Get Ready....
- Thread starter JoeyD23
- Start date
bluediamond
Active Member
Very excited for the XX media ride to see what they think of the new car. No way will Polaris stay at #3 so this Textron unveil will be good for everyone.
sand shark
Well-Known Member
Should be good times. For some that have already driven the new Wildcat XX they all seem to like it. The front suspension set up looks nice too.
Polaris will for sure comeback swinging.
///Airdam Clutches
Active Member
i have had the pleasure of riding in most of whats coming out already. and know whats in the works for the next 3 years down the line and you guys may as well just learn to love or hate the belts but they are here to stay cause its cheap and it works. the money it takes to design a shifter style trans, the maintenance, and the issues, just dont work out for the bean counters when the CVT clutches and belt as so cheap. you would be blown away to know how much these manufacturers spend on a clutch, its literally pennies compared to what you would even remotely think. its not an oversight, its the cheapest way out, thats why they do it and use them.
i have been helping behind the scenes for years and really been helping can-am make some great leaps over the last few years with their clutches and honestly theirs are one of the most bullet proof out of the box now, the polaris CAN be bullet proof its just unfortunate that they spend so little money on them. The could built it better, they test working good prototyles, but the bean counters just always go with whats the cheapest with little to no regard to longevity or whats best. i have seen them make a switch to a cheaper part that knowingly doesnt work worth a crap over $5 per unit. thats each machine would cost them $5 more to build, make the clutching tons better, and make everything last so much longer, but because the better item was $5 more they ditched it and overlooked it. you guys hate it but sometimes its not necessarily a decision that the engineers make and i am sure the guys designing these machines would love to build the most bullet proof machine on the market but at that point they would cut into their profit margins.
i am excited to see where this HP war is taking us, i love to get to play with the new machines and work on so many customers machines, i truthfully get a huge kick out of seeing and helping racers win races. i can say without a shadow of a doubt that i know exactly what it takes to make all of the current and upcoming machines work in a racing application without any belt issues. if you guys are scared of the belts, you could remedy these issues by doing clutch work. i agree, when you spend $26,000 on a plastic box with 4 wheels and a steering wheel and some fancy shocks, you should get a bullet proof everything with a real warranty considering you can buy a 4 door toyota tacoma 4wd for $30,000 and it comes with electric windows and power door locks and a radio and a real engine and trans and diffs and seats and all sorts of fancy stuff and a legit 3 year warranty. i believe the manufacturers are chasing a big wave and realizing the customers will buy whatever they put out at any price they put on it and thats why they are so expensive and you get so little for it. chock it up to the cost of a toy, do some clutch work, dont be scared of the belts cause we can remedy those issues now-a-days.
with what Textron has coming down the line, what polaris has now and coming down the line, and what can-am plans to do with their chassis over the next 3 years i can assure you its going to be a fun ride. i have always liked the arctic cat suspension and the new RG suspension design on the AC/Textron machine is freaking amazing. whoops at 80mph holding a cell phone in one hand while videoing and its smooth as glass. acceleration is stupid fast. polaris is making changes and pretty soon we are going to have a new class in BITD for the machines they are cooking up. pretty awesome, but you may as well be prepared for at least 3 more years of belts cause whats in line for that far back all has belts that i know.
honda has a machine, i just dont know why it hasnt hit the market yet. similar to the yamaha. i saw yamaha in Glamis on a tuesday during the summer back in 2012 testing they had Gecko roped off and securtity guards at the guard shack so you couldnt go past. i knew they had something coming and it eventually came out in the yxz. i have seen honda out in ocotillo and plaster city two years ago. they are testing something, i dont know what it looks like but they wouldnt be out there for nothing. i have heard rumors from a honda baja quad rider that said hes ridden and tested the new honda SxS and he said its bad azz. that was a year or more ago. dunno whats the hold up, dunno what trans it has, but their dual clutch sounds like that would be the choice. although i have heard some negative reports on its durability in the pioneers. i have no personal experience with them but i have seen on forums and FB that people have had issues. i cant say its quite what i see on the polaris forum in the turbo section where people are happy to report they got 300 miles out of a belt. i mean.... thats kinda awful when you think about it to blow a $190 belt every other dune trip. they get a reflash and a xxx clutch kit and report back they are happy with the power and ok with a belt every 250-300 miles. i mean in my eyes thats pretty awful but hey whatever.
dont be scared of the belts, honestly with good clutching they can be fixed and remedied on the polaris and the can-am. if we can power desert racers to run a whole season of full throttle without blowing a single belt, running the whole baja 1000 without blowing a belt, then for sure we can get you thru a dune season or recreation riding without a worry. dont be mad at belts the system in general works quite well when its done right.
