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Sidewinder Clutching experience

sideshowBob

Lifetime Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
2,065
Location
North West Ontario
I just completed my fall inspection of my clutches after a full season of long trip, high speed trail riding, ice fishing, snow drag racing and everything still looks good.
I like to "march to my own drummer" so my 2019 X-TX LE Winder isn't set up like most.
I never ran my Winder stock as I purchased it in the Spring of 2019 and over the summer I installed a Hurricane tune bundle and changed the stock clutching from zero miles . I have a brand new Apex clutch that I was planning on installing on the Winder, because of all the issues I read about, but so far I have not found a reason to install it.

Here's my approach to my clutching from zero miles.

-stock secondary with Dalton helix and spring and TPI rollers
-I fully float my secondary as I have done on all my sleds since the 70s.
-as the secondary is floating I installed an internal sheave spacer for proper belt deflection
-I use the trusty inexpensive 8DN belt as I have never had an issue with them even on the 300++ S/C Apex I had. I ran the same 8DN belt all last year for 2000++ miles
-stock Sidewinder primary with Dalton weights and spring, TPI rollers and 911 cover, rollers still in very good shape after over 2000 tuned miles, clutch looks like new with NO cracking, pins are secured from floating to reduce noise
-Hurricane noise reduction stub shaft with no reliability issues and much quieter then stock
-the X-TXs are geared pretty low and run 3 x 8 tooth drivers so I geared the sled up from the stock gearing so the clutches probably would never bottom out in their travel by fully shifting out...I have seen 118mph on the GPS

I have a Razor belt temp gage and belt temps have never been an issue.
The sled is a blast to trail ride and very competitive in drag racing and I couldn't be happier although I will install a new 8DN belt for this season as over 2000 miles is enough for any belt...especially on a 300hp sled!

Works for me!

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I have a combo tune kit coming from Dave at Hurricane. Thanks for sharing. I will have the Dalton weights as well and will most likely stay on 270. It looks as though you went to TPI rollers, no flat spots yet? Everything on my XTX clutches are stock so Im wondering if anyone can chime in on what the most logical change to the clutching is. Can you share what colour Dalton springs have worked for you?

From what I hear rollers for sure.
What wrap on secondary?
Is there concern for running the stock spring in primary and secondary? Is it capable of handling 270HP from anyones experience?
 
I have a combo tune kit coming from Dave at Hurricane. Thanks for sharing. I will have the Dalton weights as well and will most likely stay on 270. It looks as though you went to TPI rollers, no flat spots yet? Everything on my XTX clutches are stock so Im wondering if anyone can chime in on what the most logical change to the clutching is. Can you share what colour Dalton springs have worked for you?

From what I hear rollers for sure.
What wrap on secondary?
Is there concern for running the stock spring in primary and secondary? Is it capable of handling 270HP from anyones experience?

I have no flat spots on the TPI rollers and they appear to be good for at least another season.
PM sent
 
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The TPI secondary and primary rollers have worked very well on mine as well. The secondary rollers look new at 4000 plus miles and most of that time spent with 270 up to 300 hp. Also with a steep helix and very heavy spring. One thing i noticed after removing the primary was how much wear i had from 2 seasons with the 8DN.
 
One thing i noticed after removing the primary was how much wear i had from 2 seasons with the 8DN.

Yes...all my high mileage Yamaha primaries have shown belt wear on the sheaves engagement area particularly on my improved stock and mod sleds when I ran fairly high and aggressive engagement RPMs like 4500++++.
I run low engagements on my Winder and Apex now, around 3000RPM, and have not seen much sheave wear but the 8DN belt is hard and eventually will wear the sheaves. I guess it’s a worth while trade off for my application.
Works for me!
 
The 8DN is a good choice. Once it's dialed in, it's rock solid every time. The same can not be said for the 8JP or even the XS825, BUT.... with a pretty new TAPP in there i'll be going with the XS825 out of the gate. I just don't want to chance putting a ridge in there and I had good results from the XS last season.
 
