10/20/2025
Arcticat RXC 858 Test
🔗 https://www.amsoil.com/c/snowmobile/106/?zo=30412131
We ran AMSOIL Interceptor in an Arctic Cat RXC eight fifty eight. Let's see how it performed. Arctic Cat came out with a new engine. It was an eight fifty eight. And the first thing we do at AMSOIL when that happens is we wanna test it. We wanna test the proper product. We wanna make sure that it's performing the way that it's supposed to. So that means that we get it into our protocol called a proof of performance. So the sled was ridden in the field to establish this program. And we looked at all these different parameters like coolant temp, jack shaft speeds, throttle position, exhaust gas temp. All of these things were looked at to build this profile. The goal of the profile was to put fifty hours or a thousand miles on this snowmobile on the dyno in controlled conditions. So we hit that fifty hour mark and we pull the sled out of the dyno and we take apart the engine. We look at all these key pieces. We're looking at pistons, power valves, cylinder head, and cylinders. Those are our key areas that we like to look for a two stroke snowmobile engine. The first thing you're going to notice about the pistons is that they're very clean. You move to the rings and you can see that the ring lands are very free. You're looking for any type of carbon build up. None of that was seen here. There is some carbon on the crown of the piston, piston, but that's to be expected in a two stroke engine where the oil is consumed as part of the combustion process. So you're looking for excess build up. We didn't see any of that. We saw normal amounts of carbon on the top of the piston. You flip the piston over, you look at the under crown, that's an indicator of your detergency. The piston is extremely clean indicating that the oil is doing its job from a detergency standpoint. It's really important in a two stroke to keep it clean because you don't want the rings to jam up. You don't want carbon deposits. You don't want issues like that inside of an engine. So looking at this piston in general, not only are we protecting, but we're also keeping it clean. Exactly what you want out of your two stroke oil. K. Next, you move to the power valve. The power valve in a two stroke engine is used to get low RPM power out of a two stroke engine. So you vary the size of the exhaust port that allows you to have real good throttle response and torque down low in the RPM band and then the valves open and that gives you your traditional two stroke high revving real fun factor power out of this engine. And that's what the power valve does. The problem is that the power valve lives in the exhaust stream. And as I said earlier, in a two stroke engine, you're consuming fuel and oil as part of the combustion process and it all goes past the power valve. So your detergency package is critical. So we look at the power valves for deposits. Do we want them free of deposits? No. You want them clean and free moving. So if there's some deposit on the valve, that's perfectly okay. As long as the valve continues to work and move through its travel as it's supposed to. In this case, the power valves look great. When we took them out of the snowmobile, they came out freely. They moved freely inside of their travel indicating no issues with the detergency package of this oil. The cylinder and cylinder head is where we move next. When you look down the cylinder, you're looking for that cross hatch pattern that indicates we don't have any wear. And that is the case here. You can see the cross hatch pattern from the machining process of building the cylinder is still visible. If you have an oil that's not doing its job, what can happen is you see that cross crosshatch disappears. That shows you that the oil is not doing its job. In the case here, crosshatches are still visible. Engine is making good compression and good power. When you look at the cylinder heads, you look at types of deposits when you're looking at a cylinder head. Can it be wiped away with a rag? That is what you're looking for because the cylinder head won't be completely clean. There will always be some type of deposit on it because we're burning the fuel and the oil as part of the combustion process. In this case, cylinder head looks really good. No abnormal deposits. There's no flaking. There's no hard carbon. Cylinder head is good to go. From there, you start looking at smaller pieces, but still very important pieces like rods, roller cages, wrist pins, you're looking for any type of discoloration or any type of heat build up. In this case, we are not seeing any of that. The roller cages look great. The wrist pins look great. There's no sign of any type of galling or sticking or discoloration that would be considered heat related in those pins. So when you look at the entire package, AMSOIL Interceptor performed exceptionally well. All of your critical areas were protected. All of your critical areas were kept clean, giving you the confidence to use AMSOIL Interceptor in your Arctic Cat eight fifty eight.
