Hi OPT,

You were so helpful with my Polaris that I thought maybe you could point me in the correct direction with help or you might know a website I can find the help I need... My friend bought a 1995 Artic cat z440 for 200 bucks and it has lots of jerry rigging going on such as the guy cut a lot of the wires, hand and thumb heaters the kill switch on the handle bar and took the key of and put a taggo switch in. it was missing the rubber boots from the air box (that does not take a filter) and we took it for a quick ride like idiots and sucked snow in the carbs (I think) and it died. We took the carbs off and noticed that there are two wires that come out of them and plug into a harness. the left carb was unplugged. we cleaned the carbs and cut radiator hoses to make boots from the air box to the carbs and changed the spark plugs. Started it up and adjusted the idle screws in 1/4 turn and it idled fine. took it across the field lots of power then it cut out then back to full power and kept on doing that until it died. I let it sit for a min and then started it up and it idled fine, took off and then the same thing. the gas is new with Startron added, do you think it could be the pump? oh ya we plugged both wires back in on both carbs, I asked some snowmobiles guys and they said the wires are connected to a magnet to kill the engine if the throttle gets stuck wide open (safety feature) but they said unplug them and if that is the problem it will run but still runs the same... any help to the solution would be greatly appreciated or direction to a website like this but for snowmobiles would be great. I did post on one website a week ago with no replies... thank you OPT

 

Only thing on a snowmobile I've done is clean carbs.Sucking in snow into a hot engine sure isn't going to help matters.Doesn't take much to wash down rings and cause problems. Could be anything,but the first thing I'd do is to check compression. At least you'll know where you stand on the engine. If it's ok,go for any water in the fuel system.You might look over this forum.http://www.arcticchat.com/forum/snowmobiles/

 

Your right the wires on the carb are just a safety feature (TSS switch) for incase the throttle freezes and sticks open and the machine leaves without you.
This is how to by bass it.




I agree, first thing is do a compression test.

 

the problem the whole time was the fuel filter, i told him to change it... once we found it we put on 120 miles that night thank you guys