I have a 2013 sportsman 500 ho (carb) that I recently bought. It had a big gun exhaust and the guy claimed it had been jetted but didn’t know what size. I took it out riding and when in water and going up hills at half throttle it sputters and doesn’t have much power. At very little throttle or wot it is fine. Due to the exhaust being loud, I put the stock exhaust back on and the problem is a little worse than it was. I’ve changed the fuel filter, and replaced the spark plugged and gap to 35. Also just to note I did not notice this when I first got it, now it’s obvious. But when I got it, I installed a new belt just to know what I have. And serviced the whole machine. I installed a gates c12 belt. That is also the belt I took out of it. Is this possible this could be a belt or clutch issue. It seems like a carb related issue but this is also my first automatic

i took the air filter out and beat it out, and left pre screen and cover off, and it runs great. The carb has not been re jetted to factory yet, I did confirm it was something in the carb tho, because I got it to act up at idle (no belt) I took the carb off and took it to the local atv shop, to get it built and returned to stock jetting. And ordered a new air filter. I will update with results when I get the carb back. I also noticed whoever did the carb before did not do a good job, most of the screws were rounded out and the throttle housing was left loose, which was also gonna cause a problem eventually

with a stock system, what would be my starting adjustment before fine tuning, from what I’ve read, 2 turns out?

Okau thanks

Fixed the issue, rebuilt carb and installed a stick jet. Adjusted to 2 turns out and mixture is good. Runs like new