2015 Summit 174 First Ride Shots

Looks like it holds a nice line even on hardpack

Thanks for the report Dave, Baker usually is a little better than that! Next time. Gotta say the pictures of it holding a line are a bit deceiving, mountain looks a little off kilter, but on hard pack, what are you going to do? I'm sure the 174" will shine on snow, nothing will on ice.

That yellow looks a lot better on the snow. Will still be a bugger to keep clean.

That sure is a long sled looks like a 3 seater hest ski going through the snow

What's up with the half-cooloer in front? To make track/driver install easier?? Weight?
That area is more fun with a couple feet of fresh but at least it wasn;t fogged in and icy... welcome to Washington!

man those conditions look sketchy....i remember sliding backwards down a hill full throttle in conditions just like that

Norona said:

Are you suggesting I cropped the photos? sorry not the case.

Click to expand...

Sorry Dave, no disrespect meant, never accused you of cropping picture's :face-icon-small-sho just maybe a "little" camera tilt. :face-icon-small-win

Wow im amazed how well it holds a line on that terrible snow. Cant wait till mine comes.

How does it do in tighter trees? Like this. Looks like terrible conditions to test that beast out. My arms hurt just watching it.

:face-icon-small-sho side hill?

Should of brought the 121" to compare.

looks like some sort of skid pan would be handy to have..

I got a chance to ride that sled and I am kinda glad the conditions sucked. My reservations about the sled were not about how it will handle 3 feet of pow(it's going to be a game changer, especially for big guys) but how would it ride in lesser conditions. The sled actually turns really well on the trail and across that hard pack. One of the guys was just ripping on the ice doing big swoopy carves and it just looked effortless. There is none of the kick back from the ski that the XM and especially the XP have. Also when sidehilling on the ice not one time did the sled flatten out and force me to turn down hill. I never took it into the trees in the ice because I didn't want to be the guy to write off that sled on it's first day out. I also rode it "lazy" to see how that worked.. Not sidehilling and getting it up on a ski but just riding it flat and it turned really well even on the ice. I thought the longer track would just plow straight ahead and just push the skis without turning but that was not the case at all. Also, when it softened up a little and we did some climbing the sled will still bring the skis up and wheelie but it doesn't trench out and stand straight up like the current XM does stock.

Also, here is a list of some of the features on the 2015 T3s.
1. The 3" track is a full flexedge track. The track was designed to be as light and flexible as they could make it with thin oval shaped slots cut across the width of the track and rubber removed from the outside edge where the rods should be. The weight of the T3 174 is exactly(well very very close) to a 13-14 2.5" 163 XM and the track is one of the reasons.
2,Drop and roll chaincase. The chain case is about 1 1/2" lower and about 3/4" back from the 2.5" XM. BRP is using 8 tooth drivers and different gears optimized for a 3" lug. There is now more room for snow to get through the tunnel which makes the sled more efficient and have less drag and power loss on the track. It also raises the sled about a 1 1/2" which makes it easier to get on it's side and increases the angle that you can side hill at before you start to "panel out" in the snow(where the side panel begins to drag in the snow on steep sidehills).
3. The drop brackets are stronger(which is a weak point on previous sleds) to support the increased loads from the longer deeper lug track.
4. New lightweight muffler that is 5lbs lighter and more compact. The sound is still very much ETECy and is pretty quiet.
5. New lightweight front end suspension with chromoly lower control arms and new spindles and skis. The lower a-arms mount higher on the spindle to give a little more snow clearance and the geometry is optimized to decrease kick back to the bars and make the sled more stable throughout the full travel of the front suspension. You will notice the sled is more stable on the trail, in rough terrain and landing jumps. More important to us mountain riders the sled is more stable side hilling and has a bigger sweet spot making it easier to navigate in the trees. Matched up to the new suspension is a new ski that is a little narrower at the tip and more turned up at the tail. The ski shares some design features with the rocker style snow skis and snowboards. It also has a deeper keel to give a great trail ride and make the long 174" track easy to ride on the trail and in hard snow conditions. There is an optional deep powder attachment to widen the ski at the front to give greater floatation and control when the snow gets really deep.
6. New lightweight cooling system with equal or better cooling capacity. The tunnel cooler starts at about the back of the seat and runs to the rear bumper. There is more room for snow evacuation with the 3" track but the cooler is still big as it runs in the longer part of the tunnel.
7. New improved RFI DESS system. The key has a much better attachment system that is NOT dependent on the angle of the key at all and the key actually swivels around on a ball mount so it just pops right on and swivels a little before it can pop off. This is a really nice ergonomic feature which makes it really easy to use a very useful safety feature.
8. Sporty new yellow color for the more bold and a blacked out color scheme for rest of us.
9. BRP decided not to paint or powerdercoat some parts to help keep the weight down including the chaincase, spindles and rails.
This is all I can remember from Dave giving us the details before our ride on the 2015 XM 174" T3 but I know I have hit all the major points.

Was it overheating much? I see snow packed on the tunnel in the one pic.

On the ride up the trail was frozen up pretty good and we were all running hot but not overheating. When we got to Baker proper it was frozen hard and we weren't hardly scratching the surface with the tracks and we all overheated including the 174". There are new scratchers on the very front of the rails with were lubing the track really well but not getting snow up in the tunnel. There are only about 5-6" long and worked really well when the snow softened.