-arms feature the same geometry as the stock A-arms, but relocate the lower shock mount from the bottom to the top of the lower A-arm. This raises the front of the machine over an inch.

Additionally, the shock mounts were moved out a bit – effectively stiffening the suspension by reducing the leverage placed on the front shocks. All in all, the DC Racing arms are a must have for this machine.

Let it Ride!

The Typhoon’s motor is surprisingly quick revving and pulls smoothly from bottom to top. It is perhaps the fastest youth size four stroke on the market. Don’t expect to beat any highly modded TRX90s however. That is unless you’re willing to dump an equal amount of cash in your Typhoon’s engine. Rather than rehash all the pre ride issues, we will skip to our last test where the machine proved to perform and hold up pretty well.

Since the Typhoon was designed to be somewhat race ready out of the box and we had already hopped ours up a bit we decided to take it to the track for some hard core testing. We conducted most of our testing at Earlywine Indoor Motocross located in Maysville, KY.

Fire the machine up and you realize that the Typhoon likes to take a few minutes to warm up before hitting the track.

Finding the machine’s choke mechanism is a pain. It is located in front of the filter under the left side bodywork. It will take quite a while to get accustomed to searching for the choke, but since it is supposed to be a racier quad, we’ll cut it some slack.

The Typhoon’s suspension works well on small to medium size bumps although the front shocks are a bit under-sprung and over-dampened. All in all, hoops are pretty fun on the Typhoon as Ryan Wheeler demonstrates. With the machine warm and percolating happily, stab the throttle and you’ll be surprised how fast the little two valve motor builds revs. Rolling through the gears the motor pulls decently down low but does its best work from the midrange up. The power delivery has no hint of a hit; the machine just builds power smoothly. The fastest way around the track with the Typhoon is to keep it wound up, however with its decent torque and auto clutch, the Typhoon can be effectively ridden at lower RPM’s in most situations.

Along with our track test we did take the Typhoon outside where we could wind it out and have some fun climbing hills. While we do not have an exact top speed for the machine, we would estimate it at around 40 mph with our new gearing. Ryan was able to climb a few decent hills with the Typhoon. He could scream up hills with momentum or climb them from a dead stop with sheer power. XC riders will enjoy the versatility of the machine’s power.

Keeping the Typhoon in the meat of its power requires you to constantly rev and shift. While the tightly paced gearing of the machine’s four speed gear box works well with its “rev it out” powerband, shifting can sometimes be difficult. The Typhoon likes you to chop the throttle for up shifts, and downshifts require precise timing. If the motor is still wound up at all, the Typhoon hates to downshift. Notchy shifting holds the Typhoon back, yet it’s the fastest kids four stroke we are aware of. We are sure the FMF pipe had some effect on the overall power, but with most of the machines measuring at or below 90cc the Typhoon has a distinct advantage.

The typhoon is easy to maneuver in the air but will bottom hard on even moderate jumps. DC Motorsports A-arms make the problem better, however serious riders will still benefit from aftermarket front shocks.

The Fox rear shock is very tunable and works considerably better than the fronts.

Suspension
The Typhoon’s suspension is on the sporty side. On the small to medium size jumps we hit at Earlywine’s the Typhoon’s suspension did surprisingly well. The front shocks are under sprung and over dampened but they do offer enough travel to help make up for their lack of setup. The front shocks respond best to medium size impacts. While they absorb small hits okay, being over-dampened holds them back a bit in the twigs and roots. Being under-sprung means the front end bottoms out if you come up short or flat land hard. The suspension worked notably better once we switched to the DC Racing arms. Still aggressive racer types will want to switch their front shocks for something from the aftermarket.

There’s no getting around a bad rear shock and fortunately the Fox Float pit bike rear shock we tested worked pretty well. The Float shock is fully adjustable making it possible to dial in for a wide variety of rider weights and types of riding. Another thing we liked about the Float rear shock was its incredible light weight. Weighing in at just over a pound the Fox Float shaves some weight off the rear end of the Typhoon. The only drawback we could find was that the rear shock needed to have its air pressure checked pretty often. Overall the rear end worked better than the front, but that was mainly due to the superiority of the Fox Float shock. We suspect that the rear suspension would work even better if it had a more conventional rear swingarm, rather than the one it borrows from its pit bike brothers.

On high speed straights the Typhoons width and length provide good straight line stability as long as your front end is dialed in correctly. The Typhoon is one of the most stable cornering youth machines available on the market today. You can take turns tightly or rail the berm with the revs up, either way the Typhoon corners very well.

The only flaw in the Typhoon’s handling comes in its steering. When traversing rough rutted terrain, there is a lot of feedback transmitted to the handlebars. This is especially noticeable in turns that are chewed up. The Typhoon would benefit greatly from a steering stabilizer.

In the braking department the Typhoon is decent, but not great. With steel braided brake lines, we would expect to be able to lock up all four wheels, this is not the case. While we were able to lock up the rear end, the power of the fronts were less than stellar. We bled the front brakes repeatedly, but they still lacked feel. All in all the Typhoon’s brakes are in line with the performance of most of today’s other mini quads however.

 

The Bottom Line

We doubt even our improved Typhoon will have the reliability of Honda’s TRX90, however if you want the ultimate performance for the least amount of money, the four stroke Typhoon could be the right choice for you. While Xtreme did not hit a bull’s eye, they at least hit the target. The Typhoon 125 is the sportiest, fastest and best handling four stroke mini in nearly stock condition available today, but it will take a set of A-arms and AC nerf bars, not to mention the other small list of mods that you will have to perform to fix the other small design flaws to get it to that point.

With a retail price of $2299, plus the $1408 in aftermarket parts, our Typhoon as tested cost $3707, more than a Honda TRX90. Our Typhoon as tested could easily beat a stock TRX90 and it would take a bit more than the difference in cost between the two machines to make the Honda perform as well. Still judging from our experience with the Typhoon, the TRX is more refined out of the crate and will require less maintenance in the long run. Still, if getting the most performance for the least amount of money is your concern, than the Typhoon 125 could be the four stroke mini for you.

 

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