smart carb help

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uperjim

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Mar 4, 2004
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I am considering buying a 96 Mountain Max 600.
Does anyone know how the smart carbs work and are they prone to problems? Also can they be disconnected and easily converted to fixed jets?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I will be using the sled at a fixed altitude so I do not need the compensating feature.
 
Ha, it's tough finding info on those things. Smart carbs adjust for elevation and temp via a few sensors. I know there's one in the airbox and one on the bottom of the hood near the gauges. Not sure after that, but it must have something to do with float bowl pressures. Either 98 or 99 was the last year it was used.
I have a '98 MM600 that I bought off the showroom floor. It still runs excellent and it always has (knock on wood....ha). I have ridden from -30C to +10C and elevations from 2500 to 9000' and it ran consistant.
I have fine tuned the carbs and it does run great but it will never run on that fine edge like when you do the manual jetting. I like the the way it's setup and have had good luck with it over the last 8 years.
On the other hand, I have heard of a few people that had nothing but headaches with the smart carbs. But, they are just a Mikuni flat slide rack (98's anyways) and you should be able to jet like any other carb if you pull all the stuff off.
Hopefully that helps. ;)!
 
THANKS Dutchman---just trying to plan for worst case scenario (that is usually what I get!) Hopefully I won't have any problems but i could convert if I have to. The sled is 10 years old and my experience is that sensors and servos usually don't last forever.
 
Depending on elevation of riding, the dealer can fine tune the carbs to help them. Alot of guys I know had problems with the solanoide freezing up. When this happens it will still allow you to limp home (half power) until you can get it in a warm place and thaw it out. This seems to happen when running in a lot of powder or well below temps and condensation. However after it happened to me, I discovered that running a good dose of heet in the fuel at all the time, I never had a problem after that.
I really loved that 600 MM, wish I had it back. ;)!
 
they can be prone to problems, but not nearly as bad as people seem to think.

The thing that I've noticed with them, is as soon as there's a fueling problem, everyone immediatly blames the smartcarbs. The thing is, they can have any problem a regular carb can have, plus 2 or 3 more, and if they start acting up, don't immediatly blmae the electronics without first checking the rest of the carb.
 
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