Hey guys, brand new to this.

I want to get a sled this winter. I know alot about bikes and the "reliability" debate between the 4st vs 2st bikes. Is it the same in sleds? Are the 4 strokes more Maintanence than 2 strokes?

What are the trade offs between the two?

I plan on spending at least 5g on one. It needs to be powerful, as I will need to cross a lake to get to the trails.

Any help is appreciated big time

Not really the same as bikes, 4 strokes are really no more maintenance than the 2 stokes just slightly different maintenance.

The biggest trade off is weight, that being said for trail and ditch riding it's not a big deal, if your going to the mountains though it's a HUGE deal. Basically if your running deep snow it's going to be more of an issue but for most times in the midwest it won't be.

That said, the only 4 strokes currently available that would be in your price range is going to be the Yamaha's but they would be the only 4 strokes that I would currently buy anyway, just based on their track records of being VERY reliable power plants.

The motor is going to outlast a 2 stroke 10 to 1. Outside of that the maintenance schedule is mostly going to be on the chassis/drive line anyway so it's kind of a moot point.

All of the Yamaha 4 strokes are in the 1000 CC range and as such are delivering 120 - 140 hp depending on the model/configuration (3 or 4 cylinder). This puts them in the same class as the 600-700 CC 2 stokes but they seem to have longer legs than the 2 stokes due to the torque they produce allowing for higher gearing.

That being said, I prefer the 2 strokes for my own familiarity of working on them and the lighter weight even for a midwest style of riding. Now living in CO I wouldn't have anything else unless I had an unlimited budget and could sink about $30K into a Yamaha to make it what I want out of one.

Thanks ! Good info

alot of the four st i have ridden were very awkward for me, they seemed to lack the get up n go if u will. they tend to run alot heavier than the 2 strokes do, which can be shaved little by little as can any sled. i foresee yamaha going big in the 4 st business in the future but till then i wont ride anything but my doo. another thing to look at is the price. there are alot more sleds out there that are 2 stroke therefor finding a good deal will be much easier for a 2 st then a 4 st.

i absolutely love my nytro mtx .

the first valve check is at 60,000 kms on it . you wouldn't even have the same block on a arctic cat let alone that being the first time touching the engine .

i ride with m8's , dragon 800's, m1000's , rev 800's . i keep up with all of them , i can't climb quite as well as the 800's but its pretty damn close . i have also ridden with a turbo'd nytro that just pulls catwalks up the hills blowing by the 800's like they are standing still .

i have also lightened up my 4 stroke by about 70lbs which made a big difference .

the only 4 stroke i would buy is a nytro , apex's are really heavy , rx1's were really really heavy and im not a fan of the ski-doo rev chassis .

for a two stroke i would get a polaris 800 dragon . arctic cat has an amazing warranty and a tough engine but i cant stand the riding position .

they are both basically great . two or four , go for which ever sled is the most comfortable . all sleds are awesome in there own way .

nytro xtx's and rtx's will overheat on the trail if there isn't much snow they dont have a tunnel cooler like the mtx . you can fix it fairly easily but still in stock if you run out of good snow its gonna get warm .

a nice little video of nytro's playing in the snow .

It is the opposite. The 4 stroke sleds are more reliable than the 2 strokes. Think of a 4 stroke snowmobile as an old Honda XR. They run forever. I have heard good things about most Yamahas but not the Phazers.

i agree, i have heard that the nytro's, and apex are good sleds, but the phazers need help, i am not mechanically incline with the yamahas so i dont know much about the 4 st, how ever i would love to learn, because i forsee in the future that they will go big, just as they did in the MX world

This forum clearly isn't the place to ask a question such as the OP's...

2strokenut said:

You're right. These are real answers.

Wetbed0 said:

lol if you say so

2strokenut said:

Care to enlighten the masses on snowmobile engine comparisons?????

brad the best said:

XC700116 said:

In bold are comments that require attention.  60000 km before a first valve check.  Thats about 37000 miles.  This is like someone with a 450 bragging about a first valve check at 300 hours.  Not saying its impossible it just sounds dumb.  Its an 11000 dollar snowmobile.  And then saying a 2t wouldn't even be on the same block lol.  An exaggeration clearly.

