skis

One more important part to a snowmobile is its skis they turn the snowmobile. The width of the ski can make a big differnce on how the snowmobile handels. With a wide ski the snowmoble will float on the snow better so it wont get suck as easly but to wide and the snowmobile will not turn as well if you dont plan on getting in to deep of snow then you dont need wide skis but with deeper snow wider better.

oil

Every two stroke moter you eather have to mix oil in the gas or put two stroke oil in the resivor. Every snowmoble makeing company has there own oil such as Polaris, Yamaha, Artic cat. But they also have a few differnt types of oil such as synthetic and mineral oil and then your startard oil. Then you have brands such as Ams Oil. I would tell anybody to run the same brand of oil as the mechine is and run what the manual or what the previous person was, if you mix two differnt brands of oil they may have a bad effect and jell and you could burn down your moter.

Storage

Now that the season is starting to come near its end anybody with a snowmobile should be getting ready to store their sled for the summer.  Several things can be done to prep the sled to make it easyer to start and get going the following season. First things first, fuel gas over a period of time will go bad and will no longer work.  We do have seveal things we can do to prevent this from happening.  The first is Stabil this is a oil based product that is simply added to your gas to extend its life.  Then we come to my favaorite Avation fuel, airplanes require a higher octane fuel 100 Low lead. Most pump gas is 91 octane with no Lead. Avation fuel or  av gas never goes bad so adding a small amout of this to your gas and running it through the system will help extend your fuel life.

 Then the last thing is the track since it rubber just like a tire if a tire sets in one place to long or under the wrong conditions it will rot. Your track is the same way the best way to save your track from this happening is by lifting the whole rear end off the ground even if it is only a few inches just so none of the track is touching the ground this will greatly extend the life of your track.

snow conditons

This was the last week of snowmobiling for the season in  sperfish. The groomers ran for the last time today. The temp was well into the 60s so the snow was sticky and it was not good conditions for rideing. The trails were icy in spots and the snow was crusy, that didnt make a very good day in the hills.  This season was not good from the stop the hills never got enough base. This was not a good way to end the season.

sled of the year

The 98 artic cat powder special was named sled of the year by Sno West magazine.  It is 599 cc engine rated 105 horse.  It came out with a 136 track with 2 inch paddle. It is a twin cylinder 2 stroke engine. It also came out with EFI and came with extra wide skis that gave more flotation. They got rid of the trailing arm system and went to the double- wishbone AWS V suspension this gave the sled a smoother ride. Then they made the tunnel deeper to give more suspension more travel. This is the snowmobile I ride and so far it has been a really good sled whenever I start it up it never takes more than 3 pulls on the rope and it handles amazingly well in the powder I would recommend this snowmobile to anybody.

fuel

There are two different ways to get fuel into the cylinder of a motor. There is carburation and fuel injection.  With carburation everything is manual, it does not require any electricity.  EFI or electronic Fuel injection requires electricity to regulate the fuel.  Carburation is nice because of the fact it is way simpler to work on, but it does require more work to make it run properly because temperature and elevation can make the motor run with too much fuel (or called rich), or not enough fuel ( or lean) if a motor is to rich it will be very unresponsive.  If it is running to lean it will run good but will ruin a motor.   The nice thing about EFI is it will automatically compensate for temperature and elevation, but is more complex to work on if something goes wrong.

Moter sizes

This week I will talk about the difference between a twin and a triple engine. Twin meaning two cylinders, triple meaning 3 cylinders. A twin produces good power and they are light. A triple has one more cylinder so it has more weight. In the snowmobiling weight is not your friend because it will make you sink in the snow. The triple is good for getting into some powder and trail riding they have lots of power so they can pull around the weigh better. The twin has good snap to them and they have less weight.