Picked up a '18 XTX

[SidewinderConvert]

IMO you need to experiment with pre-load on the front skid shock until you find your happy place -which can be different for everyone as well as depending on your ski setup. Once you do that the sled fills it potentially for great handling. C&As are expensive but theres a reason racers use them. Same goes for snowtrackers. The reason I took the snowtrackers off is that I needed too much ski pressure with them to minimize understeer. Pilots Curves Mohawks XPTs Cat single keel or now Yamaha Stryke (I'll bet) all can be made to work with setting suspension for you.

And this is where I am struggling, do I want to spend a bunch of time trying to get the suspension set up on the stock skis or just buy new ones this summer and tune the suspension on that. On trail I think I could make the stock skis work but I may need to have a trade-off in handling so I can still pick the front end out of deep snow. Admittedly it took me almost a full season of messing around to get my old '06 Fusion to ride exactly how I like it on/off the trail and expect the sidewinder to take as much or more work.

 

[actionjack]

I would strongly advise against curve skis. They are good no doubt, but we encountered one problem this year on our 2 week Quebec trip. A guy running curve skis lost his carbide somewhere. He thinks likely when we crossed some railroad tracks. You cannot find a carbide for that ski anywhere. At least if you have pilot skis, you can go to any skidoo dealer and pick some up. He ruined his ski by running the next 800 miles without a carbide. I have the 6.9's on my winder, and they work great.

Why not improvise drilling new holes?

 

[actionjack]

And this is where I am struggling, do I want to spend a bunch of time trying to get the suspension set up on the stock skis or just buy new ones this summer and tune the suspension on that. On trail I think I could make the stock skis work but I may need to have a trade-off in handling so I can still pick the front end out of deep snow. Admittedly it took me almost a full season of messing around to get my old '06 Fusion to ride exactly how I like it on/off the trail and expect the sidewinder to take as much or more work.

There's a lot of data on this. Yes there are members who warmed up to tuners . I think most of them like snowtrackers. BUT there are many a good reason the only new full Yamaha snow product is the Stryke ski. They spent so much time and resources on ski development they had no time to build us a new CF chassis. Tuners blow.