I have lots of buddies up in Utah who eat breath and sleep snowmobiles.  They run ski doos, Polaris's, yamaha's etc and I always ask them what they think about 4t vs 2t and while they like their Yamahas they almost all prefer the 2t's and get an amazing amount of time on them, especially the ski doos.  

most of the "opinions" given are a joke. Try a real snowmobile forum where owners of the different brands can give a better answer to the OP's question.

2strokenut said:

Well seeing since you're going from other peoples say so, I can clearly see that you're the authority.

Should I post my resume to prove to you that I know what I'm talking about on this particular subject. (3 years as a snowmobile mechanic in a dealership, 4 years of racing them and maintaining my race sleds, wrenching for other racers when I didn't have the cash and oh yeah building a turbo'ed 700 CC 2 stroke that makes 250 hp) I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing sleds for over 20 years so if that's got you satisfied, we'll move on.

I don't exactly buy the 60000 km either but I do know a few guys that run the Yamahas and they have yet to adjust them in over 5000 miles so it's not that huge of a stretch.

Now in the trail conditions that the OP is inquiring about most 2 stokes are hard pressed to see much over the 4-5K mile mark. Some will hit amazing numbers but none the less they will NEVER over the average outlast the 4 strokes, there are exceptions to that but not the norm. You show me a 2 stroke snowmobile motor with more than 10K miles on it that hasn't been touched and I'll show you a clapped out piece of junk that isn't even worth rebuilding. Keep in mind the motors Yamaha is running are based off their sport bike brethren.

I love my smoker as much as the next guy and especially in the mountains I wouldn't have anything else, with the caveat of the $30K deal I referenced in my first post. But on the trails of Wisconsin it's a whole other ball game, weight isn't the huge issue it is in mountain riding and the longevity of that Yamaha motor has yet to be bested by anything else in that arena PERIOD.

And as far as this not being a real snowmobile forum. Well what exactly do you think we are trying to build here? Rome wasn't built in a day and attitudes like yours definitely do not help the cause.

XC700116 said:

I never implied I was the authority here... haha.  Just pointing out dumb posts  Great resume btw.

Couple things:
This is JUST like the yamaha 4-stroke dirt bikes and this might turn into a normal 4t vs 2t debate hopefully not.  These bikes run awesome even when worn out and give no sign of blowing up until its too late.  This is why so many people get so many miles out of these bikes, and sleds.  2-strokes tend to lose power gradually and need a top end.  We all know this.  But tell me, how much does it cost to rebuild an 800 twin compared to a 3 or 4 cylinder 4t?  Even if you had to do a rebuild on the 2t every 5-6k miles.  And were you serious about the part in bold?  LOL.  Just what makes it not worth rebuilding?  Just what wears out that would make it junk?  But Yamaha 4t's with 20k-30k miles are not worn out?  I'm confused here.

Btw I should have said I agreed with most of your first post.  We're just splitting hairs now haha

Not sure about the newer Yamaha's but on the older warriors the first valve adjustment was scheduled for 25000 miles.  Would imagine the newer sleds wouldn't be too much different.

i am feelin' heat here

If you run fast down twisty trails....NO 4 stroke will keep...the weight up front is punishing on woods trails.

That being said the Yamaha motor is very reliable....just not for me. For how I ride and where I ride NOTHING handles like an IQ front end.

2strokenut said:

On the comment of clapped out piece of junk that isn't worth rebuilding....

Snowmobile motors have a tremendous amount of forces acting on the end of the crank shaft as it is basically directly tied into the drive train and not transferring power via gear drive from the crank to the drive system etc. 2 stokes by their design will hammer out the case around the crank bearings to the point where the case is shot beyond repair fairly quickly and normally well before the 10K mile mark, IE new crank, new cases and you'll most likely be on at least the first top end if not more. The entire motor is shot and not worth repairing vs just buying a complete short block and starting fresh. These are a completely different animal from bikes. That and I've seen more crank cases cut in 2 pieces from high rpm top end failures than you can shake a stick at.

