what is the top speed of the arctic cat 500
is the manual faster then the auto

 

I hit 57 mph with my 04 stock auto 500. As it broke in more, the faster it went. Sold it with 200 miles on it.

 

when my 03 500 had the stock tires it would hit 55 to 58 mph but when i put the 28s on it i could get it up to 52 max.
but it was probly hitting the same speed but with the bigger tires the speedo read slower.

 

I would guess mid 50's probably. I'm sure you will bury the speedometer at 60 on one, but don't take a GPS to it unless you want to be depressed. My 99 500 (which had the same speedometer) would say 59 when the GPS said 52-53. My uncle's 98 454 would say 59 and the GPS said about 51-52. If they have a digital speedometer, it might be different though, I don't know how they read as far as being closer to accurate. Only ridden the ones with the stick guage speedometer.

but for what its worth, I rode my Brother in law's 03 500 and buried the speedometer at 60 coming down a very slight grade.

 

Like Andy, my GPS told me my dad's 2000 500 4x4 auto would do 53. I don't remember what the speedo was reading.

 

For the way the engine runs, the quad could actually use a 6th gear. 5th seems just a bit low, and the engine is screaming at top end. Its got the power, just not the gearing.

 

i dont know.
when i had mine flat out with the 28 inch tires it wasent screeming, but it was reving over 6000 on my mini tac.
i dont remember exactly how much over 6 it was but it reved higher in the lower gears.
a sixth gear would be useless.
because youd hardly ever use it, and when you did it would suck on any hill and you would have to gear down.
where i live there is lots of mountains and almost everywhere you go your eather going up hill or down hill and i hardly ever got it into the higher gears and wheh i did it was on the dirt roads beside the highway or down the back roads.
and that stuff gets borring after awhile.
if you want somthong fast get a brute force.

 

ps. my new rubicon will only do 80 kilometers per hour flat out with the new 26" tires.
it did 85 befor i changed the tires.

 

It would be useless? While you are slugging along at 52 on a wide open road and the engine is popping the rev limiter? I think you are wrong, and 28" tires are going to drag down anything. Also, you wouldn't have to shift down climbing hills, cause unless you are just retarded, you wouldn't be in sixth gear anyway. It would be a good setup, just like 6th gear on a warrior. It felt like an overdrive to me.

I think what you are saying is that it wouldn't be good for you specifically. Because you rarely ride it full throttle or on open roads. Yes, a brute force is fast, but any 600+ quad is fast compared to a 500 AC.

 

km/hr is pretty neat. I switched my 660 over to metric just to see once, and got it to read 108 I think. I would assume that translates around 67mph, cause thats what it registered on average on top end. Of course the best I ever got on a GPS was 64 with it.