Has any tried the snow flap from the Catalyst ZR or Riot on an M? Looks like the Riot/ZR flap bolts onto the stock bumper of the M, but curious if the shorter tunnel on the M would allow the track catch the snow flap? Going down trails with the scratchers down seems to work as Vern states above, however following a single track up through the trees is where the temp light comes on for me, even if the snow is soft. This is the situation where I think flap could really help. Hate to leave the scratchers down when picking your way through the trees and I don't know if the scratchers give much benefit when moving slow and in soft snow???
Over heating???
- Thread starter Drlsldr
- Start date
It will fit but Country cat has had it on back order since the beginning of time and with AC's situation who knows when it will come available from them sure their are other dealers who may have it . Most of us who retroed the Linq flap want something that can easily be removed once ya get to the fun stuff, then put back on easily or not . With the stock bumper it's easier than with the Evo bumper ( see this post) I wasn't able to try mine this weekend as I had 3 days of winter search and rescue snowmobile training and it rained at 6,000 feet Sat. night all flippin nite 
so the 858 stayed in the trailer rode the King cat . Hopefully upcoming weekend give it a shot !!
so the 858 stayed in the trailer rode the King cat . Hopefully upcoming weekend give it a shot !!
Country cat just notified me they had the above snow flap back in stock FYI.
Soooooo MTNVIPERS snow flap mod and the mod to the mod works , our snow here sucks even at 7400 ft like a friggin brick in the morning and a snow cone by 1:00 . Location we rode today was alot of trails to get to play areas first stop about 8 miles from the trucks snow was hard even off trail , both sets of scratchers down the 858 ran about 135 which is about a 10 degree improvement . But by moving my snow flap straps out on the Evo bumper it in turn gets the flap even closer to the track and it ran anywhere between 110 and 125 a total 18-20 degrees drop . Next stop was 12 miles across the valley with snow softening up still ran 125 ish so the flap works and the mod for the Evo bumper works . Sled pulls like a flippin freight train, in that kinda snow it wanted to blow over and get me a couple times could climb anything . Dropping front ski shocks to 50 helped with the exit stage left syndrome in the crust , gonna go to 40psi middle setting on the clickers in this set up stuff . Don't feel any clutching issues but haven't had it in any deep stuff yet 5.5 hours 103 miles still getting stronger , zero bogg , no weird noises descent economy 4.5 gallons in 64 miles lots of long steep pulls not even working it hard fact it became a game to see how slow I could pull some of them and power out !! Total different front ride than my 20 hardcore night and day easier just gotta get used to it ,,, needs to snow .... Alot
Last edited:
Some guys in Sweden are making little fan cooled heat exchangers: https://www.merafritid.se/kylarkit-arctic-cat-catalyst-600858
Kinda spendy though at about $750 plus shipping. I need to get something working on mine. It actually seems to do better on hard pack with the scratchers than in a few inches of snow. Went this weekend and spent close to an hour trying to get back to the parking lot from less than a mile away. Had to stop 3 times and let it cool down for 15 minutes or so. Even in areas where I could get a little speed it was overheating. Just about ready to park this thing and pull out the old 2010 M8. THis was never an issue with it. I have the skidoo flap on the way and also a set of ski scratchers. It's just annoying we have to resort to these band aid fixes.
Kinda spendy though at about $750 plus shipping. I need to get something working on mine. It actually seems to do better on hard pack with the scratchers than in a few inches of snow. Went this weekend and spent close to an hour trying to get back to the parking lot from less than a mile away. Had to stop 3 times and let it cool down for 15 minutes or so. Even in areas where I could get a little speed it was overheating. Just about ready to park this thing and pull out the old 2010 M8. THis was never an issue with it. I have the skidoo flap on the way and also a set of ski scratchers. It's just annoying we have to resort to these band aid fixes.
Yup it does suck but we all bitched for decades about weight weight weight so they got rid of the rear exchanger !! Just make sure your Linq flap is no further than about 4-5" from the ends of your lugs won't work as well if it's further or not at all ! Ski scratchers help but not as much as the flap !!
