A while ago I bought a low miles Arctic Cat diesel. Here are a few pictures. I have turned the fuel up to the max, advanced fuel injector timing 5 degrees , gutted out the muffler, installed larger tip,installed a pyrometer, Black Boar front box, changed oil to Rotella T6, and synthetic gear lube in front and rear diffs. Flushed radiator, filled with new Prestone and installed 30" Mudzillas. Here's my observation: It's kinda loud. a bit slow, if I cruise faster than about 30 mph with the big tires, the pyrometer starts climbing, but it will go all day at 30 mph (gps) and gets around, get this = 60 mpg, yup! It plows my driveway with a 72" plow like nothing, and nothing will stop it! It is very capable off road, especially riding 2 up! It also handles better than my gas AC's. I may still do a turbo install.

 

I didn't realize you had done all that work to your diesel Cat. Diesels are sure more efficient that their gas brethren. They make perfect sense for a work horse like your ATV. We had diesel Kubota RTV side by side utility vehicles at the Minnesota park where I worked as a part timer. They were rugged vehicles. They had a cab of sorts (ROPs) with a plastic roof. There was no 4WD. We used them for litter pickup, cleaning supplies, trail monitoring, and the like.

I think your diesel Cat is pretty rare bird.

David

 

I got the "Camo-Cladding on the rear today, tomorrow hope to finish the front fenders. It's called "True Timber" Arctic Cat sold a bunch of them in Europe, but, I've heard maybe only a dozen or so in North America. It kinda grows on you. At first the noise was a mite startling, but I gutted the muffler and installed a larger tip, guess what, It sounds a lot like a Harley Davidson, now. My Arctic Cat 400 will beat it in a drag race, but it handles better than the 400 off road, has 14" of clearance, and I really like the long wheel base.

 

The camo application is making a dramatic change in the appearance of the diesel Cat. I like it. My new Can Am V twin is plenty noisy from the stock muffler. I think you said your diesel is an inline engine? I can't remember. The famous Harley "potato potato" sound at idle is due to that odd ball crankshaft and uneven firing pattern. An engineering mistake and a huge market success. Kinda like the rear engined Porsche.

Some modified Harley's are too loud in my grumpy old man opinion.

David

 

David, 1 thing that I did was glue sound insulation to the side plastics, then I sprayed truck bed liner under all the rest of plastics. The motor is a side by side 2 cylinder, but it fires like a Harley. The exhaust is not loud, it sounds awesome! After reclocking the secondary to B4, I found what the rattling in the bottom end was= someone had left a 1/2" socket inside the CVT housing. It was an actual "Harley Davidson" socket! Now it's much quieter. Pics of the back side of the plastics: I'm with you on the too loud Harleys, the diesel is not like that, just a nice deep rump, rump... Oh, finally got all the camp-cladding on today

 

I can't tell you how many minutes I've spent looking for a nut, washer, or tool that I dropped "into my Outlander" while working on it. It's like a pinball machine: rattle, rattle, clank and then disappears. I'm glad you found someone's socket. I understand their frustration looking for it.

Thanks for the update on the diesel engine design. I thought I remembered it was an inline engine. Dare I say like Polaris? But the uneven firing order helps explain the Harley sound. I'm glad it's not loud too. My neighbor's Ram Cummins that he has modified has a very nice 6 cyl diesel sound when he takes off for work in the morning. I like a powerful sounding diesel engine.

And I like the wail of a 12 cyl Ferrari race car accelerating out of a corner, or even better the 18000 rpm of a 10 cyl F1 car of 15 years ago. Wow! The only engine sound I don't like so good is the old VW beetle. Wheezy at best.

David

 

I know what your saying, I have 2 Dodge hemis, both with race cams, headers and aftermarket cat back exhaust. My RT Magnum has a Borla that sounds radical. It has 345,000 miles, too!

 

This is way off topic, but.... You are right, exhaust noise is a very important attribute of a motor vehicle to some of us. Years ago we always installed an aftermarket exhaust system on our cheap MGs just to make them sound better. And now new performance vehicles today sound terrific.

My Can Am sounds like a garden tractor to me. A Harley or 4 cylinder sport bike it ain't. But I don't want it any louder due to me sneaking out on the public dirt roads in front of the neighbors now and then.

It's nice to meet a fellow motorhead all the way up in northern Maine.

Now back to that diesel Cat of yours. Go pull a stump out of the yard.

David