Last month DynoTech Research out of Batavia, NY, got their hands on a 2017 Arctic Cat Thundercat with the new 9000 3-cylinder turbo Yamaha engine.
As an independent tester of all kinds of engines, DynoTech did their stuff. And with the mighty Thundercat belting out its best on the Super Flow dyno, the horsepower number displayed on the computer was an astounding 211!
It was the highest horsepower number ever recorded by a stock snowmobile engine – and 7 horsepower more than the Yamaha Sidewinder produced a few months earlier on the same dyno.
The monstrous number achieved on the DynoTech dyno comes as no surprise to the few dozen non-Cat-employed people (like Jim Dimmerman last April) who have ridden the various iterations of the new 9000 turbo machines, all of whom have had to come up with new superlatives to describe their insanely fast speeds.
The T-Cat that delivered the other-worldly goods was the same one ridden by snowmobile media last winter.
According to Troy Halvorson, Arctic Cat Product Manager. “It was one of several such machines produced last winter in what we call our “T3” build, which utilizes production parts. If DynoTech puts another Thundercat on their dyno later this year and tests it exactly the same way and in the same conditions, the number should be the same.”
While different companies can and do dyno-test using different methodologies, ultimately what’s important when comparing numbers is that you do so using the same methodology. That’s exactly what DynoTech does, so it’s truly meaningful and relevant to compare the 211 hp produced by the Cat to the 168 hp produced by the new Ski-Doo 850 Etec on the same dyno earlier this year.
I’ve been pretty clear when writing about the new 9000 Series sleds that their power is in fact truly remarkable, but that what impresses me the most is how quickly the power hits (nearly instantly) and how well each machine rides in all conditions. These weren’t built just to rip up and down drag strips: they’re completely integrated snowmobiles that impress for their full riding experience.
I can’t wait to see owners’ reactions when they get on snow this winter. It’s going to be a fun!
Thanks to Arctic Adventures for taking the Thundercat on a detour to DynoTech, and thanks to the folks at DynoTech for the decades they’ve been testing sleds.
Thanks for reading.