This 2017 Honda Pioneer 1000 has been reborn as a work/play mud dominator.
Hot off the heels of SuperATV’s over-the-top Turbo mud build, we’ve got a 2017 Honda Pioneer 1000 ready to tear through some serious mud holes. Just like our Turbo build, it’s made from only off-the-shelf SuperATV parts. If you want this build, it’s easy to get. Here’s the full breakdown.
When you do mud, you want some serious clearance. There’s no better way to get stuck in the mud than to let your belly drag through it. To make this working man’s machine into the working man’s mud dominator, we needed clearance, clearance, clearance. So first thing’s first: let’s lift this beast.
We started with SuperATV’s Honda Pioneer 6″ Lift Kit. It comes complete with front and rear A-arms with SuperATV uniballs and studs preinstalled, our gusseted Z-bend tie rods, and lift brackets—all of which come with a lifetime warranty, by the way. And of course it comes with our industry-leading axles—you choose between Rhino Brand Axles or Rhino 2.0 Axles. You’re not going to get too far running stock.
What we’re after here is clearance, though, and that’s what we got—17-1/2″ of clearance, to be exact. It’s a good start, but if we’re going to be waist deep in mud, we’ll need to go even higher.
How do you go higher when you’ve already got a 6″ lift installed? Easy—with a Gen 2 GDP Portal Gear Lift from SuperATV. For this build we went with the 6″ portal gear lift because we wanted that 45% gear reduction and the extra 6″ of clearance. That brought us up to 23.5″ of clearance, but there’s more to portals than just lift.
That 45% gear reduction means we can turn bigger tires through thicker mud more easily. The proof is in the pudding (er, mud) and this Honda pulls through the thickest peanut butter mud like they’re hot knives through butter. These portals are no joke.
Remember when I called this the working man’s mud dominator? Maybe I should have called it a mud intimidator because we put 36″ Intimidator Tires on 18″ Healy Fast Series Wheels. Intimidators are top-of-the-line mud tires featuring deep lugs and an aggressive, self-cleaning tread pattern.
The thing about Intimidators is that they love to rip on every terrain—not just mud. We can get some work done around the farm then head down our favorite mud trails without compromising our traction anywhere. No matter what surface you’re driving on, Intimidators get the job done.
By the way, with these 36″ Intimidators installed, we now have 28″ of clearance. That’s more than double stock and gives us tons of room to play in the mud.
This thing is gonna get messy—that’s why we made it—but we still want it to look pristine when we spray it down at the end of the day. That’s why we made sure to get some serious bumpers and brush guards to keep our Pioneer 1000 in one piece.
We protected the front end with a custom bumper that gave us room for a 12″ LED Light Bar and a 4500 lb. Black Ops Winch.
If you’re building a mud monster for yourself, you can use SuperATV’s front bumper for the Pioneer 1000. This brush guard is perfect for the job for a few reasons. For starters, it’s made of 1.75″ diameter tubing, so it can handle some hard hits. Next, this really is a complete front brush guard, meaning it covers the whole front end, including the lights and grill. If you take some hard hits from weird angles, as you tend to do when you’re mud riding, your Pioneer 1000 will stay dent free.
Finally, the front brush guard has room for our 4500 lb. Black Ops Winch, which we never go riding without. How else are our buddies supposed to make it through all these mud holes?
Our rear bumper gets a lot of work done too. It gives our Pioneer some extra protection and provides us with two clevis tow hooks, all while allowing us to continue using the dump bed and tailgate. Those tow hooks are really handy for pulling people out of the mud who didn’t quite upgrade enough to make it through.
We’re not quite done yet. There are a few more things we added that make this Honda Pioneer even better for hauling hay, flinging mud, and everything in between.
We had to have some nice polycarbonate on this machine—how else are we supposed to keep all that mud out of our teeth? We grabbed SuperATV’s scratch-resistant polycarbonate full windshield and tinted roof. We wanted to keep out the elements and all of the rocks, dust, and debris that can be found at our favorite riding spots.
Our full windshield and tinted roof are perfect for mud because they’re scratch resistant, so they won’t get scuffed up. The polycarbonate material also means nothing’s breaking through, which is great when you’re going hard on the trails. Since going hard is all we know, we needed windshields that are as tough as the rest of this machine.
That’s everything we put on our Pioneer. It’ll make your knees weak if you’re not the one behind the wheel, and you can bet we have a ton of fun riding it. Check out the video below to get a closer look at this build, and then head over to SuperATV.com where you can find everything you need to turn your own machine into a beast.
