Strut rod length?

I only have about 30 hours on a snowbike, but I have messed with strut length. Strut length will affect weight balance front to rear. Longer puts more weight on the ski, shorter puts more on the track. There are 2 different ways I've seen to measure where you're at. The first is fork leg angle, and those who work with that say to keep it between 58-62 degrees. Put an app on your phone that can measure that and you'll have a solid measurement to go off of. The second school of though is to pick up the back end of your bike, and as you set it down, the whole track should evenly contact the ground.

You do want to find the sweet spot, and the front has been what determines that for me. Too much on the front makes steering heavy and makes the fork bottom too easily. Too much on the rear makes the front wash out in turns.

Back to what you're trying to achieve though, weight transfer. Strut length will affect your baseline weight transfer. That is to say, it will transfer weight fore or aft depending on how it's adjusted, and that will be your baseline weight balance. Softening the rear skid shock will increase transfer in the traditional snowmobile sense.

schwany31 said:

Does this apply to timbersled Aro's as well? I have a 2012 yz250f chassis with a yz 250 engine in it. Timbersled's recommended length was way off. Basically eyed mine up off my buddies yamaha aro setup.
Thanks

Click to expand...

I have a 2016, and I don't have any hands on experience with anything else. Rake (fork tube angle) will correlate with strut length on any kit. I don't know whether the ideal angle is the same on every kit, but it's something that's easy to measure and easy to return to previous settings.

Shorter strut more weight to the back more transfer.

It will slightly change the fork rake not a huge deal unless you got way too far.

Also drop the forks in the triple clamps if you shorten the strut, that keeps the track angle the same. That way your kit approach angle to the ground remains correct.

Anytime you make one change it effects more than one thing go slow with adjustments and try to maintain a balanced setup.

Sometimes something simple as slightly taller bars set back an inch move enough rider weight back to have a noticeable difference just from that.

Agree with what is stated above.

I will say that the recommended strut length on my 2019 kit was about an inch too long. From listening to others on this forum, I kept shortening the strut until all of my paddles were touching the floor at the same time when lifting and lowering the rear of the bike. My forks are sticking out of the triple clamps 5mm farther than stock in an effort to aid in handling on the dirt, so that helps compensate for lowering the seat height with the strut rod. With those two adjustments, I am very happy with the balance.

Good luck and have fun!