Handlebar button switch review - Quebec trip, end of season

[ROCKERDAN]

Hey guys.....Its been a very busy few weeks! In full remodel mode on my bathroom here at cottage and was able to sneak in several days of riding up to Northern Quebec since we had such a short season locally. Our snow never fully left but our trails went to #*$&@ a few weeks back and so we decided to head north about 3 hrs from here as the trails/snow is still amazing to our north.

I was ecstatic when I got a PM from Patrick at GAP last week. He wanted to get their new handlebar switch out for beta testing. I was more then happy to accept! He contacted me just a couple days before we were heading to Qc, and so he quickly shipped it out to me(2 days) so I would have it here in time to install it before trip. Huge thank you to Patrick and GAP for EVERYTHING they have done from software and now to hardware, and reaching out to me, thank you guys!

New Liskeard, Val-d'Or, Amos, Rouyn-Noranda

We decided to trailer to the closest area from home that had decent snow to begin trip from. New Liskeard Ontario had open trails, although lean on snow....is a great spot to park rig, and get to Qc fast. It sits on massive lake Temiscaming north of North Bay about 1.5hr. This large lake is the divider of Ontario and Quebec, so its just a short run out across lake heading east to get onto the Qc trails. We ran trail 309 to
Val-d'Or to the Hotel Forestel. This was the coldest day(Sat) at about -27 in AM and only got to a high of -17 that day. With the large 'super highway' trails in this entire region, these temps are magnified bigtime as the speeds are fast. Sorta would be like me running lakes here only, at these temps.

Next morning several sleds had hard time starting. My Winder was a muther to get fired up...it has enough battery power but slow cranking and only the odd firing, so I feathered the flipper just a tad and coaxed her along, so i was good. A few Doos did not start out front, and my buds Assault was a NO GO. The Poo actually was running poorly for about half of saturday, would only go 60mph.....basically getting passed on those super highways. So after some heating of the engine bay, we got it going, and ventured down to Canadian tire as it was Sunday and everything else was closed....Val-d'Or is an incredibly sled friendly city, trails intertwine withing the city using back alleys, and its quite incredible to see. The larger trails circle all around the city so you can get just about anywhere. We needed handlebar muffs bad, and we got lucky as crappy tire had 2 pairs!

Ran the super highways to Amos, and then over to Rouyn later.....Would have been better if buds sled ran full speed so it was abit of a damper. We swapped and he took the winder so he could grab a handful on these big trails....The winder simply loves to run around 70-80 on trail. These super highways are wide and smooth and it was cold so they were well setup. Sweeping corners, plenty of straights and lots of woops that were the high speed kind, where you can hit them at big speeds and catch perfect air without big drops mostly.

The softer clutching I setup before the trip sure made for COLD clutches and belt. Now it was cold out, but ever at big speeds all day long the clutches never got barely warm. I will say the soft clutching does not like to backshift down low at all, you really got roll to a stop or else the belt sits down in 2ndary giving a squeel when you pull off. But for these big trails this setup worked flawless.

The winder truly is made for this type of riding! My area here in Muskoka is tight and twisty and so I have to setup my clutching for corner to corner and its alot harder on belts. This 'up north' high speed running is where the big turbo can shine, and its weight is a blessing as you are nearly always up around 70mph and much of the time around 80-90mph for many miles. It just sings at those speeds with the Stock modded muffler, not loud at all.

For where I ride here, the winder is a blast when I set it up right. But honestly its not really the sled to own for here at all. I lighter 2s with corner to corner jam is the better solution for here for sure.

So its a love/hate thing with the winder. The seeping oil tank sucks, but it did not let me down on the trip and I even think riding it sealed it better with some heat expansion. The level reads fine still, but I will fix that next fall. I took two belts with me all worried, and never had a hiccup. I believe my corner to corner pounding locally is a ton harder on belts then the big up north style riding, the big speeds did not seem to hurt belt at all, and with the softer clutching they ran cool. A few other quirks need to be fixed over summer, but all in all you just cannot beat the power for the up north super highways of the winder. All with 87 octane, this setup with knock protection sure is a unique marvel thanks to GAP and Hurricane. I will surely keep this another season, and see if I can dial it in more for belt life. The MPG at these speeds is quite good actually, and always a few liters less at the pump then buds assault. There surely is no other sled out there that can do all this with this kind of power. The quirks of cat DNA sure keep us on our toes, and we really need to stay ontop of the dumb stuff, but man when they run they sure RUN!

GAP Momentary Map Switch

Some very cool things came out of this trip and switch testing. Since the beginning, I was more interested in map switching then just about any other aspect of the tune. Reason is, for my area i like to rev my sled higher on tight trails which gives me ultimate snap corner to corner. I prefer the 270 or 290 maps on my tight trails, so when I crack throttle it will instantly lift nose. To get the snap to be instant you cannot have the weights too heavy, and of course you MUST run a Early spool Hurricane tune, which comes on with big boost down around 5k.

