[zekester]

600 mi. on F7 std. & i love it, 136 1175 woody's & have susp. set properly. Still have 4" carbides, ready to update. Would like to reduce darting & increase handling on icey corners. Have not changed limiter strap.Don't ide in powder & don't want trailering problem of wider ski's. Ive debating over shaper bars or woody's dooly's anyone tried these? Or is it worth the bucks to go with a diff. ski?

 

[rob]

don't shorten your limiter strap or you will increase the darting. Standard has a shorter limiter strap installed length anyway. Imo, shaper bars or doolies will increase darting also, although I haven't tried that setup. Single best way to reduce darting and increase handling is to get the SLT skis.

 

[Arctic Choke]

:huh: I found that if you take too much preload off of the center shock that the machine will dart. Try stiffening that shock a little more. I have mine set at about two inches of thread showing. I tried setting it like Rob said almost no preload but the sled darted all over the place. Try this it works!!!

Good luck

 

[rob]

Originally posted by Arctic Choke@Jan 14 2003, 08:36 AM
:huh: I found that if you take too much preload off of the center shock that the machine will dart. Try stiffening that shock a little more. I have mine set at about two inches of thread showing. I tried setting it like Rob said almost no preload but the sled darted all over the place. Try this it works!!!

Good luck

Yes, that is true. Removing preload from the front arm shock puts more weight on the skis, which increases any tendency to dart. But to me, that's avoiding the basic problem.. Most owners have mentioned things like ski-lift, vague steering, and the dredded "push". I believe FCs need more weight on the skis first, and then a fix for the darting second.

Also, I'll repeat the need to confirm your ski toe adjustment, it should be 1/4" toe out as measured at the ft&rear of carbides. The toe is very important to good handling from the Firecat chassis.

 

[morrisond]

I'll echo Rob's comments, toe out is super critical on an F-Cat, and getting this right should solve your darting problem.

 

[zekester]

Ok, I set toe at 3/8 i,ll try changing that, don't want to change front shock setting cause sled handles very , coming into corner can be a little hairey if you meet some one & get off the throttle quick.Rob, you mentioned a good trail ski & no trailering problems?

 

[rob]

Originally posted by zekester@Jan 14 2003, 09:04 AM
Ok, I set toe at 3/8 i,ll try changing that, don't want to change front shock setting cause sled handles very , coming into corner can be a little hairey if you meet some one & get off the throttle quick.Rob, you mentioned a good trail ski & no trailering problems?

3/8 should be ok also.. it shouldn't dart with too much toe out but it will cut topend and wear carbides faster. also it depends on where you are measuring from. 1/4" at carbides will be 3/8 at the front and back of skis. The SLTs from SLP (confusing names) are the all-around trail ski I meant.

 

[SabercattF7]

I bought the 6" woody dooleys, they work great, its like a whole new sled, turnd tight now, and 0 darting.

 

[klj]

I would try something cheaper first.

Get a set of Ski Savers and shims from Scott Bergstrom of Bergstrom Skegs (http://www.bergstromskegs.com/). Call his toll free #. He will be able to explain how the shims and ski Savers work. I used them on my sleds (96 Indy 500, 98 ZL5, 02 ZR8, 03 Rev8) over the years to reduce darting and extend the life of my carbides. This will cost you all of $10-$15 for the Ski Savers and I wouldn't doubt if he gives you the shims for free - especially if you also buy a set of carbides from him. His carbides are the best I've tried and last longer than Woody's or Roetin in my opinion.

Check your carbides. All of my sleds showed much more wear up front than at the rear (Bergstrom said you should have 60% wear front and 40% wear back - I had about 80-90% wear front). The ski's are digging in at the front causing the front of the skeg to dig into the ruts and cause darting. The shims are attached to the rear of the rubber spacer below each spindle which raises the front of the ski up. This will even out the wear on the carbide and reduce darting. Also, the Ski Savers (to a lesser degree) will also reduce darting but are well worth it considering the ski protection and extended skeg life they provide.

His shims and Ski Savers fixed my darting woes, protect my skis, even out the Carbide wear and proling carbide life. As soon as my carbides need changing on the REV I'll be switching to Bergstom's.

Give him a call he's really a nice guy. He helped me and a buddy of mine out. I know this sound like a commercial for Bergstrom but I'm just a satisfied customer who would like to see a nice guy finish first for a change.

Good Luck,

Kerry Johnson

 

[hvf7]

I put a 1/4 toe out and 6 in shaper bars and it fixed
99% of the darting. And now it turns realy good.

 

[Roy T]

The Bergstrom site has literally hundreds of pages of info on their site once you start digging around! Here are two pages that concern our darting problems:

http://www.bergstromskegs.com/oui/darting_...g_solutions.htm

http://www.bergstromskegs.com/ss/ss_main.htm

-- Roy

 

[Roy T]

SabercattF7, how many miles have you put on with your Woody's Dooly carbides? Could you give any additional details... is the turning that much better than conventional carbides?? Is the tracking/darting really reduced that much ("zero darting!) compared to regular carbides???

