I am going to stud my girlfriends sled. I am putting in 96 1" studs. Do i need the tunnel protectors in the front of the track or just the protectors in the back part of the tunnel. (the nylon ones) I have seen the metal ones the go up in the very front of the tunnel but if i can ge away without it i would be happy.

I had that exact set up in my 98 500. I had a lot of stud pull outs.

I would go shorter then 1 inch or use more studs. I think that that machine could easily do with 120.

I had a 98 500 I ran 120,our 97 had only 96 no problems.but you need to replace the back portion of the heat exchanger protector around 14 inches on each side,drop the carrier wheel mount down an inch and or buy the smaller wheels from doo,( I had done both).doo also recommends the spring bushings for the rear spring I did on one of our 500's the other I did not, same as the carrier wheels only one of ours had the smaller ones.

On my 97 MXZ 670 I just dropped the carrier wheels down an inch(redrilled the holes,theres a pattern inside the tunnel) and added 3/4 inch plastic tunnel protectors in place of the factory flat ones.At first I just ran 96 1 inch up the middle and I had one pull through.I just pulled it out and upped the studs to 144 and no more probs for 6500 kms.