I must be lucky I haven’t had any problems with over heating when I’m riding. Just when my wife rode it but she didn’t leave the trail to cool it off. If I get off the trails I have no problem keeping it cool. It stays relatively the same as my dad’s ascender mountain cat. Yes if I don’t get off the trail it would probably get hot. But who wants to stay on the trail.
On my 858 I have to constantly brap brap when on the trails with scratchers down. It runs between one and two bars from HOT.
Update on my sled: Had taken it to the dealership to have them check it over again. They had it a week and weren't able to get to it so I picked it up and brought it home. It was recommended to me by Mtn_Viper that clutching might actually be causing the misfire issue so I pulled the clutches and reverted it all back to stock. While I had the clutches off I also drained the coolant and replaced it with Engine Ice which I use in my M8 and I think it does help a bit. Headed up to the mountain which had just received some new snow. Sled ran great and no sign of misfire and I was able to ride without any overheating. Snow was maybe 6-8" so nothing deep but enough to keep the temps in check. I did notice the previous ride that the misfire symptom seemed to come on when the temp was getting up there close to the overheating zone so I'm really not sure if the clutching was the problem or if it was the hot situation doing it. Anyway, seems to be doing good at the moment. I do need to tweak the clutching though as my peak RPM was topping out at 7900. Stock weights the dealership installed are 70g. The Speedwerx setup as configured by them came in at 65g. Sled definitely ripped better with those. Cranked to 8300 easy pulling really hard. I'll re-install them and the helix and give it another try. That clutch is a pain in the ass to weasel out of there not to mention it never pops off the crank easy either.
I’m very tempted to try the radiator kit from Sweden, but didn’t see how I could order it without using Google translator as it’s not in English is there a different website? I want to be able to ride my catalyst in all conditions and I think this would be the ultimate fix and don’t care about any extra weight at this time.
The tech at my dealership is the one who mentioned it to me although he never mentioned who made it. I just did a Google search and found the one in Sweden. Would be nice to find someone making them here and hopefully a bit cheaper.
Went riding today for the biggest ride of the year so far. Had to run about a 2 mile stretch of hard pack down a road which included a couple of bare spots. Of course it was all whooped out but even still my temps stayed at 135-140 during that stretch. the next section is a half mile run across a lake that had probably 4-6" or fresh on the top. The stupid thing gets hotter running in that stuff! Was bumping 142-145. The next area is an ass kicking single track. Totally whooped out and in many sections absolutely no place to pull off and hit any powder. Didn't get too far up that before starting to overheat. had to stop and let it cool down for a while. Popped the the exhaust side panel on took chunks of hard snow and dropped them down in the tub against the heat exchanger. Cools it down faster than waiting forever but it didn't take too long before heating up again. Just can't maintain enough speed for the scratchers to be effective. Just before exiting that stretch which finally opens up where you can drive off trail, it overheated in the middle of a single track and was giving the P0217 code which is basically the overheat code. Had to heft it off the trail and wait. Got passed up by plenty of Polaris' and Skiidoo's not having any issue. Anyway, finally got to the main zone and had probably 6-8" on top of firmer snow. Again, it's a struggle to keep it below 140. Spent the whole day staring at the stupid temp reading. Kinda takes the fun out of riding at that point. My buddies Khaos would run at 95 - 100 in the same snow. Just seems ridiculous and I'm seriously considering ditching this thing next fall and going with something else. Is anyone else running this hot in powder? I didn't see a temp lower that 127 all day and that was coasting downhill in powder!
They do run warmer than their brand X peers for sure. As long as the bars were green I just ignore the gauge and if they turn orange I find some snow or put the scratchers down.
If there's a '26 model I bet the cooling system will be addressed. Sadly I don't expect any recall that would address it on existing units. I WILL have an extra set of scratchers next year in case one breaks. Might save a trip!
AC needs to put the Ascender upper tunnel cooler on the Catalyst. It looks bigger. Last weekend rode my Catalyst the first two days and the 19 on the third. The 19 runs cooler and easier to keep cool. That upper cooler looks a lot smaller on the 858.
Sadly, why would a company that's circling the drain spend that capital?
