Warrior Upgrades – Handlebars and Banshee Shocks

In my continuing quest to improve my 1988 Yamaha Warrior I made two modifications.

Banshee shocks compared to a Warrior Shock
The first major change was adding two Yamaha Banshee front shocks.

As you can see in this picture, the Banshee shocks are longer than the stock Warrior shocks.

Warrior with one Banshee shock installed
I purchased both of these of ebay after a significant amount of research into the best/easiest modification to make. Paid around $100 for both, not a bad deal when a good set of aftermarket shocks are AT LEAST 3 times that. This picture is of the bike with one shock installed.

It was a bit tricky putting these on by myself. Had to compress them down an inch or so, and that’s quite a chore by hand.

Warrior with both Banshee shocks installed

The shocks turned out to be a GREAT upgrade. The weekend before I put them on we made a trip to Red Feather, and the Warrior suspension really wore me out. Jason has an LT250R, Jeff has a Wolverine, and Jed has a Banshee. I was always well behind these guys, not just because I’m slower (actually my Warrior keeps up really well with the Wolverine), but because the bike just didn’t handle well.

Shortly after putting these one we went up the Poudre to the Green Mountain trail. Rode in the snow and had a blast. The Warrior was like a different machine, much more manageable. Worked great, right until Jeff broke a tie rod, but that’s another story…

You might also notice the new handlebars. These are YZ High bend I ordered from Rocky Mountain ATV. Nothing special, just steel bars. Figured I’d use them until I bent them, since I wasn’t sure how they would work. I’m pretty happy with them, make the bike much more comfortable to ride. I

will probably get the same bend in some aluminum bars sometime down the road.

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