I want to gear my 09 crossfire down to 57/63 from 60/60 will this affect my clutching?
How will gearing down affect clutching?
- Thread starter XFIRE800
- Start date
Out of all of you guys that have geared down your M's no one has an answer?
N
I went from 60/60 to 57/63 on my M1000. I thought it made a big difference in belt life/heat and made the sled a lot more fun in the trees.
All things being equal, It should make no difference in your RPM until the clutches shift all the way out and you are seeing 85-90MPH track speed. Then in theory you might have more power than drag and your RPMs will creep up. You would have to hold WOT on the flats to see that on a non turbo XF8. At least that is what I have seen.
Cat gears thier sleds to be the best compromise in all altitudes, conditions, average rider weights, etc. A lot of people whine about belt issues and I think gearing plays a significant role. If you run an "average" setup sled at high elevation WOT hill climbing you are working the sled outside of its designed "average" setup. IMO you need to gear all M's (and CFs) down for the mountains for best performance.
All things being equal, It should make no difference in your RPM until the clutches shift all the way out and you are seeing 85-90MPH track speed. Then in theory you might have more power than drag and your RPMs will creep up. You would have to hold WOT on the flats to see that on a non turbo XF8. At least that is what I have seen.
Cat gears thier sleds to be the best compromise in all altitudes, conditions, average rider weights, etc. A lot of people whine about belt issues and I think gearing plays a significant role. If you run an "average" setup sled at high elevation WOT hill climbing you are working the sled outside of its designed "average" setup. IMO you need to gear all M's (and CFs) down for the mountains for best performance.
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B
I'm in the same boat here. I've used CF stock gears (60/60) and stock helix (44/40) since day one. Next year I'll be running M gears (57/63). I tought it will need more resistant (because of lower gears) so I bought 48/40p helix as well. Can't say how it works as we don't have enough snow yet. I mainly drive in trees and like to pull skis sky high every time it's possible 
R
With all due respect,
You have it backwards. This is a very common misconception to think about the CVT along the same terms as a fixed ratio gear transmission
The secondary clutch is load sensing. Meaning, it will sense how hard it is to turn the track via the gears. When you gear lower, the task of turning the track becomes easier ie. LESS LOAD. Whenever the secondary clutch senses LESS load it will shift up FASTER. More times than not, a faster shift via the secondary equates to LESS rpms, not more.. So, usually lower gearing will LOWER rpms on prolonged pulls, especially on the hills in the deep. This can also cause major rpm fluctuation due the the secondary being "too" in tune with the track and not knowing where to be in its shift pattern.
Lower gears will usually always give you much more rapid acceleration off engagement and be faster and more "wheelie like" than the higher gears. This is why many who gear down get the "feeling" that they have all this new "power" when in fact all they did was shift/accelerate faster.
I, personally, like to run as high of gearing as possible without heating the belt . I find that I climb higher on the hill with the higher gears.
So, in direct answer to the topic, YES, you MAY have to lower the primary weight with the lower gearing
Kelsey
Thanks for the replies guys, I ride about 1200' when im at home and its ditch banging, a little river riding, and a few long pulls. I am not concerned with performance too much at home though, will lowering gears cause a problem for me?
A
I did the 57-63 on my 09 xfire along with the power claw. kept the same clutching at 46-40 but I have a new helix on the way its a 48-36 progressive. I had really great hole shots in hillcross and also in drags. I also did the shift assist and all the backshifting problems went away..
G
If your not having belt temp issues i would not gear down, I have always lost track speed every time i tried gearing down. It did excelerate harder but would not shift out to the same track speed as the higher gears (and i dont mean top speed i mean climbing speed).
D
Ya especially with the shorter track. I'm going to try the 60/60 gears for a good while before I switch. I hope it works. For 2010 cat went to a straight 40 helix for low elevation crossfires. I wonder how that's going to work?
R
Agreed.. The lower gears give on the illusion that they have more speed because they have a quicker hole shot.. But leg it out on a long POWDER hill pull and the lower gears seem to fall short..
I
Thanks Kelsey, I did have it backwards. I'll delete my post so there is no confusing info out there.
What if a guy doesnt do much climbing but mainly rides tight trees and lots of boondocking. wouldnt gearing down be better for that kind of riding
Absolutely!
B
i ride mostly trees but we climb to get to lots a play areas ive got a 2010 800 with a 153 should i leave it or gear it down any sugg.
The M8's are geared down to 55/65 this year you wont need to gear down since thats about as low as anyone was going last year. My sled is a boondocking sled with limited climbing. Im not worried on how it performs on the climbs otherwise i would have a longer track. Thanks for all the info guys its very appreciated.
gearing for success
The problem with gearing down for most M series riders is not being able to adjust for the new gearing.
If you ride a sled with the DD drive, its imperative that you install the 05-06 adjustable spring pressure helix. This system ( DD drive ) was designed for incremental spring pressure adjustments to find correct system operation.
Sadly many 05-06 riders that tried to adjust spring pressure came up failure:
Why ?
Stock the 05-06 sleds had the WRONG secondary spring. So you could play with that adjuster in and out, and nothing really made any difference.
Cat glued most of the white plastic adjusters in place so they wouldn't move.
