I’d like to tune the clutch in the wife’s XC500. I had a chance to ride it last season and it seemed a bit flat in low and real flat mid-range. I’ve had good luck with kits on my sled and want to do the same for her. Sled is stock except for after market reeds. Any suggestions on good set-up? Need to know springs, weights and helix that worked for you. I understand I can purchase a kit from lots of after-marked dealers. Don’t want to spend twice as much as I need to in order to get the job done. Lots of parts on the web and should be able get what I need cheap.

Current set-up

Drive:
Weights: 10/54
Spring: Dk. Blue/white

Driven:
Ramp: R/32
Spring: Silver

A little economical "wakeup" for that sled is simply to change the secondary spring.

A Ski-Doo beige or a Cat - Yellow will be fine.
The beige fits real nice, the yellow has to be pushed in just a little.
Under pretension the Yellow spring will not touch the helix at all.

The hole diameter in your clutch and helix is about .195" to .200"
Since both springs have a wire dia of .207" you can drill out the spring tang holes to 1/4" to accept either springs.

Run them at least 18 lbs. The Beige is a straight inline tab spring, the yellow is offset tab. Definetly do a pretention measurement.

Your sled has that typical "hang up" im sure of. You go along at a midrange speed, let off the fuel then get back on and the engine kinda hangs there for a slight instant before it flashes "slowly" back to peak.

The difference with these springs I mention compared to stock is that when the secondary sliding sheave is fully twisted open and the button is at the bottom of the helix, these springs have much more force in lbs of tension than the oem spring.
When the Bge & Yel are set at 18 lbs cracking like the Sil spring, at full shift the Bge & Yel will have much more in lbs of tension.

If you know someone with a ski-doo, ask them if you can borrow their secondary spring to try this exersize out.

Oh and before you do this exersize, do a temperature check with your stock secondary setup.
Run the sled thru its paces somewhere on the trail, lake...whatever, stop the sled and quickly put your hand on the secondary.
Touching hand on metal:
130 deg F = 5 seconds or more
140 deg F = 4 seconds to "ouch"
150 deg F = 2 seconds to "ouch"
160 deg F = 1 second to BLISTER!

Perform the same exersize with the different secondary spring, measure the temp.

Notice how the engine is more responsive thru the clutches to your throttle position.

....have fun.

Thanks for the info, just so happens I have a spring I can try, I'll let you know how it turns out. When it works this will be the cheapest I've gotten off in a long time.

Thanks

if your clutching for snow 10-62m and pol? blue spring, this should place you between 76-7800 rpms. secondary in 1 or 2 w/stock grey and stock helix. i have the same sled as you (no ex valve 500) and will run with stock 6s and some 7s. i am studded and thats it. forgot im running a boost bottle, also.