Boyesen's new Rage Cage air intake system introduces a much longer center divider that extends into the inlet manifold, with two benefits. It encourages laminar flow and keeps the air speed up for better filling on top end.
The reed itself is still Boyesen's proven stacked double reed design. The Power Wing is an insert that installs in the carb inlet venturi and divides it into upper and lower laminar flow areas. When the slide is below half throttle, all flow passes below the divider, which reduces turbulence and improves laminar flow at smaller throttle openings.
Our testThe sled we used was a 2006 Ski-Doo Mach Z asphalt drag racer. The drag strip offers a great test bed because even small performance changes show up on the time slip. Kevin Robertson races this sled in the Summit Pro Series, the Midwest Snowmobile Asphalt Series and
American Snowmobiler's Super Sled Shoot-Out. The Mach has a double pyramid reed cage as stock equipment, and this design offers a large flow area at top rpm. If Boyesen's Rage Cage could improve on this set-up, it would have to be very efficient.
Kevin and I discussed the Boyesen products, and after testing, adjusting and racing, here's what we found:
• On the stock Mach there's a delay in the opening of the power valves, which causes a flat spot. With the Rage Cage and Power Wing installed, the flat spot was minimized, almost eliminated.
• The throttle response improved, especially when getting off the throttle and then on it again.
• Times were substantially improved. In the 1/8th-mile, Kevin gained between .05 and .10 seconds. This translates to a two sled-length gain at 128 mph with a 10.1 sec. elapsed time in the ¼-mile.
• Quality is superior to the stock reed and intake boots.
• Power improved after each pass and leveled out after 10 passes.
• After level-out, each pass was within .02 seconds of each other, showing consistency, a big plus for bracket racing.
• The sled idled better too. The Boyesen add-on cleaned up the stock setup, which would sometimes idle low and erratically.
• Kevin says he'll get some more performance out of the reed cage by adjusting the fuel mixture to take advantage of the increased laminar flow. The biggest improvement was in acceleration and throttle response, which makes the Rage Cage and Power Wing a good fit for trail-performance and also snocross racing.
Note: Premium
AmSnow members can see a
video of Kevin explaining and showing how the Rage Cage works under
AmSnow's
tech video page.