It's a Spicer unit, at least on my X2. I suppose there's a boast in there somewhere like, "My quad has a Spicer."

 

Wheel travel 2012 550 Touring - YouTube

Wheel travel.

Do the manufactures remove the sway bars, springs and shock to measure wheel travel??

I don't see the 9" of wheel travel in the front or the 10 1/4" wheel travel in the rear.

I see maybe 5" difference between both rear tires and both front tires with me on the ATV.

 

You have to land pretty hard to bottom them out.

 

My guess is they all measure it straight up and down with the whole front end squatting or the whole rear end squatting. Putting the shocks on the lowest resistance setting might help some. The Touring, and even more so, and the X2, have a stiffer spring set than the regular Sportsman which is very soft in my mind.

 

The springs are on the lightest setting to try and get the smoothest ride.

I would be willing to bet any ATV would do the same thing.

They all brag about wheel travel but I seriously doubt that any of them can make full use out of it.

 

I think i had mentioned sidewall construction earlier and thought I would post these two pictures to use as a comparison.

STI makes the first inch of their sidewalls stiffer than the rest of the sidewall to protect both the tire and wheel beads. This type of construction
costs more to produce than the conventional method.




Here is a picture I took yesterday of my Grim Reapers.

These tires have 8 ply sidewalls and have a higher load capacity rating than the STI Black Diamonds do. Yet with 3 psi as to the 2 1/2 psi in the
BD XTRs you can see how the sidewalls fold providing very poor protection against punctures and wheel/tire bead damage.

Not all tires are created equal.

 

You will never get the full suspension travel out of it just being parked. (at least you had better not) If you were to push down on the front when you have it parked like that, you would get another 2-3 inch's of compression out of it. Even in the video, again just being parked, you can't even come close to loading the suspension the way it gets loaded when riding.

 

I don't know too many people who run the 8 ply GBC's less than 5 psi. I ususally run 7 psi and have 700 trouble free miles not sure if 12" rims help also.

I thought that I had read that the 8 ply rating only applies to the tread area (carcass), not the sidewalls as it is only a measure of strength not how many actual layers. Therefore you could have 2 different 8 ply rated tires with different sidewall strengths, right?

 

I sat down on the ATV and it didn't change much. You can see what the added load did when I did sit on it.

I sure it moves a little more when riding.

 

I'll put more air in them tomorrow.

I'll be getting rid of them in the next day or two so I'll see what difference the increased air pressure makes first.