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Khaos Not Khaos’ing!

F
Dec 30, 2019
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I’ve never owned a Khaos, so when I rode mine for the first time I was surprised by how planted it felt. I just attributed it to the sled being a Matryx 165. Was doing some maintenance and I noticed something does not look right when I look at my wife’s rear track spring on her Pro as compared to my Khaos:

D1AC0A69-AB98-41B2-AF48-3E120F504752.jpeg
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This was someone’s abandoned Snowcheck. Been in touch with the dealer to try to find out if the person who Snowchecked it had them install the heavy duty spring. The service guy couldn’t find anything in the work orders, but he’s going to follow up with the parts manager on Monday to see if an HD spring was ordered in. Thinking it might be easier to just get the right spring and install it myself lol. Might grab two 180 springs as I’m thinking of doing the Khaos conversion to the wife’s Pro over the summer.

Does this look like the heavy duty spring to you guys? Do you think it would have been revalved?
 

go high fast

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Mine is the 23 165 Khaos Slash and it doesn't Khaos worth a dam either. Total marketing bull chit...........and all I was after was more weight transfer for hill climbing. Not even looking to wheelie. "playfull" and "flickable".....give me a break.

Mine is totally stock and I have backed off all of the rear track shock preload and backed out much of the low speed compression. Dialed in a small bit of additional pre-load on the front shocks and have the clickers in the stock position and and I'm on rails. I'm 175 lbs. out of the shower so maybe 190 to 195 geared up.
 
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TGZ

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Ours are the same
The closer Neon rails are on my 23 Khaos 180# and my wifes with the white rails is a Pro with looks like the 210# spring
I don't believe the number of coils necessarily means it's a heavier spring on the khaos
Try stiffening up your front track shock and see if that lets more transfer or front end lift. It's harder to get a 165 to feel really light on the front with the 2.75 track seems like cause the paddles are softer and designed to lift the whole sled so you don't trench and get stuck as easy

IMG_1388.jpeg
 
F
Dec 30, 2019
146
181
43
Ours are the same
The closer Neon rails are on my 23 Khaos 180# and my wifes with the white rails is a Pro with looks like the 210# spring
I don't believe the number of coils necessarily means it's a heavier spring on the khaos
Try stiffening up your front track shock and see if that lets more transfer or front end lift. It's harder to get a 165 to feel really light on the front with the 2.75 track seems like cause the paddles are softer and designed to lift the whole sled so you don't trench and get stuck as easy

Thanks for taking the time to take that picture. Your’s too looks much heavier than her’s. So maybe the Khaos just uses a different spring design that looks much beefier to attain the 180?

As far as my setup, I currently have RTS at max length, clickers all the way out and FTS at min length and clickers all the way in. I agree that the soft lugs of the series 8 seem to lift more than trench. The sled is beautiful in technical terrain. I feel like a mountain goat on the dang thing. I just expected it to be lighter on the skis than it is.
 

Wheel House Motorsports

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The 165 class sleds really reduce the difference between the khaos and rmk.

As mentioned the 2.75 doesn't lift for ****. So it also is going to reduce the change.

The biggest difference on the 165 sleds rmk vs khaos is the khaos you can "pop" the nose up a foot or so over obstacles much easier then the rmk. Imo the 165 rmk r3ally only shines when it's super deep where the khaos makes the 165 run and capable really well together
 
C
Dec 14, 2020
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Thanks for taking the time to take that picture. Your’s too looks much heavier than her’s. So maybe the Khaos just uses a different spring design that looks much beefier to attain the 180?

As far as my setup, I currently have RTS at max length, clickers all the way out and FTS at min length and clickers all the way in. I agree that the soft lugs of the series 8 seem to lift more than trench. The sled is beautiful in technical terrain. I feel like a mountain goat on the dang thing. I just expected it to be lighter on the skis than it is.


Back off the ski shocks. They are a big part of the equation.
 

BeartoothBaron

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I agree on backing off the preload on the skis. This might be too much for your sled, but on my Pro I back the adjusters all the way off, then back in a few turns just to make sure the spring retainer doesn't come loose. FTS is a few turns tighter, RTS is backed off quite a bit. It's still planted, but a lot better than the factory settings. Anyway, on the springs, while thicker coils mean a higher rate, more coils mean a lower rate. Your Khaos has around 10 coils, vs 8 on the Pro; I'm not sure which is the lighter spring, just that it could be you've got a 180# spring despite the thicker coils.
 
F
Dec 30, 2019
146
181
43
I agree on backing off the preload on the skis. This might be too much for your sled, but on my Pro I back the adjusters all the way off, then back in a few turns just to make sure the spring retainer doesn't come loose. FTS is a few turns tighter, RTS is backed off quite a bit. It's still planted, but a lot better than the factory settings. Anyway, on the springs, while thicker coils mean a higher rate, more coils mean a lower rate. Your Khaos has around 10 coils, vs 8 on the Pro; I'm not sure which is the lighter spring, just that it could be you've got a 180# spring despite the thicker coils.

I think it’s true that I likely have the correct spring after seeing TGZ’s post and after looking at some pics of Pro’s and Khaos’ online, and the dealer confirming nothing had been done to the suspension. Guess I hit the panic button a bit there when I thought I might have the HD spring lol.

I’m actually happy with how the sled handles, I just expected it to be a bit more wheelie prone, especially since I was so hesitant to buy a Khaos out of fear I would be giving up control in technical terrain.
 
C
Dec 14, 2020
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I currently have the clickers all the way out on the front shocks, but I could remove some preload.

The clickers don't do much. And they have more control over the velocity of the shock, rather than spring rate. Preload manipulates the spring rate to a point. It's all connected, but it's all different.... 🤣
 

meathooker

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i had a 22 boost 155 khaos. The local “ambassador” reports were the 155 khaos was too hard to control and Would wheelie too much.

its not bad at all and easy to control. I can only imagine how tame a non-boost 165 would feel.

the Matryx khaos sleds have all been de-khaos’d compared to axys imo
 

b-litt

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Just crank your FTS spring all the way. This is the change you are looking for, if you want more drill out the lower front tunnel hole.
I drilled out the lower hole on my 146 khaos axys while cranking preload/compression on fts and full soft on rear. That sleds skis never touched the ground again 😂. It was a blast for late spring goon riding. Worthless for anything else.
 
S
Feb 23, 2022
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I drilled out the lower hole on my 146 khaos axys while cranking preload/compression on fts and full soft on rear. That sleds skis never touched the ground again . It was a blast for late spring goon riding. Worthless for anything else.
Did the same when I swapped rails for 155 from 163 . It was wild . A little too wild

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line8

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This has me thinking…I have a 165, anybody drill that hole on a 165?


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S
Feb 23, 2022
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45
18
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This has me thinking…I have a 165, anybody drill that hole on a 165?


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It should make for a more playful ride for sure . You'll have to reset your track tension as it takes up a fair amount of track to move to the lower wholes and you won't be able to rum a big wheel even with an offset axle unless u have ice age rails but other than that you should like it

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