rs venture handleing

[rs venture]

I have a 2006 rs venture that pushes bad in the corners as well as being tippy. I ride mainly two up and have the rear overloads up and the rear blocks on hard. I also have the pre-load set as soft as possible to get more weight on the skis. My limiter straps have slack in them at all times unless the machine becomes air born.The only two holes that are there for adjustment can not possibly take up enoughj slack. Between my self my wife and my son we are a combined weight of about 490lbs. and with this set up we still bottom out quite frequently. I also average 15-16 mpg. I was hoping for more. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Shivesy]

Biggest improvement for me was to set the transfer rod to minimum. Tighten up your limiter strap by one hole, if that helps try 2 holes.

 

[Metallicat]

Soft preload = less weight on the skis.

If you want more weight on the skis, crank up the front suspension preload as well as the rear. Experiment a bit.

 

[Paul_C]

You seem undersprung in the back. Yamaha makes heavy duty rear torsion springs for the RS Venture that are about 20% stiffer than the stock springs. You may want to consider installing them and then setting up the rest of the sled.

 

[Roger]

I have a 2006 rs venture that pushes bad in the corners as well as being tippy. I ride mainly two up and have the rear overloads up and the rear blocks on hard. I also have the pre-load set as soft as possible to get more weight on the skis. My limiter straps have slack in them at all times unless the machine becomes air born.The only two holes that are there for adjustment can not possibly take up enoughj slack. Between my self my wife and my son we are a combined weight of about 490lbs. and with this set up we still bottom out quite frequently. I also average 15-16 mpg. I was hoping for more. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I have an '07 RS Venture. The first thing I noticed when riding was that it handled like a big bag of wet crap. It wanted to fall right over any time I tried to make a corner, at any speed. It was if the entire sleds weight was resting on the front of the track. What I did to fix this was simple. The front shock in the rear suspension is easily adjustable. There are 2 nuts tightened together at the bottom of the spring on this front shock. Get all the ice off these nuts and shock, it will make adjusting it simple. Turn the lower nut down about 1 1/2" from factory set-up. (I found the factory had this spring tightened right up, keeping weight off the skis and keeping all the weight on the front of the track). Grab the spring, and turn it until it makes contact with the nut you moved 1 1/2". Snug up the 2 nuts against each other. The sled handled like a totally different sled after this quick fix. All my riding is on groomed trails. I want traction, with no ski lift, and weight on the skis when I turn at any speeds. This seems to work well.

 

[NaughtyPines]

I have an '07 RS Venture. The first thing I noticed when riding was that it handled like a big bag of wet crap. It wanted to fall right over any time I tried to make a corner, at any speed. It was if the entire sleds weight was resting on the front of the track. What I did to fix this was simple. The front shock in the rear suspension is easily adjustable. There are 2 nuts tightened together at the bottom of the spring on this front shock. Get all the ice off these nuts and shock, it will make adjusting it simple. Turn the lower nut down about 1 1/2" from factory set-up. (I found the factory had this spring tightened right up, keeping weight off the skis and keeping all the weight on the front of the track). Grab the spring, and turn it until it makes contact with the nut you moved 1 1/2". Snug up the 2 nuts against each other. The sled handled like a totally different sled after this quick fix. All my riding is on groomed trails. I want traction, with no ski lift, and weight on the skis when I turn at any speeds. This seems to work well.

I've got a 2006 RS Venture. I don't see this nut one can turn down that far. Would adjusting the front skid shock preload to minimum accomplish the same thing or am I just missing something?

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[sledheadgeorge]

I've got a 2006 RS Venture. I don't see this nut one can turn down that far. Would adjusting the front skid shock preload to minimum accomplish the same thing or am I just missing something?

Thank you for the clarification.

Thats right. Removing the preload from the rear skid front shock spring will also lower the sled and centre of gravity. If you do this you will get more of a load on your skis as well so you might have to loosen the load on your front skis as well. You also might want to consider heavier rear torsion springs.

 

[Vornec]

I drive an '06 venture just like you and have had the same issues, but it is finally getting better. Here is what I did to change things up:

1. I don't know if you are using stock skis, but I am and noticed that the front of the ski was taking most of the wear. I added 3/8" of shim (made of basically cutting board plastic) right behind the spindle and on top of the rubber stopper. This leveled the ski out so it was riding on the carbides instead of on the steel in front of the carbide.

2. Soften the front skid shock to the softest click.

3. Make a new hole in the limiter strap, approx. 1" further down the strap and adjust it to that. Otherwise, every time you touch the throttle even a little, you can feel the front end of the sled bounce up, taking all of the weight off of the skis.

4. I have the front shocks set to the second hardest setting, and the rear skid shock set to medium, mostly because I am a lightweight (145lbs) and I put the 2 up blocks up when I have my family on.

While the handling still isn't perfect, it is so much better than it used to be!

 

[RS Venture rider]

So I moved the limiter strap to the last hole, took an inch or so out of the front track spring preload, just waiting for the temp to get above -28C to go for a ride and maybe make some more adjustments.

 

[NaughtyPines]

So I moved the limiter strap to the last hole, took an inch or so out of the front track spring preload, just waiting for the temp to get above -28C to go for a ride and maybe make some more adjustments.

I made these exact adjustments on my 06 Venture before my last ride. a HUGE improvement with the limiter strap in particular (did adjustments one at a time). It goes where I point it now without pushing the front end, as long as I'm not trying to set a new speed record and heavy with my right thumb. Front skid preload is now at setting 2 of 5 for reference, with 5 being stiffest.

I don't have a garage so I always keep very powerful magnets attached to the tools I'm using at the time. Dropping those 10mm limiter strap nuts and washers into the depths of the snowy track sucks and this way I don't have to worry about leaving needed hardware everywhere in the snow since it always ends up attached to my tools. Since it's cold there are gloves on my hands which lowers dexterity. Someday I'd like to invent insulated magnetic gloves with high dexterity for this purpose (have prototype but too bulky IMO, though great for trail side repairs when I'm riding my old Poolaris).

 

[4strokeluvr111]

Try your control rods set to "minimum". Less weight transfer on accel and decel.

 

[RS Venture rider]

Just put 80 Kms on the sled, a mix of trail and lake. The handling is way better, I can pin it and have it not wander all over the place! Now I need to work on the speed, had it pinned and would only do 131 kmh. There is a lot of snow on the lake I am sure it will go a little faster on a harder surface. So which ones are the control rods?

 

[4strokeluvr111]

Just put 80 Kms on the sled, a mix of trail and lake. The handling is way better, I can pin it and have it not wander all over the place! Now I need to work on the speed, had it pinned and would only do 131 kmh. There is a lot of snow on the lake I am sure it will go a little faster on a harder surface. So which ones are the control rods?

Toward the rear of your skid there are two rod assy's at about a 10 oclock (forward) to 5 oclock (rearward) angle. They can be adjusted to increase or decrease weight transfer.

Speed? you're at 78 MPH. Is that GPS or speedo? I don't know how these sleds are geared and what their potential is. Remember, it is a 2up sled and not meant to be a lake racer. Best GPS speed I have seen on my 14 LTX is 95 mph and that was going down hill a bit on perfect "speed snow"..

 

[RS Venture rider]

I had it doing 140 kmh a couple weeks ago, I am good with the speed. You're right if I want a lake racer I should buy one. I will have a look at the control rods as soon as the snow melts off, time to crank the garage heat!!!!

 

[Vornec]

Seen 102 mph on my speedo ... perfect trail... the night before the fastest I could get was 96, had times when 90 was impossible no matter how much space I had... so it all depends on conditions.