I ran the sled tonight with the proper length shocks on it. 16.675" Fox Float 3 Evols. I had been running it previously with 17" Raptors.
Here is the lowdown. Both are better than stock.
Most of the time if you increase the ride height you add a bunch of ski pressure and make the sled handle crappy. I had a lot of guys trying to run the 17.5" shocks on the 38" front ends and we found that it just flat did not work.
On this front end you can use the 17" stock shocks and have an improvement. It side-hills easier, pulls over easier, and turns back up the hill easier.
The 16.675" shocks drops it back to the stock ride height and it is even better.
I would not say that you are going wrong by using the 17" shock. I just don't think you are getting the full value out of the front end by doing so. I had about 8 inches of fresh tonight, that I did not have the last couple test rides so it is hard to say, but typically an increased ride height sled will also tend to trench more because of the increased pressure on the front of the rail area as well as the skis. I can tell you with the 16.675 shocks it popped up nicely. It also seems to be easier to maintain a side-hill on a rough hill when you are smashing through cross tracks. The 17" shocks give you more grief.
In order to combat this with the 17" shocks you will have to lower the amount of preload on the spring or the amount of air in the float. This will drop the shock and you will have more sag. It will ride further down in the stroke than it was designed to ride and you will give up performance in the shock as well.
So in the end, for best results us the 16.675 shock (we can cut yours down and are working on a solution for the spherical on top and bottom.....or we have Evol 3 shocks in stock ready to go with sphericals already in them top and bottom), but the stock shock will afford you a much better boondocking sled than you currently have. It will turn sharper. It will turn back up hill better. And it will hold the sidehill better.
