I put the quad up on a stand, and in neutral the rear wheels were very hard to spin by hand. This SEEMS like it could be a problem. Anyone else notice this on their Sportsman?

 

well i got you all beat 99 500sp 99 500 mag. I get 61 mph using a gps on my sp. 55mph on the mag, Put 26" mudrunners on both and now get about 55 with the sp and about 50 mph with the mag.Yes my spoertsmans rear wheels turn hard that is common or should say normal for these beasts.I can say that i,ve never had problems with hubs locking or unlocking but it does happen. It is mostly that the armature plate is bent or warped or the coil is staying charged or you have a bad clutch pack in the front hubs. Try changing the oil in the hubs that sometimes helps if there is some crud in them. DONT USE 80 w 90 in them use hub oil or type f tranny oil not dexron it is not slippery enough and 80 w 90 is to thick. good luck jaime j

 

My 99 Sportsman will easily do 57 mph,and it gets there pretty damn quick for a big tank.I have a clutch kit on mine.Im extremly happy with it's top end performance.44mph is just to slow for the big 500cc engine.There's a problem somewhere with yours.====BILL

 

Have you checked to see if your throttle is opening completely, I have seen this on quiet a few new quads where the cable would need to be adjusted so that the trottle would open completetly. I ride with 3 other Magnum 500s and mine is the slowest of the 3 at 56mph the others run 59 and 62. I thought it was just a diffrence in the speedometers until we checked them with a GPS. That one in particular that runs over 60 seems to be quiet a hot rod. He can acctually pull the front end up and ride a wheelie for quiet some distance. I'm going to get some pictures of that and post them on my site.

 

Hey SWACK! guess you and I are in the same boat. Mine dies at 40mph and creaps to 45mph. Havnt had the time to deal with it yet but soon Im gonna start digging into it.

 

I got our older Sportsman 500 without ebs, up to 60, but that was wide open in a half mile, with a rolling start, and on a slight down hill, at 650' above sea level. The quad is stock except for a uni air filter. I don't think if it will be able to hit the speed any more because it has over 1,500 miles on it. I think the ebs slows the newer quad's top speed down, when polaris put this on they also added a ton of weight!

 

Check out your timing at full advance (anyone who has worked on hot rod cars knows how important this is) the service manual will tell you how. If you dont have a service manual E-mail me and I will look in mine for the details.

DEHO1955@aol.com