I have a combo tune kit coming from Dave at Hurricane. Thanks for sharing. I will have the Dalton weights as well and will most likely stay on 270. It looks as though you went to TPI rollers, no flat spots yet? Everything on my XTX clutches are stock so Im wondering if anyone can chime in on what the most logical change to the clutching is. Can you share what colour Dalton springs have worked for you?

From what I hear rollers for sure.
What wrap on secondary?
Is there concern for running the stock spring in primary and secondary? Is it capable of handling 270HP from anyones experience?

I Wouldnt run the stock springs. Primary springs tend to brake, and IMO you need stiffer than stock. The stock secondary spring is too soft in my finding, and also has issues with binding, depending on the year of your sled.
 
I have a combo tune kit coming from Dave at Hurricane. Thanks for sharing. I will have the Dalton weights as well and will most likely stay on 270. It looks as though you went to TPI rollers, no flat spots yet? Everything on my XTX clutches are stock so Im wondering if anyone can chime in on what the most logical change to the clutching is. Can you share what colour Dalton springs have worked for you?

From what I hear rollers for sure.
What wrap on secondary?
Is there concern for running the stock spring in primary and secondary? Is it capable of handling 270HP from anyones experience?
Your xtx is an 2018 according to your signature so it has a 35 degree helix and yellow spring wrapped at 3-3 from the factory. If you run the xs825 belt your stock secondary will be perfectly fine as is. The yellow spring should not coil bind at 3-3 and lower wrap.The stock primary spring is quite long and there is better choices. if you prefer a low engagement setup there are a few springs I know of that will work great. The dalton bronze, the yamaha blue-brown-blue, yamaha blue-white-blue, yamaha white-green-white, yamaha yellow-silver-yellow are all good choices that will give you engagements in the 2800-3300rpm range depending on your weight setup. If you prefer a higher engaging setup there are other choices of course but I dont know those off the top of my head. If your daltons are the qay-70 youll be 71-73 gram range at 270hp depending on what you choose to target for max rpm. I have just shy of 2500 miles using these components at 270hp. Ran all those miles on same belt and it looks great. No heat and no dust. There are more aggressive, possibly?? better performing setups out there but this is a simple solid setup that runs consistent rpms everyday in a variety of different snow conditions, gives good fuel mileage and bestof all it is a "set it and forget it" setup that isnt sensitive to changing snow and trail conditions. The xs825 belt does not need big springs and big wraps on secondary clutch with the 35 helix. I ran the stock yellow spring at a lower wrap (2-3) and it worked just fine and even slightly reduced average belt temps according to my razorback belt temp gauge. I prefered the backshift and over all feel on 3-3 setting. Now keep in mind that everything I just wrote is for the xs825 belt. if you insist or prefer to use the 8JP belt then nothing I mentioned will work for you.
 
I Wouldnt run the stock springs. Primary springs tend to brake, and IMO you need stiffer than stock. The stock secondary spring is too soft in my finding, and also has issues with binding, depending on the year of your sled.

I've got a Dalton "orange" secondary spring. Would you keep the wrap at 3-3 or 6-1?
 
I've got a Dalton "orange" secondary spring. Would you keep the wrap at 3-3 or 6-1?

Dalton Black/Orange has less force than stock yellow.
 
I've got a Dalton "orange" secondary spring. Would you keep the wrap at 3-3 or 6-1?

Secondary dictates belt tension, it’s very dependent upon what belt you run.
 
This chart is directly from the Dalton website and shows all of the relevant specs of both the Dalton secondary springs along with the OEM Yamaha springs:

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FYI...I've had awesome success using the Dalton Black/Orange spring on my two stock SideWinder's and plan on using it on my new SideWinder that has a 250 tune.
 
LOL....It looks like sideshowBob beat me to the draw and posted the same chart :)
 


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