Tell all the fellas how it works out for ya..

 

Sure will. Delivery is expected friday (USPS so see how that works out! lol) But will give a full report

 

I had a package last week that was priority 2-day shipping and it took a week to get here. I think they misplaced it for a few days. Hopefully yours gets there when it's due and you can tell us how it works out.

 

So I rec'd the EPT Silver spring today. 20 bucks from amazon. It did in fact drop the engagement RPM from a previous engagement RPM of 2500 to approx 2200 on my 2010 550xp. The whiplash effect from the harsh engagement was reduced but not eliminated....I would consider it harsh before the swap...now, after the swap, only a sharp engagement...but the engine is torquey so its not gonna be mellow unless you managed to drop it into the teens to engage.
The swap time, well I cannot accurately tell you the exact time as I greased the rear end during the job. Also I took my time doing it. I can say that you will have to partially drop the rear skid plate...simply remove the bolts at the rear most point by the hitch and the bolts at the mid point in the rear wheel well. (2 ) at the rear, 2 at the mid point. no need to remove the whole skid plate by removing the 3 under the quad. There are bolts for the clutch cover that require lowering the skid plate to gain access to them.
If one focused strictly on the spring swap I would guess under 2 hours to complete it. But it would be silly to not grease it up while the wheels were off. I did remove both rear wheel to gain access to all the cover bolts. Also the seat was removed.

Was it worth the effort?
I would say yes...for 20 bucks and a few hours of barn time...yeah, much less expensive than a clutch kit that might not have addressed the exact issue. but i will ride it more and update this thread as req'd.... but it does not want to yank me off the quad or snap my neck when I take off on it with the short amount of time i have ridden it since the swap.

 

Glad it helped at least a little for you. This can hopefully help other 550 owners.I remember the first 550 and 850s we got in at the shop and the higher idle speeds and harsh clutch engagement compared to previous models. The 550 does have a lot of torque though and guess that's part of it.

 

The early models of the 550 idled high 1800 rpm, either 2012 or 2013 the dropped the idle rpm. That helped too.

 

I was just thinking of my friend's 850. I moved it to a different parking spot and it jerked when it engaged. It felt like it was slamming into gear.