The downside of this is when you get to a lake, you now will be revving 9100(270map) and higher on 290 map. While the 240 map will be about perfect at 8800-8900. So this was abit of a pain most the season, but now with the GAP Handlebar switch, I can instantly flip up/down in HP and run it where I need to for the trail/lake im on. The best part of having the switch is now you can change MAP on the fly, and truly "feel" the power differences. Really nothing is as cool as this setup!

I also did some testing up north with fuel. With the knock light protection we have, it allows us to know exactly when we see knock from low octane fuel. With that in mind, I did some testing with 87 octane on this trip. I found that I could ride the entire trip on 87 octane at speeds up to 85++ mph on the trail, all day long and never see any knock light. Now that means trail riding, not holding it WOT. I did hold it WOT and the knock lite will start to flicker within a few seconds on 240 map, and even sooner on 270map. But when trail riding you dont normally hold it WOT for any long period of time, and I could run super hard at very high speeds the entire trip with NO KNOCK on 87. Now I dont recommend doing this, but it sure is nice to have this knock protection from GAP, so when you can only find 97 octane you dont need to worry.

Few pics of new switch install:

VIDEO:

 

[ROCKERDAN]

Few Pics from trip, I will post more video from trip in next few weeks.

Incredible riding in Northern Qc.....if you have not been, I highly recommend it, just a few hours north of Toronto to be on some of the best trails in the world.

Dan

 

[**sj**]

Great job Gap ...and thanks for testing and write up par excellence as usual... (btw I laughed when I saw the "cheaters" in one pic as Im lost without them too #gettingold) I too feel this will be the ticket for my TD maps ....very excited!

I am assuming the button splicing of the wiring will be different for those with the anti lag harness????

 

[ROCKERDAN]

A few more pics...Poo dealer found a broken power valve cable on buds Assault, so last day he was happy camper being able to go full speed again!

Dan

 

[74Nitro]

Great write up Dan, this GAP change tunes on the go sounds great.
Two weeks ago I rode from New Liskard to the Abitibi Canyon and you're right. Those trails are awesome and well suited to high power machines like Winders and T-cats

 

[number1kyster]

Do other tuners out there only change boost levels above 5,000 RPM? I've only ridden a stock Sidewinder and I thought it was soft below 45 MPH. I'm sure some of that could be cured with proper clutching.

 

[ApexXTX/Viper]

Was in New Liskeard with the wife last weekend as well. Looks like a pic of the Wabi River among your posts. What's with your coolant temps? Sled should be shutting down at those temps.

 

[WVTurboLTX]

Was in New Liskeard with the wife last weekend as well. Looks like a pic of the Wabi River among your posts. What's with your coolant temps? Sled should be shutting down at those temps.

Fahrenheit not Celsius

 

[newtron]

I was up there at the same time Dan. That's my blue winder in one of your pics.

My sled fired right up in the morning even at -27. I didn't have the roll over valve mod done so I would heat the valve up every morning with a torch lighter just to have piece of mind.

Your right, these sleds are awesome in Quebec. Great power and just as good on fuel as the 3 850 doos I rode with. One of the guys I rode with works for SuperTrax and his 850 ran out of gas before I did...... wonder if he'll right about that in his next blog. lol

Gas caddies are a must in Quebec as far as I'm concerned. The most miles I achieved on one tank in good conditions was 140 miles and took 37 litres to fill. That's running 60-90 mph

We unloaded in Swisha which is only 10 minutes from Deep River Ontario and made the 250 mile ride up to Val-d'or. Trails were a little rough at first but still very good with lots of snow. Will definitely drop at this location again.

Only gripe I have with my winder is the seat. Its hard on the #*$&@ after you rack up over 300 miles a day!

 

[snowdust]

Have you heard if we are going to have to pay for the switch? I was under the impression it was part of the deal, but that was also when it was to be coming in the next couple weeks. Now that it has been so long I'm assuming they are going to charge for it.

 

[TurboJamie]

Trails are awesome up there.

I was up there at the same time Dan. That's my blue winder in one of your pics.

My sled fired right up in the morning even at -27. I didn't have the roll over valve mod done so I would heat the valve up every morning with a torch lighter just to have piece of mind.

Your right, these sleds are awesome in Quebec. Great power and just as good on fuel as the 3 850 doos I rode with. One of the guys I rode with works for SuperTrax and his 850 ran out of gas before I did...... wonder if he'll right about that in his next blog. lol

Gas caddies are a must in Quebec as far as I'm concerned. The most miles I achieved on one tank in good conditions was 140 miles and took 37 litres to fill. That's running 60-90 mph

We unloaded in Swisha which is only 10 minutes from Deep River Ontario and made the 250 mile ride up to Val-d'or. Trails were a little rough at first but still very good with lots of snow. Will definitely drop at this location again.

