Where did you find a 140/280? Dalton?
858 Updates Coming from AC????
- Thread starter Chewy22
- Start date
Venom makes a 140/215 that's the one I was meaning. Green/blue
With the fancy G8, why isn't the technology there just to download the calibration update over the air through wi-fi or whatever? Cat has limited dealers and 4-6 hour round trip drives for a procedure that takes 15 minutes makes no sense.
It looks cool and all but I am in agreement with Ryan Harris as far as guages go.
It looks cool and all but I am in agreement with Ryan Harris as far as guages go.
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Driver
Well-known member
Straight 48 on a mountain sled for high altitudes? Thats just crazy. I would go for straight 42 or 40 even.
Helix angle and what a sled will pull is related to a bunch of different things: power output, spring rate, helix diameter, clutch diameter, final gear ratio, driver diameter, track load (lug and length), etc. The Arctic Cat secondary uses a pretty large diameter helix in comparison to some other designs. Cat also has a low final drive ratio of 2.63. This is quite a bit lower than the Polaris QD ratios. So a steeper helix than one might think seems to be warranted. On the old Ascender chassis dropping to a 45 degree seemed popular. 858 might pull the 48 fine in some conditions.
That being said the stock clutching calibration seems to be off the mark for a lot of people.
That being said the stock clutching calibration seems to be off the mark for a lot of people.
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Driver
Well-known member
I get your point your trying to make, but 48 helix is still really steep (for deep snow riding) no matter how short the overall gearing is. Cat has drivers on 3,5" pitch with 7 teeth. Its much faster than Doo with 6 tooth with same 3,5" pitch. So they came back from short gearing on belt drive by longer gearing on drivers.
I would say you should rather choose the helix by the standard how you want to perform the out put of the power, not by that much how much power you got. Using steep angle helix will make the sled feel sluggish, especially on deep snow where the load from the track is enormous. Its not that engine would not have the capacity to run that helix, but it just makes the sled feel slow on throttle. I have seen tons of vids of 858 running +8000rpm, but still seeing its sluggish and slow (on throttle) in almost all of them. I was wondering why is that, and no wonder after learning this.
I would try straight 42 / 160-280 or 40 / 160-260 spring, Im sure that thing would come to life after that. But this is just a first guess and should do some testing to see how it runs on proper conditions, might need a bit heavier weights also after that or softer primary spring. Unfortunately not any of my friends is riding a cat anymore so lets see if can ride one this season.
I would say you should rather choose the helix by the standard how you want to perform the out put of the power, not by that much how much power you got. Using steep angle helix will make the sled feel sluggish, especially on deep snow where the load from the track is enormous. Its not that engine would not have the capacity to run that helix, but it just makes the sled feel slow on throttle. I have seen tons of vids of 858 running +8000rpm, but still seeing its sluggish and slow (on throttle) in almost all of them. I was wondering why is that, and no wonder after learning this.
I would try straight 42 / 160-280 or 40 / 160-260 spring, Im sure that thing would come to life after that. But this is just a first guess and should do some testing to see how it runs on proper conditions, might need a bit heavier weights also after that or softer primary spring. Unfortunately not any of my friends is riding a cat anymore so lets see if can ride one this season.
40 is way too low even on the 800 with a variety of springs. I tried a 43 on the ascender 800 and it was terrible at 11k ft. Would have instant backshift and rev, but overall did not pull hard and was consistently 5mph less track speed in deep pow. I ended up with a 46 straight and it was great IMO. I feel this 858 will pull a 48 fine from how mine has felt so far. Time will tell. Cat and Polaris pull helix angles totally different from each other.
Got a call from my dealer today. He took two sleds out last weekend, but unfortunately was only able to ride some roads. One sled had the new flash the other didn't. He said there was a noticeable difference between the two. Much better midrange and some improved low end. He said CAT definitely got some, if not most, of the power back that Ibexx was finding. Not able to know for sure w/o Dyno but was impressed with the new flash. They were riding about 10k elevation and he had the Cat 10k+ clutching in. He said he was taching 8150-8200 while still in break in. He's thinking there may need to be some clutching adjustments to cats recommendations, but says it difficult to know for sure until out of break in and in some good snow.
This isn't anything earth shattering, or something that we haven't seen, but this report moves it from 4th hand social media to a trusted source for me.
This isn't anything earth shattering, or something that we haven't seen, but this report moves it from 4th hand social media to a trusted source for me.
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Driver
Well-known member
Sounds to me that you would have needed heavier weights or softer primary spring.
