Bought my 09' XP a few months ago and a coupla weeks back finally found some snow to break it in but couldnt burn all that premixed dealer break-in fuel out of it.
So today I headed up to Cottonwood pass in Colorado outside of Buena Vista...A whopping 2 hour drive from my house to 9-10K of what could pass for actual real life snow!!
Needless to say it took me another hour to burn out the break-in gas....I had an issue though. My check engine light came on very briefly during a few WFO runs and may have beeped what seemed like once. It went out right away. With a tankfull of greasy Ethanolated crap gas I had been expecting this considering I'm running a 14.8 RK Tek "Jug Buster Edition" head.
Also, My fuel gauge is a bad joke. It goes from half a tank to empty with the low fuel light on and back to half without any reason or rhyme. I dont like the XP fuel gauge! Its crap.
After burning out the last of the trashy 2 month old Ethanolated grease gas, Checking the plug condition (Good brown with anice greasy edge) I poured in 5 gallons of non-ethanol 91 mixed with 10% straight Toluene making a 93.5 blend and headed back out....
With just a RK Tek head, HPS can, 450 Mains, Shims and Rooster Built clutching and an SLP intake....This sled absolutely rips!
The check engine light did not come on at all once I had the good gas in the sled although that pesky gas gauge is evidently shot as it dosent know what to say!
Did some RPM tests and with the clickers set at 3 the sled hit 8 grand on the nose and wouldnt budge.
Put the clickers at 4...8200-8300 and rippin'. I never rode the sled with the stock clutching but as far as I can tell I cant imagine how my clutching could be better than how the Rooster Built stuff works. Its always on boil and essentially feels fault free. Hit gas and go. Go fast.
Went on a trail ride as the hillclimbing areas arent quite ready (Stumps, Rocks, Bushes) and within just a few miles on the trail realized that I could essentially wheelie the sled into any whoops or bumps like a dirt bike yet tasted the snow a few times when I found myself leaning in on off camber turns....
No sway bar, last hole on the limiter, fox zero pros set soft....You could fart and this sled will fall over on its side. I was actually wishing I had my quick connect to hook up the sway bar as the faster I started going the more squirrly and instable my sled felt especially on the off camber stuff that always seemed to lead to rocks, water and danger!....Then again I'm a dirtbike guy and an absolute newb to this sled thing so???
After ending up stuck pretty badly in some kinda weird undersnow creek or spring deal and exhuasting myself extricating I decided to call it a day. Pulled over and changed the settings on my rear torsions from 3 to 4...No good. Tried setting 2 and liked it there. I bought the heavy springs and wanted to see what effect diffrent amounts of sag have.
XP's need sag. Sled rides like crap without any static sag. Next time up I'm gonna work on the center and front shock spring preload as well.
Tried my Handlebar and flapper warmers and found that on a 45 degree day? Them things will dern near burn a guys hands!
Sled is faster than heck on a trail...Too fast for its handling abilities combined with my newb riding ability. My best analogy would be to say that riding my sled on tight trails with lots of trees is akin to ridng a CR500 Open class 2 stroke desert race bike on a single track trail...A snap at that flapper pulls up the skis and rockets me down the trail at an insane speed. This sled belongs in the steep and deep. Trails suck!!
My solo figure stuff out rides are now over...Monday I'm heading up with a buddy on a modded out big bore Polaris and the following weekend my buddy on a 2010 Artic Cat HCR will also be in the fray....
I'm curious to see how my XP runs compared to the HCR and the Polaris.
Sorry for the long post I figger maybe some other first year new dudes can chime and share in the joy!!
So today I headed up to Cottonwood pass in Colorado outside of Buena Vista...A whopping 2 hour drive from my house to 9-10K of what could pass for actual real life snow!!
Needless to say it took me another hour to burn out the break-in gas....I had an issue though. My check engine light came on very briefly during a few WFO runs and may have beeped what seemed like once. It went out right away. With a tankfull of greasy Ethanolated crap gas I had been expecting this considering I'm running a 14.8 RK Tek "Jug Buster Edition" head.
Also, My fuel gauge is a bad joke. It goes from half a tank to empty with the low fuel light on and back to half without any reason or rhyme. I dont like the XP fuel gauge! Its crap.
After burning out the last of the trashy 2 month old Ethanolated grease gas, Checking the plug condition (Good brown with anice greasy edge) I poured in 5 gallons of non-ethanol 91 mixed with 10% straight Toluene making a 93.5 blend and headed back out....
With just a RK Tek head, HPS can, 450 Mains, Shims and Rooster Built clutching and an SLP intake....This sled absolutely rips!
The check engine light did not come on at all once I had the good gas in the sled although that pesky gas gauge is evidently shot as it dosent know what to say!
Did some RPM tests and with the clickers set at 3 the sled hit 8 grand on the nose and wouldnt budge.
Put the clickers at 4...8200-8300 and rippin'. I never rode the sled with the stock clutching but as far as I can tell I cant imagine how my clutching could be better than how the Rooster Built stuff works. Its always on boil and essentially feels fault free. Hit gas and go. Go fast.
Went on a trail ride as the hillclimbing areas arent quite ready (Stumps, Rocks, Bushes) and within just a few miles on the trail realized that I could essentially wheelie the sled into any whoops or bumps like a dirt bike yet tasted the snow a few times when I found myself leaning in on off camber turns....
No sway bar, last hole on the limiter, fox zero pros set soft....You could fart and this sled will fall over on its side. I was actually wishing I had my quick connect to hook up the sway bar as the faster I started going the more squirrly and instable my sled felt especially on the off camber stuff that always seemed to lead to rocks, water and danger!....Then again I'm a dirtbike guy and an absolute newb to this sled thing so???
After ending up stuck pretty badly in some kinda weird undersnow creek or spring deal and exhuasting myself extricating I decided to call it a day. Pulled over and changed the settings on my rear torsions from 3 to 4...No good. Tried setting 2 and liked it there. I bought the heavy springs and wanted to see what effect diffrent amounts of sag have.
XP's need sag. Sled rides like crap without any static sag. Next time up I'm gonna work on the center and front shock spring preload as well.
Tried my Handlebar and flapper warmers and found that on a 45 degree day? Them things will dern near burn a guys hands!
Sled is faster than heck on a trail...Too fast for its handling abilities combined with my newb riding ability. My best analogy would be to say that riding my sled on tight trails with lots of trees is akin to ridng a CR500 Open class 2 stroke desert race bike on a single track trail...A snap at that flapper pulls up the skis and rockets me down the trail at an insane speed. This sled belongs in the steep and deep. Trails suck!!
My solo figure stuff out rides are now over...Monday I'm heading up with a buddy on a modded out big bore Polaris and the following weekend my buddy on a 2010 Artic Cat HCR will also be in the fray....
I'm curious to see how my XP runs compared to the HCR and the Polaris.
Sorry for the long post I figger maybe some other first year new dudes can chime and share in the joy!!
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