Only gripe I have with my winder is the seat. Its hard on the #*$&@ after you rack up over 300 miles a day!

Trails are awesome up there we are lucky enough to ride them almost every weekend all season long. Lots of familiar places in Dan's pics.

We did a run about 3 weeks ago from Amos to Metagami my buddy has a tuned SW with Powertrail and a muffler. I have an 850 146" back country sled. Every time we filled I beat him by 2 liters the entire trip. The Amos to Metagami run was interesting because of the distance with zero gas. On that run my buddies SW took 37 liters to my 32. We both played in the snow on the powerline a bit. But for all that power who cares about a couple liters here and there the engine is insane. By the same token a 2015 800 cat took 42 liters to make the same run lol. Our 600R ran out about 4 km from town.

 

[ROCKERDAN]

I was up there at the same time Dan. That's my blue winder in one of your pics.

My sled fired right up in the morning even at -27. I didn't have the roll over valve mod done so I would heat the valve up every morning with a torch lighter just to have piece of mind.

Your right, these sleds are awesome in Quebec. Great power and just as good on fuel as the 3 850 doos I rode with. One of the guys I rode with works for SuperTrax and his 850 ran out of gas before I did...... wonder if he'll right about that in his next blog. lol

Gas caddies are a must in Quebec as far as I'm concerned. The most miles I achieved on one tank in good conditions was 140 miles and took 37 litres to fill. That's running 60-90 mph

We unloaded in Swisha which is only 10 minutes from Deep River Ontario and made the 250 mile ride up to Val-d'or. Trails were a little rough at first but still very good with lots of snow. Will definitely drop at this location again.

Only gripe I have with my winder is the seat. Its hard on the #*$&@ after you rack up over 300 miles a day!

Haha, how ironic! I wished I knew it was you, we watched you use your lighter on ROV....too funny.

Yeah that area is awesome, I will be heading that way lots more for sure!

BTW I sent you a PM
Dan

 

[ROCKERDAN]

Have you heard if we are going to have to pay for the switch? I was under the impression it was part of the deal, but that was also when it was to be coming in the next couple weeks. Now that it has been so long I'm assuming they are going to charge for it.

Not sure....I was very happy to test it for them and it really is nice. I had been wanting switching on the fly forever, and even though it came at end of season, it was well worth the wait as its such a nice looking switch. This setup really turns a stock winder into quite a unique sled, having so many options when riding for diff trails or riding terrain.

Will be going back to stock gearing next season in hopes of more belt life, realizing corner to corner where I live/ride mostly here in Muskoka really needs less gear. Lake running to 125gps or so will have to be enough..lol

Dan

 

[newtron]

Trails are awesome up there.

Trails are awesome up there we are lucky enough to ride them almost every weekend all season long. Lots of familiar places in Dan's pics.

We did a run about 3 weeks ago from Amos to Metagami my buddy has a tuned SW with Powertrail and a muffler. I have an 850 146" back country sled. Every time we filled I beat him by 2 liters the entire trip. The Amos to Metagami run was interesting because of the distance with zero gas. On that run my buddies SW took 37 liters to my 32. We both played in the snow on the powerline a bit. But for all that power who cares about a couple liters here and there the engine is insane. By the same token a 2015 800 cat took 42 liters to make the same run lol. Our 600R ran out about 4 km from town.

I just ran stage 1 with stock muffler up there so close to stock. Mileage depends on the way you drive and if the Turbo is really pushed the boost will eat up the fuel no doubt!

I have an 850 as well with the adjustable package and right now I prefer the sidewinder. The 850 ergos are great,but the power and predictable front end of the winder gives it and edge for me right now. I plan on taking the adjustable skis off the 850 and replace them with 5.7's to see if the front end predictability improves next year.

Yammi needs a softer seat for me IMO. I sat on the 900 turbo in Kanata and it almost sold me just for the seat!

 

[74Nitro]

I just ran stage 1 with stock muffler up there so close to stock. Mileage depends on the way you drive and if the Turbo is really pushed the boost will eat up the fuel no doubt!

I have an 850 as well with the adjustable package and right now I prefer the sidewinder. The 850 ergos are great,but the power and predictable front end of the winder gives it and edge for me right now. I plan on taking the adjustable skis off the 850 and replace them with 5.7's to see if the front end predictability improves next year.

Yammi needs a softer seat for me IMO. I sat on the 900 turbo in Kanata and it almost sold me just for the seat!

This is the second comment I've heard about the seat being too firm. I think the firmness is perfect. I came off a Nytro and I found the seat too soft, but haven't spent any time on the Doo seat.