Attention PG Yamaha / Landon Leduke -
Think I'm finally quite safe to post a review of the MCX 180 kit I have in my 09 Doo 1200. My machine started life as a TNT in a 120" chassis. It has a shorter cooler than the Renegade’s do and so far that hasn’t been an issue. Added some water wetter to it and coolant temps dropped a bit too, so that was a help.
Machine pulls really hard and feels exactly like a stock machine except with more power. Really impressive.
Installation was fairly straightforward. There were a few spots which I had to get some help from MCX and PG Yamaha in clarification. Other than that it went quite well. I took my time and total install time was about 12 hours as this is my first install. Mechanically, it's a pretty simple install, you just need patience and time. I could certainly see where a guy could run into trouble if he took shortcuts or rushed himself.
I started out running 94 octane fuel to be safe during testing. I'm running a CJ motorsports pinned TRA with the some heavier OEM and Dalton components. Everything went together really well and the pins and machine work for perfectly. CJ's craftsmanship was excellent.
From day one the machine idled just like stock. I ended up adding almost a quart more oil to fill the turbo and lines going to/from the crankcase. First few times out the machine was violently bouncing off of the rev limiter. As I threw more weight into the primary, it started to become settled until I loaded the arms with considerably more weight. Ended up putting a tungsten slug as well as a short set screw in a Dalton empty arm which were in the Dalton Brute arms...quite a bit of pin weight. Helix is a custom Northern Catalyst helix. Using 24/46 gearing with the stock 10T drivers. I have a very straight shift and machine pulls quite hard. I'm to the point where I need to add gear as I'm geared too low. In 3' of powder I can watch the tach stay solid at any RPM and not bounce. 
Right now I have about 450 miles on the kit. I've ridden here in Saskatchewan at an elevation of 1800' and just came back from Cooke City where we were riding at close to 10K'. The machine automatically adjusted boost when I went to Cooke. At Cooke, I was pulling close to 11lbs of boost. The machine seems to run a bit leaner on the A/F gauge than I expected and another kit locally seems to run, but the machine runs great without any deto and I'm back to running 91. On full throttle pulls I'm seeing a A/F in the high 11's to low 12's. Power is nice and smooth without and surging. There is a slight amount of lag to the system, but it's surprisingly small. I have friends with Midmount systems on their Yamaha's and response isn't too different. In the mileage I've put on, I haven't had a leak, stutter, or anything. The only thing I've done is adjust for boost and add pin weight to the clutch and am very happy.
Fuel mileage is really good. On our Cooke City trip I used about 2/3's the fuel a 860BB XP in our group did. At lower elevation on trails I'm using about the same amount of fuel I used to use before boost.
I usually go through everything on the machine each time I go riding just to see if I can find anything that has loosened up. I haven't found a thing and even the chain hasn't required adjusting yet.
So far so good. A friend who has a Nytro on Propane is now thinking he will build a 300hp MCX 1200 now after riding mine and seeing how much easier it is to throw around in the deeper snow. There really is quite a difference in handling and weight between the two machines. Power he will walk all over me, but he's running close to 325hp.
I would definitely do this kit again and would recommend it to anyone. The TRA that CJ's has put together for me had held up fine. I've taken it apart a couple of times to inspect and nothing looks out of place. I have less belt dust than I did when the machine was stock. Pretty good considering I did a few pulls out West in 3' of powder where the flipper was to the bar for close to 30 seconds at a time. I can see where a guy can easily get the itch for boost. I was almost itching for more power when I was up at altitude already...but coming back her to Sask and hitting the flipper on some hardpack really reminded me how fast this thing actually is and that I really don't need any more for around here.
I don't know if it's any faster/slower than a competing kit that a friend has here. We have fairly similar setups, but they both seem to feel strong. I only rode his once, but that was a year ago and can't remember enough to compare. We're hoping to get out once or twice this year and actually compare. Where his kit runs short of this kit is he’s using a manual boost control and seems to be continually adjusting. Also, he’s stuck with a 2554 turbo so he’s limited to a low boost setup and it seems to use considerably more fuel than my MCX kit does.
Overall, very happy with this kit. Hope to have at least a few hundred more miles on the machine by the end of the month, but we’ll see how that goes. The second kit I ordered has been running and is going to Valemont this weekend.
If I can help you with anything with this kit please let me know and I’ll give it a shot. Starting to wear the hinges off of my hood from showing people already!
Geoff Witwicki
Canora Auto
Attention PG Yamaha / Garry Enders -
As a snowmobile performance enthusiast, I have been modifying my
snowmobiles (engines and chassis) ever since made it to the top of
the Renshaw Mountains (McBride) in about 1989. I till remember adding
white plastic paddles to the track, then having to drop & roll
the chain case to clear the big paddles. What a difference it made,
especially after the long tracks (136”) came out! It took about
10 years for the four big snowmobile manufacturers to catch-up and
realize our local market, and then the “rush to the mountains” really
started!
During
that time I was buying the closest thing to a mountain sled, with
the biggest motor I could get. About the same time I started playing
and experimenting with turbo-chargers for my two cycle engines. I
found out this made about 50% more power and lost very little at
altitude. The
biggest problem with adding a turbo to a two cycle engine is that
it produced a lot of heat, which ended up on top of the aluminum
pistons. Although WISECO came out with high silicone aluminum pistons,
they were no match for the heat the turbo threw at them. This took
quite a while to figure out the jetting, and it was not until I put
one on a two stroke Yamaha 600 that came out (I think in 1997) with
electronic ignition and smart carbs, that automatically retarded
the timing to prevent detonation. This proved to be the ultimate “mountain
sled” because of the lightweight two cylinder engine, improved
2” rubber track and TURBO-Power!!
Well
as engines got bigger, tracks got longer and the sleds got heavier,
I moved my Turbo to a 800 twin engine and a new sled. I never did
get it working as well as the old 600 c/c engine because the Turbo
was limited on the volume of air, and could not efficiently fill
the cylinders. I acquired a larger Turbo, but got “horn-swaggled” (the
polite way of saying I got “suckered”) into sending it
back to the States, by a fast talking salesman after they found out
AeroCharger went out of business.
My
apparent mistake really hit home, after being barely above stock
sleds at the time, but I really got spanked when the heavy RX-1 came
out (turbo-charged). A lot of people shied away from this sled because
of the extra weight to carry the 4-stroke, 4-cylinder, 1000 c/c engine.
After a sound “trashing” (thanks Garry) it became immediately
apparent about the huge advantages of putting a turbo on a 4-stroke
engine! I believe this is where the first application was (aeroplane
engines in the 2nd world war flying at high altitude) on four stroke
engines. Anyway, shortly after peering into Garry’s hood & wondering “what
the hell that thing was”, I realized that the 4-stroke
engine was the perfect match because it “sheds” the heat
(fires on every other stroke), and the double power is quite adequately
handled by the modern ignition and cooling systems.
So, upon returning to town the 2-stroke snowmobile was immediately
put up for sale, and I sold both my old AeroChargers back to the
USA (ya, you guys can have all my old stuff now!). I still
laugh when someone sneers when you pull up to the bottom of a big
hill with the “heavy RX-1”!! Then you blow over
the top as they are turning out, a quarter of the way up. The
second thing I quickly realized, the weight is not a consideration
if you have the POWER!! And finally I sure don’t miss buying
race fuel!
Mike
Sexsmith
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