R
Reddragon800
Well-known member
Most people forget that Cat uses a larger driver then polaris or doo. 7 tooth 3.5P vs 6 tooth 3.5P. Even tho cat has a lower gear ratio - the 1-1 shift factory is close to the same as polaris but higher then doo.
A straight helix never works well in a mountain sled. A multi angle will perform better in all conditions.
R
Reddragon800
Well-known member
When testing in Revy, the 858 cant even get passed half shift with the 48 helix and horrible track speeds.
Ran a variation of combo helix's/ spring rates last year @ 10,00' on the Ascender- Best I liked Geared to 2.42 and ran a cut helix 54/48.30 with a 155/240.
Pulled like a horse and upshift decent and backshift was fast! Worked pretty good and waiting to at least try that secondary in the 858-to see how it likes it.
Didn't have to mess with my primary after that
Pulled like a horse and upshift decent and backshift was fast! Worked pretty good and waiting to at least try that secondary in the 858-to see how it likes it.
Didn't have to mess with my primary after that
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Reddragon800
Well-known member
Gearing up is the wrong direction. Your loosing efficiency by not getting closer to 1-1 shift.
2.6 is way to low gearing- and with the helix & the gearing so much quicker in the trees
@Reddragon800 , would you recommend this setup for 6k-8k elevation? Or something a bit different? I believe Revy is a bit lower in elevation...
I didn't realize Cat used bigger drivers, although I'd never had a reason to dig into it; that's a big advantage. Avid is making a drop and roll kit for Axys/Matryx sleds - it seems there are significant gains in rolling resistance and snow evacuation - and I have to wonder if Polaris will incorporate some amount of drop and roll eventually. Anyway, you do have to incorporate the gear up factor with a bigger driver; you wouldn't want to go from a 6t drive to a 7t without a significant gear down. Seems Polaris and Cat are pretty similarly geared when you take the driver into account: 21" (driver circumference) divided by 2.27 (gear ratio) = 9.25 for Polaris; 24.5 / 2.63 = 9.31 for Cat. So effectively, Cat has the same final drive ratio, despite being the lower gearing.
Gearing can offer as much gain as clutching, maybe more. Higher elevation calls for gearing down since the engine doesn't have the power to shift the clutches out as far. More low-speed, on/off throttle riding also calls for gear down since it helps with the initial pull. And low elevation and more speed and WOT could call for a gear up. Trouble is, with belt drives you've got few or no options other than an expensive aftermarket kit, and even chain drives can cost hundreds to change around.
Good visual of the difference at the 7:00 mark in this video:
Rolling resistance in the drive of the track is one of the reasons the Cat 800 still competed with the 850 NA sleds.
If AC's marketing was worth $0.02 they would have been toting this since the first alpha in 2019.
Well, it is a little unfair comparing to the Khaos since that's deliberately got a more aggressive approach angle. That said, I'm guessing the standard Pro is about halfway between the Khaos and the Catalyst due to the smaller drivers. The bigger wheels and drivers definitely add up, and I don't get why Polaris has gone from Pro to Axys to Matryx without really moving the drivers in the tunnel, even as tracks have grown from 2.4 to 2.6 to 3.0 to now 3.25. The only thing that really changed was shrinking the driver in the Axys - which is a band-aid. The big wheels help backing up too. There are other areas (like clutching) where people don't realize they're paying for more HP, then throwing it away before it gets to the snow. Cat should be hyping rolling resistance - not that you see much about that kind of thing from anyone, like when Polaris's clutching was most of what kept their 800 competitive. Still, it's one of those things that tends to go over the heads of many buyers.
Cat isn't going to out-do Polaris in marketing, but they need to be doing something. All you really need is three guys: one who's a good rider and good at talking about it, one who's good at the technical aspects (and can talk about them), and a production guy to record, edit, and upload it to keep the media feeds going. Literally pay nothing for advertising, just use YouTube, FB, IG, etc - combined with word of mouth - and they could be doing more than they are today for $250k per year or so. Of course, that's beating a dead horse yet again.
Cat isn't going to out-do Polaris in marketing, but they need to be doing something. All you really need is three guys: one who's a good rider and good at talking about it, one who's good at the technical aspects (and can talk about them), and a production guy to record, edit, and upload it to keep the media feeds going. Literally pay nothing for advertising, just use YouTube, FB, IG, etc - combined with word of mouth - and they could be doing more than they are today for $250k per year or so. Of course, that's beating a dead horse yet again.
It costs money to re-engineer stuff and that hits the stock price. Stock price is king in all industries today. Doesn't matter how great/crappy the product or service is as long as you can find ways to keep it growing.