If you free up the white plastic adjuster, it will move out often times from use with is a screw up, if you install one or two shift assist it will not move and you can adjust spring pressure easily and it will stay.
When you learn to use this system on an 05-011 sled and adjust as you ride, you will find that a mm or two is huge as to how your sled will act / re act to what appears to be very small incremental adjustments.
I learned with this sytem in 05 that swapping springs is WAy WAy, WAy to big a change, and you will go right past what you are looking for.
Ditto for the 5 holes in the old cat reverse cam helix secondary clutch. VERY Very crude adjustments. Was easy to feast on guys that only had that 5 hole secondary spring adjustment.
So, you got an M sled, geared it down and where do you go.
RKTEk got it right. Lower gearing is less feed back into the secondary clutch.
1. you may loose.........should loose some rpm. Check AAens Book, if you didn't loose rpm when you geard down, you had real crappy clutching.
2. you can and need to back off on secondary spring pressure after you gear down. Of course if you didn't have enough spring pressure to start with, you don't know where to go ???? If you had a poor spring selection, again yoiur experiments will be meaninless.
3 you will have a quciker up shifting secondary.
4. you can't let that secondary though get ahead of your primary.
5.you will not loose hill climbing, deep powder, uphill avalanche busting performance.............well ok if you have the ability to make correct adjustments. So you can have a 34 helix cut and back off even more on secondary spring pressure and increase throttle response and backshift.
So you have a 07-011 encapsulated helix ? You don't have options........unless you buy some. Changing springs is a million to 6 longshot at finding the ideal setup for the day.
Disassemblying your dd in the field 5 or six times a day to install or remove spacers is not going to happen. Few have that kind of committment. Those that do already know this stuff. Never seem cat run an encapsulated helix on any of their real race iron.
I have geared M sleds as low as offered. Never turned one into a dog. I have bought low gears from lots of guys that made dogs. All confusing unless you follow the program through. All in Olaf Aaens book, but reading and understanding is also an elusive experience. And because it ain't made doesn't mean you don' need it.
When cat came up with a better secondary spring in 07, they also eliminated the option of adjustment......? Oh well, cat makes the right parts, always up to riders that want better to figure it out for themselves.
So you gear down, you don't need as much spring pressure to to maintain belt to aluminum sheave traction.
Less secondary spring pressure, more upshift.
You will find you don't need a big helix to get upshift.
EXPERIMENT MORE
The problem with gearing down for most M series riders is not being able to adjust for the new gearing.
If you ride a sled with the DD drive, its imperative that you install the 05-06 adjustable spring pressure helix. This system ( DD drive ) was designed for incremental spring pressure adjustments to find correct system operation.
Sadly many 05-06 riders that tried to adjust spring pressure came up failure:
Why ?
Stock the 05-06 sleds had the WRONG secondary spring. So you could play with that adjuster in and out, and nothing really made any difference.
Cat glued most of the white plastic adjusters in place so they wouldn't move.
If you free up the white plastic adjuster, it will move out often times from use with is a screw up, if you install one or two shift assist it will not move and you can adjust spring pressure easily and it will stay.
When you learn to use this system on an 05-011 sled and adjust as you ride, you will find that a mm or two is huge as to how your sled will act / re act to what appears to be very small incremental adjustments.
I learned with this sytem in 05 that swapping springs is WAy WAy, WAy to big a change, and you will go right past what you are looking for.
Ditto for the 5 holes in the old cat reverse cam helix secondary clutch. VERY Very crude adjustments. Was easy to feast on guys that only had that 5 hole secondary spring adjustment.
So, you got an M sled, geared it down and where do you go.
RKTEk got it right. Lower gearing is less feed back into the secondary clutch.
1. you may loose.........should loose some rpm. Check AAens Book, if you didn't loose rpm when you geard down, you had real crappy clutching.
2. you can and need to back off on secondary spring pressure after you gear down. Of course if you didn't have enough spring pressure to start with, you don't know where to go ???? If you had a poor spring selection, again yoiur experiments will be meaninless.
3 you will have a quciker up shifting secondary.
4. you can't let that secondary though get ahead of your primary.
5.you will not loose hill climbing, deep powder, uphill avalanche busting performance.............well ok if you have the ability to make correct adjustments. So you can have a 34 helix cut and back off even more on secondary spring pressure and increase throttle response and backshift.
So you have a 07-011 encapsulated helix ? You don't have options........unless you buy some. Changing springs is a million to 6 longshot at finding the ideal setup for the day.
Disassemblying your dd in the field 5 or six times a day to install or remove spacers is not going to happen. Few have that kind of committment. Those that do already know this stuff. Never seem cat run an encapsulated helix on any of their real race iron.
I have geared M sleds as low as offered. Never turned one into a dog. I have bought low gears from lots of guys that made dogs. All confusing unless you follow the program through. All in Olaf Aaens book, but reading and understanding is also an elusive experience. And because it ain't made doesn't mean you don' need it.
When cat came up with a better secondary spring in 07, they also eliminated the option of adjustment......? Oh well, cat makes the right parts, always up to riders that want better to figure it out for themselves.
So you gear down, you don't need as much spring pressure to to maintain belt to aluminum sheave traction.
Less secondary spring pressure, more upshift.
You will find you don't need a big helix to get upshift.
EXPERIMENT MORE
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