HvF7, how many miles have you put on with your Shaper bars? Those also seemed to considerably reduce the darting??

klj, thanks for your excellent and detailed post! Sounds like the Ski Savers and the shims might be something to try as well. You've used both the Ski Savers and the shims on your past sleds, and that did considerably reduce or eliminate any darting you were experiencing? Have you tried these on a Fire Cat yet??

Thanks you guys for the good ideas. Any additional feedback on any of these would be greatly appreciated! -- Roy

 

[SPUDAC]

Skidoo makes a plastic fork that goes on the bottom of the ski that fits the AC ski perfectly and really makes a difference in darting. I have not tried them on the Firecat but have put 30000 miles on them on other cats and highly recommend them. They have 2 different lengths, get the longer ones. Around $20. Short of a new set of skis they are the best solution I have found.

 

[Roy T]

SPUDAC, thanks for the tip! I know about the Ski-Doo plastic "forks," but I've never heard of anyone using or trying them on stock Cat skis. I wonder if they'd still work with the larger diameter aftermarket (Woody's, etc.) carbides? Hmmm... I might have to check it out. Thanks again!!! -- Roy

 

[hvf7]

Originally posted by Roy T@Jan 14 2003, 09:54 PM
SabercattF7, how many miles have you put on with your Woody's Dooly carbides? Could you give any additional details... is the turning that much better than conventional carbides?? Is the tracking/darting really reduced that much ("zero darting!) compared to regular carbides???

HvF7, how many miles have you put on with your Shaper bars? Those also seemed to considerably reduce the darting??

klj, thanks for your excellent and detailed post! Sounds like the Ski Savers and the shims might be something to try as well. You've used both the Ski Savers and the shims on your past sleds, and that did considerably reduce or eliminate any darting you were experiencing? Have you tried these on a Fire Cat yet??

Thanks you guys for the good ideas. Any additional feedback on any of these would be greatly appreciated! -- Roy

83 miles I put on the shaper bars and added 1/8 in toe out
for a total of 1/4 in . This made a big diff. Before on a hard packed
trail , any thing over 20 mph it would try and picth you off.
Now it is 99.9% better. I'm leaveing to go east for 7 days of
rideing on the 16th I will let you know how it goes.

 

[Roy T]

Thanks hvf7, please keep us posted on your Shapers and the darting. Thanks! -- Roy

 

[SabercattF7]

I would say about 200 to 250 miles on the dooleys, yes you can turn way better, before I could not turn in low snoe at slow speeds but now I can turn on a dime with anything, and I got 0 darting now, its great, the best thing I have bought for this sled yet, When ski doo came out with one of there sled before they had some turning probs so thats what they did put 2 runners on each ski, my buddys got a 2002 700 mxzx and he has the ski doo skis with 4 runners on them and he can turn on a dime too, He is not as fast as me but he can corner just as good, lol

 

[klj]

Roy,

My 96 Indy 500 was the worst of the bunch for darting - used to drive me nuts. the combination of shims and savers totally fixed the problem. In fact it was so much better that I started to notice some darting on my 98 ZL5 - which I didn't notice before because the Indy was so much worse. I also noticed that my carbides weren't wearing evenly on the ZL so I put the shims and Ski Savers on the ZL as well. This combo fixed the ZL's problems as well.

The ZR8 had more darting than I expected and the combo fixed this sled up to.

My REV8 doesn't dart too much but I noticed my carbides weren't wearing properly so I put shims on it as well. I expect that it will correct the wear problem. The darting is better on this sled as well although it's hard to tell because it didnt' dart that much to begin with. Unfortunately ski savers don't work on precision skis.

It's so cheap to try this combo - what do you have to lose!! (new skis are too expensive)

 

[catfish]

klj,
I just put a pair of Bergstrom carbides and ski savers on my son's sled. They seem to work quite well, but didn't use the spacers for darting yet. I'll probably go home tonight and install them on my F7. Would like to get rid of the darting that is more noticable now since I removed almost all of my front skid spring preload, but it's not as tippy as it was when there was 1" of preload.

catfish

 

[Roy T]

Thanks again for the EXCELLENT feedback guys -- some great ideas here! I'd like to try some (or all???) of these ideas before considering new skis. Although after riding in 600 miles of mostly marginal trail conditions, my stock Cat ski keels have really taken a beating and literally don't look too sharp any more. I guess some sort of "ski-saver" sure would've helped to prevent that!

We've had several Polarises amongst our riding group that had mild to wild darting problems over the last several years, and in every case we were able to eliminate at least 90% or more of the darting problems. We used a product on the stock Poo skis called Tru-Track Runners, in conjunction with Woody's EZ-Steer/Shur-Steer carbides -- worked great and most of us would agree that it was the biggest improvement we made to our sleds. I don't know if they make the Tru-Tracks any more and/or if they're available for Cat skis or not. I think I'll check it out today.

As good as I'm sure most of the aftermath skis are, I'm convinced that with one of the above products we should be able to reduce or eliminate the darting and maybe even improve the steering without having to spend the extra $$$$$ on another set of skis. If (when???) we get enough snow around here, I'll be sure to post what I've tried and how well different things worked. Would appreciate any additional feedback from things people have tried, or will be trying in the near future! -- Roy