I'll stick with running just my Pa head. No other mods other than clutching. The throttle response is wicked, and for tight trees and boondocking, it is more power than is generally needed. That, and it just flat runs awesome all day everyday. Slp's jetting, and now efi fuel mapping has ALWAYS sucked up here in AK. With the jets, we could fix them and make stuff run. With the controllers, there is only so much the user can adjust. I have ridden with a stage 3 set-up here yet that can consistantly out run mine with just a pa head. Most wish that they had gone that route instead in the end.
I sure wish Slp would swallow their pride and hooked up with one of the mod shops up here and let them dial in their products up here in our air, for our conditions and then offer an "AK" setup, not just a 0-3000' Setup. There is a big difference and they just don't seem to get that.
Slp does make some great products and I have owned many, and no doubt will by more. But their fuel mapping sucks for us and we can no longer adjust that out ourselves. Until they change that, or someone with an slp can routinely out perform my sled, I'll stick with what I've got. It is so fun to pull the rope and go, never open a hood all day, and out run the hot rods all day.
Sorry to get the thread off track but I must respond.
NO, we get it just fine. Your not seeing the big picture here. Please take a minute and look at it from our point of view.
We understand tuning adjustments have to be made for different conditions and area's......this is a very basic concept. But as a company, we have to deliver products that relate to the masses. We don't have a choice....that's the nature of business.
Every part must be tested and meet our standard before it can be sold. But R&D is extremal expensive and time consuming requiring us to prioritize what we test and where we test it in order for it to be applicable to the majority of buyers. It is simply not a smart business move to send a team to Alaska and spend twice as much time traveling to test in conditions that only apply to a small percentage of customers. Don't get me wrong, we would love to test in Alaska and some day we hope to have a test facility there, but right now the expense is to high and the market won't support it.
As far as having someone else test for us....well, we have tried this a time or two and it just doesn't work very well. It has taken us 40 years of learning, training, investing in technology and expensive equipment to get our people the knowledge to be at the top of the game. We have trade secrets and experience that you don't just pass on to an outsider over night. We just can't trust our reputation and companies future to other people who may not have the experience, time, tools and resources that we have invested in over the last 40 years.
Occasionally customers do have specific calibration requirements that differ from conditions we tested. In most cases, if the customer will call us, we can generally make a recommendation that will get them pointed in the right direction. We realize Alaska has some of these conditions but in most cases our specifications for low elevation apply to Alaska and are very accurate
if used as recommended. We make every effort to make sure that a customer is getting the right product for his/her specific conditions.
As far as the stage III, you will be very happy with how it performs compared to the stock machine. I like it because it is a complete package, with proper fueling to go with it...this is key for long term reliability and runability.
Dustin