i have been helping behind the scenes for years and really been helping can-am make some great leaps over the last few years with their clutches and honestly theirs are one of the most bullet proof out of the box now, the polaris CAN be bullet proof its just unfortunate that they spend so little money on them. The could built it better, they test working good prototyles, but the bean counters just always go with whats the cheapest with little to no regard to longevity or whats best. i have seen them make a switch to a cheaper part that knowingly doesnt work worth a crap over $5 per unit. thats each machine would cost them $5 more to build, make the clutching tons better, and make everything last so much longer, but because the better item was $5 more they ditched it and overlooked it. you guys hate it but sometimes its not necessarily a decision that the engineers make and i am sure the guys designing these machines would love to build the most bullet proof machine on the market but at that point they would cut into their profit margins.
i am excited to see where this HP war is taking us, i love to get to play with the new machines and work on so many customers machines, i truthfully get a huge kick out of seeing and helping racers win races. i can say without a shadow of a doubt that i know exactly what it takes to make all of the current and upcoming machines work in a racing application without any belt issues. if you guys are scared of the belts, you could remedy these issues by doing clutch work. i agree, when you spend $26,000 on a plastic box with 4 wheels and a steering wheel and some fancy shocks, you should get a bullet proof everything with a real warranty considering you can buy a 4 door toyota tacoma 4wd for $30,000 and it comes with electric windows and power door locks and a radio and a real engine and trans and diffs and seats and all sorts of fancy stuff and a legit 3 year warranty. i believe the manufacturers are chasing a big wave and realizing the customers will buy whatever they put out at any price they put on it and thats why they are so expensive and you get so little for it. chock it up to the cost of a toy, do some clutch work, dont be scared of the belts cause we can remedy those issues now-a-days.
with what Textron has coming down the line, what polaris has now and coming down the line, and what can-am plans to do with their chassis over the next 3 years i can assure you its going to be a fun ride. i have always liked the arctic cat suspension and the new RG suspension design on the AC/Textron machine is freaking amazing. whoops at 80mph holding a cell phone in one hand while videoing and its smooth as glass. acceleration is stupid fast. polaris is making changes and pretty soon we are going to have a new class in BITD for the machines they are cooking up. pretty awesome, but you may as well be prepared for at least 3 more years of belts cause whats in line for that far back all has belts that i know.
honda has a machine, i just dont know why it hasnt hit the market yet. similar to the yamaha. i saw yamaha in Glamis on a tuesday during the summer back in 2012 testing they had Gecko roped off and securtity guards at the guard shack so you couldnt go past. i knew they had something coming and it eventually came out in the yxz. i have seen honda out in ocotillo and plaster city two years ago. they are testing something, i dont know what it looks like but they wouldnt be out there for nothing. i have heard rumors from a honda baja quad rider that said hes ridden and tested the new honda SxS and he said its bad azz. that was a year or more ago. dunno whats the hold up, dunno what trans it has, but their dual clutch sounds like that would be the choice. although i have heard some negative reports on its durability in the pioneers. i have no personal experience with them but i have seen on forums and FB that people have had issues. i cant say its quite what i see on the polaris forum in the turbo section where people are happy to report they got 300 miles out of a belt. i mean.... thats kinda awful when you think about it to blow a $190 belt every other dune trip. they get a reflash and a xxx clutch kit and report back they are happy with the power and ok with a belt every 250-300 miles. i mean in my eyes thats pretty awful but hey whatever.
dont be scared of the belts, honestly with good clutching they can be fixed and remedied on the polaris and the can-am. if we can power desert racers to run a whole season of full throttle without blowing a single belt, running the whole baja 1000 without blowing a belt, then for sure we can get you thru a dune season or recreation riding without a worry. dont be mad at belts the system in general works quite well when its done right.
sand shark
Well-Known Member
Adam,
You must not visit the Maverick forum much as the X-3 section is littered with post of people that are killing belts in less than 200 miles and some with multiple breaks in a weekend. Not to mention many that when they snap the belt it takes out the inner clutch housing. I don't buy that Can Am's clutch set up is any better than Polaris or any other manufacture. They all have wear items that can last a long time if you are vigilant about blowing out your clutches and inspecting them. The only nice part of the Can Am clutch is that you can rebuild it much easier than the Polaris clutch. It is just easier to buy a new Polaris clutch than to rebuild it.
I did not have to replace my Polaris XP1000 clutch until 5000 miles when a roller finally flat spotted. My X-3 the jury is out on the clutches and belt life. I am at 400 miles thus far.
I agree belts are here to stay and they don't scare me.
