Help in lightening things up

Keep the exhaust insulation if the pipe isn't ceramic coated (stock is not). You need the pipe to remain a fairly steady temperature for consistent performance. Cold pipes run different than hot pipes.

Things you can cut weight on: Handbar cover crap, all the under hood foam, muffler replacement, remove gas rack if you don't use it, sway bar if you ride off trail, remove bogies in skid & just run scratchers. Other than that, weight reduction gets expensive.

in the past i have removed the stock insulation and had the stock pipe ceramic coated. I confess it was more to prevent the horrific rust mess from the clamshell than it was to reduce weight. if you remove claimshell and dont want to ceramic coat plan B would be to get some ceramic high temp silver paint at NAPA. Clean them good with steel wool and then use the ceramic paint. they may even make a primer too I believe. I did this for years with PSI pipes and they looked great each and every year. but if weight loss is the goal the stock pipe weighs a ton and if you still run the stock can you have 2 tons....pipe and can have to go!

big dough but the lightwieght skids and trailing arm packages are great for dropping weight. If you have the escape model i think you might be as light as your gonna get without aftermarket pipes, skids and trailing arms. i dont think there is that much to gain from aftermarket hoods and seats.

I also think you are better off spending $$ on power and performance and gearing/clutching. SLP is super for pipe, intake mods, hi compression heads, and porting and you would have a real beast on your hands. they are totally knowledgeable on gearing and clutching too.

remove the speedo and cable and replace with flow rite filter.
the vertical escape models came with lightweight goodies if you search swapmeets at all, look for their seat, and i believe some had titanium rear springs and chromoly jackshafts. not 100% sure.
id remove that skid and pull off bogies you dont need and do a two wheel kit. the bearings are heavy. good time to put a bigger track on too, which would help the most.

I am working on converting a 600 XC over to a lightweight crossover. So a lot of the items I am starting with weigh a bit more than yours.

I am putting in a 141 arctic cat float skid. It weighs 40 Lbs. My stock XC skid weighed 72 Lbs. A 136 rmk skid from a 2001 with 144 extension weighed 55Lbs.

I also picked up a set of carbon fiber trailing arms. I will be replacing the steel radius rods with chromoly thin wall pipe. I went with chromoly over aluminum mostly for cost and for weight should be a bit stronger. I also got rid of coilovers, plan to run floats.

Another big item is a mesh hood. This should drop a lot losing speedo/tach/headlight. I will need to get a small LED light also plan on running a small KOSO digital gauge for RPM and water temp.

Exhaust can is another easy area. Once again with the pipe I had same thoughts as you. Unfortunetely for my 600, the stock pipe performance wise was good, so not many aftermarket options. I probably will just keep the wrap on it, or take it off and wrap with pipe wrap.

Besides that, I am down to little things. Like removing oil tank and oil injection. I ride from the truck, so no need to haul an extra two quart of oil, oil pump, etc. The 600 VES is already drilled in cases for the bearings, I have never had a problem running a 600 VES premix. 800 I cannot comment on. I also plan to strip down the electrical harness a bit. No longer will I need all the wiring for the hood, but also shorten wires and mount switches on the dash not on the bars. I wont have high beams, handwarmers I will just put to HI/LO/OFF switch similar to the newer pros. Remove key and just run tether and kill, etc.

Also I am ditching my stock cooling. Its a bit different than the RMK though. I plan to remove the front bulkhead cooler, and build a larger surface area U cooler to replace the small tunnel cooler and rubber crossover hose I have now.

Skis I plan on running the new AC mountain skis. They weigh about the same as grippers, cant get too much lighter then those.

Really I am not into this a whole lot of money, I already had the XC sitting in the garage. I still need to find a track, want to run a 141 power claw with the 2.25 paddle. Its a 3.0 pitch I will have to get avid drivers for it. It should be a good improvement over the 136x1.75, i didnt want to go much longer for the UP of Michigan to help get around tight trees.

I also am putting on a set of pro-rmk running boards. I dont know that they will lose any weight in the garage. But the function and snow build up should be worth it.

I really have not done any work to track the weight loss items. I weighed my sled before i started at 510 Pounds. No gas, maybe 2 quarts oil in the tank. Maybe I am crazy, but I hope I can get down a lot. Just rough numbers here but skid is 32 Lb, Hood probably 15 Lb, Front Susp I hope 15 Lb, Can 8 Lb, Oil Delete 5 Lb, Skis 4Lb. Those right there are about 80 pounds, but my estimates might be high on the front suspension and hood. But, this also doesn't include all the little other things I am taking off.

Right now I have the sled torn down to a bare chassis. When I begin putting it together I will try and keep track the weight loss between what stays off and what replaces it.

You can lose maybe 10 lbs of snow weight by polishing the inside of the tunnel and punching more holes in the track. And best of all, it's free.