What temps were you seeing prior to adding the flap? Mine will be in the 135-140 range on hard pack with scratchers assuming a you can run fast enough. The thing that annoys and concerns me is it doesn't really run cooler in powder. Yesterday had it in fairly decent snow conditions and temps were always 130+. My buddy's 850 Khaos ran at 95-100. Trail getting in was a battle trying to keep it cool. had to stop several times.
It runs consistently 20 to 30F degrees cooler with the flap on in pretty much all conditions. I usually take it off when in deeper powder snow. That being said, there are a few times when I just left it on and the temps were typically about 20F degrees cooler, or in the 115-125F range while in deeper powder.
Yesterday I did have it get hot with the flap on and scratchers down. But the trail in was very rough and hard pack to the point where you could only go about 10 mph. Pretty much everybody was running hot under those conditions though.
Even though I have the stock rear bumper, I've thought about extending the straps like arcticridr did. This would move the flap closer to the track, and it probably would even make it more effective in extreme (going really slow) conditions. However, having it stick out somewhat does help for those times when I just want to leave it on all day. Most of the time I can't even tell it's back there.
The flap seems to be holding up well, although I did add a couple more rivets to the backer plates from what it shows in the pics in this thread. Mainly this was to help prevent snow/ice from building up between the backer plates and the OEM Cat flap. It makes it a little easier to remove/install.
Overall, I'm very pleased with this mod as it takes away a lot of the worry about overheating my sled.
Last edited:
As I said before mine stuck to far out and did nothing till I extended the straps and added a riser under each one(straps) that said after I lengthened it we had a ride that required us to go across a 8 mile flat to get to the big bowl we were going to , 1/2 was on the hard packed frozen groomed trail other half was skirting the edge (whole valley had flooded so couldn't cut across) temps ran prolly between 110-130 instead of 125-150 as before . Having the EVO rear bumper allows me to change the distance the flap is from the track just by moving the straps in (higher) our out (lower) , so if and when we ever get anything worthy of calling deep I think I can raise it and be good to go , if not takes 2 minutes to remove and stow in the tunnel pack.. That is also with two sets of scratchers which were out on before the first ride . So yes it does indeed help
Over flow hose,
Not sure if this has been brought up. I was out riding without the side panels and noticed when I stopped a thin layer on top in the antifreeze bottle.
I thought the antifreeze was looking a little off to this point but kind of blew it off.
Easy fix, just rerouted it to the other side and stuck it in the frame like the tank breather.
You can actually see it here tipped but it's not always noticeable, mixes into the antifreeze at times and has dulled the antifreeze. No more fresh look
The over flow hose is clean externally, that grime is inside.
Overflow routed into the frame and some wrap on the bare pipe.
Not sure if this has been brought up. I was out riding without the side panels and noticed when I stopped a thin layer on top in the antifreeze bottle.
I thought the antifreeze was looking a little off to this point but kind of blew it off.
Easy fix, just rerouted it to the other side and stuck it in the frame like the tank breather.
You can actually see it here tipped but it's not always noticeable, mixes into the antifreeze at times and has dulled the antifreeze. No more fresh look
The over flow hose is clean externally, that grime is inside.
Overflow routed into the frame and some wrap on the bare pipe.
Thanks
I'm confused but then I am not , I see the residue but to me that indicates a possible combustion leak into the cooling system ? Head oring or base gasket! Slim chance their is residue in the coolers /pipes and hoses causing that ! It (residue) can't get their from the outside up the hose unless it's plumbed into something with pressure ! I would find someone (auto shop) with a block tester kit and have them draw a sample of the coolant and see if it turns color indicating an internal leak ,(hydrocarbons) before its to late ? You can have a leak into the cooling system and yet lose minimal to no coolant ???Over flow hose,
Not sure if this has been brought up. I was out riding without the side panels and noticed when I stopped a thin layer on top in the antifreeze bottle.
I thought the antifreeze was looking a little off to this point but kind of blew it off.
Easy fix, just rerouted it to the other side and stuck it in the frame like the tank breather.
You can actually see it here tipped but it's not always noticeable, mixes into the antifreeze at times and has dulled the antifreeze. No more fresh look
