BONER's review of his 27x12x12 Tri-Claw Magnums mounted on 12x7 ITP Silver Steel wheels
Yes, I have finially mounted my Claws on my cat and tested them. All I can say is GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!! They ride amazingly well on hard pack for a hard core mud tire. They don't vibrate at all, from what I can tell. In the mud they do even better. While testing at Duhon's I passed threw some spots where there was NO WAY that the tires could be grabing any thing but thick mud that I was draging my skid plate on. Yet they kept on pulling me forward. The only times that I was able to get stuck were cause by the ruts of huge mud trucks, that slowed me down, making me lose momentum. Other than that the claws drug me around the huge mud pit like champs.
Power lose from the claws was VERY noticeable. On hard pack I noticed that I had to stay in my gears alittle longer before I could shift out of them, but otherwise I didn't notice much of a LOSE in power there. In the waist deep spots(when I got stuck I jumped off to push and found out how deep it realy was) I was forced to use 1st gear low range. It pulled them easy in 1st but when I shifted 2nd I noticed it was straining so I down shifted back to 1st. In the shallow areas of the pond I was hitting 4th gear and racing Stu's Foreman 400 that has a locker, a High Lifter High performance kit, a High Lifter Lift Kit, Progressive Shocks (double lift), skid plates, and 27x10x11" vamps mounted all around on the stock wheels. In the drag area I was able to hit 4th gear also, but in the shut down area my tires got so cloged with this sticky clay that I down shifted to 3rd on the way to the parking lot.
I noticed a hard rub when turning my handle bar. It was the claws rubing on the shocks when I was turning. The only other area where the tires rubbed was the heat sheild on the factory muffler. The, so called, rub was only at full flex and thanks to the offset of the ITP wheels was only a rub by the rubber "tits" of the Tri-Claw's side lugs. Spacers or a Super Trapp muffler (it's alot smaller than factory) will fix this easily.
My ground clearanace numbers are far from impressive if you ask me, with the Tri-Claws measureing in at 27.5" tall on the 12x7" ITP wheels I'm only getting 12" at the front a-arm mount , 10.5" at the skid plate under the motor, and 9" under the rear axle's skid plate. I will be airing my claws up big time to try and make up some clearace untill I can either buy a High Lifter lift kit or custom make a lift kit.
As far as the ITP Steel wheels go, I'm kinda disapointed. They are much harder to mount than my factory wheels cause of such a tight bolt pattern and a lack of good measurements on the center hole. On my factory wheels I could put the tires on the hub (99 and older Arctic Cats don't have studs, there wheels bolt to the hubs) and rotate them to line up with the bolt holes. Since ITP didn't make the center hole small and smooth enought to do this with there wheels it takes alot longer to line up the holes to bolt the wheels to the hubs. It is also alot harder and tiring to mount the wheels on there cause of this lack of fit and finish by ITP. I must admit one thing, the ITP's look alot stronger than my factory wheels, but they also weigh twice as much.
Overall, I would TOTALLY recomend the 27x12x12 Tri-Claw magnums. They are an awesome hardcore mud tire with a great ride. Sadly, I do not recomend the ITP steel wheels due to there extremely heavy weight, and the lacking fit and finish on them. I wish I would have spent the extra money on a set of ITP Magnums aluminum wheels or another set of stock wheels.
I would like to give speacial thank so GrizzlyRules from the High Lifter forums and chat room for selling me these tires. He told me that these tires had 5 miles on them but it look like he lied. They look like they had about 5ft on them. The only way to tell that these were used tires was the slight amount of mud in the bead area of these tires, other wise they looked BRAND NEW. He only charged me $310 for these tires plus shipping which came out to $350.48 at my door. These tires alone would have cost me in the $370 range BEFORE taxes and shipping from High Lifter.
I would also like to thank Rocky Mountain ATV for such a fast delivery time and cheap prices. I paid $182 for all 4 wheels shipped to my door.
