AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
We’re sure many considered this a big, overweight 4-stroke without so much as placing a boot on the running board. We’re here to tell you that impression is wrong. It wasn’t even the heaviest sled in our demo fleet – not by a long shot.
Yes, the turbo adds power and weight, but there is a playfulness to this sled that is missing from the standard Viper models. Wheelies are fun and races are won while riding this sled! Every test crew member complimented its comfortable ride and polite trail manners. But, it wasn’t all rosy.
Moving too fast
Maybe we were a little too smitten, as we requested the exact prototype we rode during our spring test rides. There are always a few extra flaws to work out between the prototype builds and full production builds.
First, there were a few times when the heat warning came on during our trail rides. While we were riding in above-normal temps with below-normal snowfall, it wasn’t anything a trail sled shouldn’t be able to handle. We haven’t heard of rampant overheating issues, though, and for the most part, it was a blast to ride. It’s certainly the smoothest Yamaha in the trails we’ve ridden in years.
Second, a consumer turbo sled needs some sort of windshield. It doesn’t have to be huge, but at least enough to duck behind when you unleash the horses across a frozen lake. And the placement of the key in the narrowest of openings between the windshield and the dash still baffles us.
All things considered, when it’s running right, the SR Viper L-TX LE Turbo is an exhilarating ride! But aftermarket turbos – whether 2-stroke or 4-stroke – can be finicky, and the sea level calibration only came out a year or so ago, with just a handful getting into consumers’ hands last year and the year before.