Powder riding and off-trail excursions are what I live for. I've been known to drop out of long distance trail rides and go off wandering through the trees and over little hills to see what is out there. I really like deep bottomless powder, some relatively small hill climbing and boondocking out through the countryside. I am rarely the guy that goes furthest up the hill but am one of the guys that always shows up to help stuck people get unstuck. I'm a pretty big guy, a shade over 6 foot, and 225 pounds is a fond memory, so when I do get there, people are usually glad to see me.

In March of 1996 I bought a used 1995 Arctic Cat 800ZRT from a good friend of mine. The sled was known for consistently outrunning sleds in its class both off trail and on trail, primarily due to the previous owners abilities to ride and tune it. I bought it primarily because I got a great deal on it and thought it offered a little more oomph than my old ride, a 94 700ZR. I still own both sleds, and it is a lot of fun to compare them, tinker on them, and grow them to their full potential, at least for my riding styles.

The first part season on the 800 ended with me riding it almost exactly as I purchased it, except that I switched my SLP Hyperfaxes over from my old sled. When I bought it, the 800 had .020 shaved off the heads, jetting that I've never even touched and clutching that was awesome. The 800 had rubberband throttle - grab a handful and it would spool up and pull hard assuming you could get traction. Flotation was a huge issue, as both the sled and rider are heavy and we tended to sink a lot, unless I had plenty of ground speed. If you think of a super heavy boat in the water, as you push it, it takes a lot to get it going. If you have enough horsepower though you can get it up on plane and it will then behave like a heavy, over-horse powered boat. It may very well have a high top speed and with a rolling start will run with many other craft but it won't turn as well as a light boat and you better not slow down or you may sink. Such is Doug Miller on a short track 800.

With the 1.4 Cat short track I would always outclimb a stock 96 670 Summit regardless of rider but would always lose to the same sled if it had a 2 inch paddle and lightweight canister. It was a lot of fun out running piped XLT long tracks in the powder and listening to locals in the back country tell us that "you can't make it there on a short track" and then breaking trail for them.

The following year, I had the Fox shocks revalved to be much stiffer on low speed and somewhat stiffer on high speed. I also decided I was tired of the lazy throttle response, especially when compared to my 700. Cat the previous year had introduced the roller secondary and all it took to convert a secondary was the face plate. Unfortunately, others had the same idea and I ended up ordering the entire face plate assembly as individual parts and then assembling them myself over the summer because the entire assembly was backordered. Eventually I ended up with a 49 degree straight helix, with the original weights and springs that I had with the non-roller setup. Because the Cat roller works best with aluminum helixes, I was able to borrow many helixes from my dealer to find the perfect setup. The difference in throttle response was tremendous. With the original clutch, as you came to a bump in the trail you would have to plan ahead and time it just right to catch air off of it. After the roller secondary, it was very comparable to a snappy twin - smack it when you want it - no timing involved. A guy in the valley wrecked his 800, and sold me a stinger exhaust to replace the canister and make the sled lighter.

I rode this way for a while but eventually got tired of my buddies on their 700 RMK's ribbing me and got a great deal on a 1.75x121 stagger track. The track was really awesome and hooked well but it didn't solve my flotation problems and I had big problems with the sled trying to come over backwards going uphill. Fortunately, mid season someone decided they wanted my track more than I did and offered me a fair price for it. Flotation and traction were what I wanted but budget was a concern. I bought a Cat mountain conversion kit, a used Polaris 136x1.75 track (previous owner went 141x2) and rail extenders. I was really concerned about the rail extenders being strong enough but talked to a lot of guys that have run them, and most are very happy with them. At 45 bucks, you can't beat the price.

When I pulled the 9 tooth drivers out, I took them to a machine shop and had them true the wheels. You would be amazed at how out of round the stock plastic drivers are for all brands. I then installed them back in and carefully checked clearances with the 1.75 track. On my sled, one paddle had about a .002 interference with the head exchanger and the rest of the paddles you couldn't get a match book clearance through. In other words, it was a tight fit but it worked. I also took that opportunity to put a chain tensioner kit on, as the stock 95 800ZRT system was a stupid little spring type affair and I had had some troubles with stretched chains in the past.

With this setup, I think the SLED was comparable to a dialed in 700RMK, or a dialled in 670 2 inch summit. The excess rider weight hurt it and it didn't do as well on the fluffy cold days in tight trees. It really excelled on those spring days in the soupy snow when it takes a gazillion horsepower to even spin the track. I ran against a Piped and Ported 2 inch Storm, who barely edged me on a 1/4 mile hill but there was one buddy on a certain 670 MXZ with a 2x136 track that I never could quite edge out. At the very end of the season I mouthed off to a buddy with a brand new Ported, piped, milled, full mod 159 horse dynoed 700 RMK that he better bring a tow rope. That day on the trail home my trusty steed ate a lower rod bearing and I got towed home by brand X. The bastard has pictures to prove it or I'd lie.

Over the summer, the lottery struck and I had more play money to tinker with. I had contemplated for the past year a 1000cc kit and had actually looked into several used 1000 cc Black Magic kits floating around the valley. Eventually I discovered that although the 1000 kits ran strong on the flats, they laid down on the mountain and had actually been beaten by more or less stock 900 T-Cats. Not exactly a sterling endorsement. I also ran into 2 gentlemen riding Cutler 1000 kits. They kicked my butt and everyone that showed up on the days that I saw. When I talked to them, they had ridden the sleds for 2 years as 1000's, never had a bit of trouble and couldn't be happier. They were considering selling their sleds just to build something new but couldn't figure out what to go to. Last I heard, they were trying to stuff their 1000's into an AWS5 chassis.

Anyway, I called Cutler and ordered up a new motor.

A couple of miscellaneous tidbits:

Dialling the roller in was a learning experience. The previous owner had run a 57/50 helix and had drag raced the sled enough to know that it produced maximum horsepower when the tach read between 82-8300 RPM.

I ran the 1.4 Cat short track, which I really liked, especially in the powder. At the same time I had the 1.5 Polaris staggered paddle on my 700, which I feel to be a better trail track but tends to dig holes too easily in fluffy powder.

Coming soon! Installment #2 of Doug's mod adventure with his ZRT 800.

ZRT 800 Component Weights