Now on the Yamaha, since the motor is designed to reach RPM's that no CVT clutch system could handle over the long run, they have a gear reduction to the output shaft that Isolates the crankshaft from those direct forces that the 2 strokes see where the primary clutch is attached directly to the end of the crank shaft. Like I said before the Yamaha 4 strokes are of a design based from their sport bikes and I'm sure we both know 25-30K miles on an FZ1000 isn't even remotely getting to what is considered really high mileage.

BTW I'll add this that the phazers are an all original design that many say closely resembles 2 of the YZF250 motors put together in a twin configuration and they are in no way the caliber of snowmobile motor that the two big Yamaha motors are and the failure rate is much higher in comparison.

It is also worthy to note that unless the owner is religious about chassis maintenance and upkeep, the Chassis will be completely shot long before that motor ever gets to the end of it's life cycle if it's used for anything outside slow trail touring. I always kind of found it odd that they designed the motor to go for that long when there's no way the chassis, if used hard, will ever see that kind of mileage. Most sled chassis will have tons of rivets pulled loose, bulkhead (snowmobile version of a frame) will be cracked in all sorts of places, etc. at those mileage levels.

As for the cost of rebuilding, it really depends on the failure, lately outside of a few specific models having recurring fuel mapping issues (polaris 800 is a prime example) it seems to be more common especially on stock motors to have bottom end failures about the same time or sometimes even before the top end goes. I really think it has a lot to do with the displacement and hp coming from a 2 cylinder motor these days. For example: the Arctic Cat 1000's, that's 500 cc's per cylinder and over 160 hp in stock trim all going into and out of a shaft that is 35mm in diameter and in a direction of load that is perpendicular to the crankshafts axis. That's a lot to ask of the thin cast alum case, and bearings to hold in place.

Now that 1000 CC Yamaha in the 4 cylinder form is making mid to high 140 hp range and has the aforementioned gear drive output shaft. While the 3 cylinder is putting out in the 120-130 hp range and also has the gear drive output shaft. That shaft incidentally is one of the most common engine related problems with the Yamaha's but it's much less expensive to fix than crank issues are and it mostly show's itself in heavily boosted sleds making 280-350 hp. The main point of all this is that ON AVERAGE the Yamaha motors will outlast the sled they are in and will hands down outlast their 2 stroke competition.  If at some point you grenade one of those motors however I will agree with you that you won't like the price tag to fix it. I remember someone that blew one up on a turbo Apex saying they were quoted $6K for a short block. Whereas an 800 twin smoker is going to be more in the $2800-$3K range. So basically all in all averages you can buy 2 800 twins for the price of one of the Yamaha motors but I'll say it again I have seen and heard of VERY few Yamaha 3 and 4 cyl  4 stoke snowmobile motors catastrophically failing whereas on the 2 stokes it's not a very surprising event.

As for it being JUST like the 4 stroke 2 stroke dirt bike discussion, the pissing match may be the same but the motors are nothing alike beyond their basic theory of operation. I'll agree with you that the 4 stroke dirt bikes have a much more intense maintenance schedule than the 2 strokes, that's no secret but once again completely different designs, applications, and final product.

I'm hoping that this discussion at least serves to help the OP in his decision process. I'm not saying that if I were trail riding the Midwest all the time again that I'd be on a Yamaha but I would heavily consider it after the kind of luck friends/family of mine have had with them. Honestly I think right now that I'd be going after a Ski-doo 600 Etec if I were to move back to MN. For a multitude of reasons. And that's saying a lot because as fiercely brand loyal as many sledders are I'd have to eat a lot of crow for buying a Ski-doo.

I try not to make recommendations based on what I would buy, I normally try to give someone seeking advice all the info they need to make a decision. I will warn of models that have had repeated trouble with big items though.

vade said:

25,000 miles = 40,233.6 Km so although seemingly high 60,000 Km isn't so crazy and being that there's been some time in between the warriors and the newest Nitros like Brad's 08 it very well may be the recommended valve adjustment cycle I don't know for sure.

XC700116 said:

I see my job here is done.  Finally some good discussion going on:smirk:

I would to see this kids sled after 30k miles.

Keep it coming:thumbsup: