Flip your gears - ARO

cbc76am

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• Mar 16, 2018

• #1

Just tossing this out there for the community. I was having issues pulling 4th in any powder into the upper revs and 5th was pretty useless. Rather than make the chain sliders even more stressed by dropping a counter shaft gear I looked to the chain case. Stock is 18 driving 17. Flipping them to 17 driving 18 is about a 10% gearing reduction.

On my 450SXF and a buddies yz450fx both a 120 and 137 the bikes are pulling better everywhere. A tad more shifting as they run out a little faster, but well worth having the upper range available on the fire roads and flats, as well not being stuck between 2nd and 3rd all the time.

 

S

Sheetmetalfab

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• Mar 16, 2018

• #2

Yep 2 of us did the same earlier this year.
Works great.

 

T

teal_210

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #3

Have had mine flipped all season, works great.

 

K

KTMDigger

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #4

Flip baby flip

Yup ... a group of us did the same. Now I can find 3rd in the hills and trees. You will lose a bit of top end on the trail ... but really???

 

K

KTMDigger

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #5

Flip yes ... but where is the drag?

Soooo ... the flip of the gears provides some extra pull, but where the hell does the extra drag on the track come from and what can we do about that. I think this is still an issue to be resolved.

 

skidooboy

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #6

KTMDigger said:

Soooo ... the flip of the gears provides some extra pull, but where the hell does the extra drag on the track come from and what can we do about that. I think this is still an issue to be resolved.

Click to expand...

loosen the banjo tight track, and check your "chain case", chain tension, and set that to the loose side of the spec... night and day difference.

remember on track tension... loosen until it ratchets, then tighten half a turn until it does not. Ski

 

damx

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #7

Tki is working on a belt dive for the aro. Might have it out this season but there running out of time. So most likely next year. That should make it role betrer.

 

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KTMDigger

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #8

Tight track and rolling resistance

Yup ... did the track loosening exercise and the drive chain exercise, it helped, but did not solve the problem. The ARO still has a higher level of rolling resistance as compared to earlier models. Not sure a belt drive will solve the problem. I may disconnect the drive chain and see if I can isolate where the drag is originating. (Maybe somebody has already done this.)

 

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Sheetmetalfab

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #9

KTMDigger said:

Soooo ... the flip of the gears provides some extra pull, but where the hell does the extra drag on the track come from and what can we do about that. I think this is still an issue to be resolved.

Click to expand...

Extra drag?

You mean because Timbersled decided to gear up the aro kit vs the older ones?

That’s the only reason they struggle to pull higher gears. (In the deep)

Mine rolls across the shop floor just fine. (As long as the ski skag isn’t digging in)

 

cbc76am

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #10

the drag is the new track, the thick lugs and rubber are much more resistant, to me well worth the hook up it provides... oh and the chain tensioning system, which is nice to have adjustment but is lame AF for wearing down and making noise. The snowtech MX system is so nice in comparison, TS stole a lot of ideas from them for the ARO without question.

 

P

powdermuncher

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• Mar 17, 2018

• #11

I went 1 tooth bigger on the countershaft sprocket and have the chain straight above the track to the rear sprocket without the Big S bend in the chain. One can flip the slider upside down and grind the end down so it will just clear the track -- I also ordered a 18 tooth rear sprocket to make up for it in the gearing and geared down the secondary. Combined with proper chain tension and Track tension--Loser is better the difference in performance is very noticeable even with the 17 tooth secondary sprocket. Not sure why TS tried to generate as much drag as possible.Maybe they are afraid that the snow bikes outperform Polaris sleds.

 

H

hillclimber147

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• Jul 10, 2018

• #12

powdermuncher said:

I went 1 tooth bigger on the countershaft sprocket and have the chain straight above the track to the rear sprocket without the Big S bend in the chain. One can flip the slider upside down and grind the end down so it will just clear the track -- I also ordered a 18 tooth rear sprocket to make up for it in the gearing and geared down the secondary. Combined with proper chain tension and Track tension--Loser is better the difference in performance is very noticeable even with the 17 tooth secondary sprocket. Not sure why TS tried to generate as much drag as possible.Maybe they are afraid that the snow bikes outperform Polaris sleds.

Click to expand...

Do you run a TSS with this setup? On my 2015, once I added the TSS I added a spring to the idler to keep the chain tensioned.