///Airdam Clutches
Active Member
unfortunately i dont get to spend a ton of time on the forums. the X3 is honestly one of the best, guys who are blowing belts in 200 miles must be running 32-33 and reflashed and holding them WFO. for stock 32s and stock power they are virtually bullet proof. to test this we had one of our customers, a trophy truck driver, take one, mount his fancy bead locks on it, let fox work the shocks, and he went out and beat the snot out of it to see what would break before using it to pre-run the baja 1000, out at plaster city he went thru 3 tanks of gas in 110 miles, which i mean literally WFO as hard as you can drive it, the whole exhaust glowing for an hour straight and not one single failure. we did some clutch spring swaps and he went to 32s and pre-ran the baja 1000 twice with it and not a single issue. this guy doesnt drive like hes on a sunday cruise, his pre-running pace is almost every elses race pace.
he did blow his first belt after a reflash at 96mph. this was after 2500 miles, a trip to glamis during the doonies filming, and with 32s the whole time. with only clutch spring changes. the helix is my design already which works amazingly well in almost any situation, the finned secondary also my design which pulls tons of air to keep the clutches incredibly cool. you have to absolutely beat the snot out of the machine to blow a belt with 32s. and it typically only happens after a full throttle assault with a reflash. in which case 100% stock clutch aint made for that it needs more spring rate and more helix. guys running 32s in the dunes on a reflash with stock clutching, i have no remorse. yes the clutches are great but to expect it to pull 32s with a reflash is totally outta the realm of what a stock clutch "should" do. after tweaks it will handle it no problem but stock you are asking it to do a lot.
he did blow his first belt after a reflash at 96mph. this was after 2500 miles, a trip to glamis during the doonies filming, and with 32s the whole time. with only clutch spring changes. the helix is my design already which works amazingly well in almost any situation, the finned secondary also my design which pulls tons of air to keep the clutches incredibly cool. you have to absolutely beat the snot out of the machine to blow a belt with 32s. and it typically only happens after a full throttle assault with a reflash. in which case 100% stock clutch aint made for that it needs more spring rate and more helix. guys running 32s in the dunes on a reflash with stock clutching, i have no remorse. yes the clutches are great but to expect it to pull 32s with a reflash is totally outta the realm of what a stock clutch "should" do. after tweaks it will handle it no problem but stock you are asking it to do a lot.
sand shark
Well-Known Member
That is some good information. I plan on running 32s for my dirt set up. I currently run a 30" tall paddle tire set up and I am probably going to stay at that size. I have no intentions of doing a reflash as the car is stupid fast stock.
I believe it is a combination of the two. More wall would lessen the chance of cracking for sure.
zambo
Member
Ah the never ending quest for speed and the inevitable surfacing of the weakest link. FWIW I have about 2400 miles on my x3, including preruns of the baja 500 and 1000 and two Parker 425s and no belt failures. Most miles I put on a single belt is 1300. Stock motor, clutch, and 32s. But my wheel/tire combo only weighs about 50lbs. I know there are setups commonly used that are in the mid 60s or more. That can’t be good for belts either. Also I haven’t seen any frame cracks yet but I’ve had a couple on the trailing arms. I also don’t huck the car off big jumps, maybe that’s an issue if guys are cracking the frame.
///Airdam Clutches
Active Member
I think the front end cracking around all the bracing is from diving into corners super hard and tweaking the front end. Flexing the frame from side loading the car into banked corners and twisting the chassis. Same with the rear arms. I've seen dozens of them start to peel open. From side loading a car into corners simply putting so much side load into the car. It happens worse on race cars that weigh more than it does to a stock car. The stock machine with big horns will slide long before it hooks in a corner. You throw a big roof rack and load it up with gear or turn it into a 2200lb race car and put a honkin set of dirty2s on it and throw it in corners at 60mph hard, you gotta understand the shear forces being put on the suspension. I don't think some folks think about it. And I've seen one of our customers peel a set of rear arms open in as little as 50 miles. But that's driving like a complete asshole.
///Airdam Clutches
Active Member
the sheet metal bracing and triangular braces that weld to all the tube connections. its the strengthening braces up front, the cracks start right beside the weld and run towards the center of the joints. i think the sheet metal is too thin to resist the amount of chassis flex so it shears the sheet metal right beside the weld. you can see in some machines, the powder coat cracking around the welds at the tube joints, which is a sign of that joint trying to flex. i personally havent seen any cracks in the tube joints yet its been on all the connecting braces up front. i think some of the racers now are using S3s front end brace and welding it in before they hit the dirt to help stop this.
sand shark
Well-Known Member
I am guessing this weekend is more an issue for the racers.
I guess rivets and welding a paper thin gusset was not a brilliant idea.
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I guess rivets and welding a paper thin gusset was not a brilliant idea.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
sand shark
Well-Known Member
BiggJim
I Hate Rules - UTVUnderground Approved
Harbor freight only has like 3 items that are worth using.... 1 moving blankets, 2 jack stands, steel floor jacks. Everything else for the most part is scrap metal.
But I am Kinda a Tool Snob.
sand shark
Well-Known Member
It is no big deal when you loose a Harbor Freight tool in the desert or dunes.
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BiggJim
I Hate Rules - UTVUnderground Approved
I wouldnt trust a harbor freight tool to get me out of the dunes! Haha
sand shark
Well-Known Member
Some of their tools are not bad. I rather loose a Harbor Freight socket or box wrench. Never had an issue in the dunes.
You must be a Snap On guy. Lol
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