Can-Am Gorilla Mudder Project - One Bad Mudda

A Few More Details
For the most part, our dream mudding machine was finished and ready to roll. Well almost. When getting into mud or wet conditions, you need to have total control of the machine. We installed a Terry Cable dual gasser throttle setup on our project to give the ability to twist or thumb it whenever we choose. Simply pulling a small pin under the cable housing changes the throttle option, and you can rock on from there. Getting a grip was our next priority, and here's where Spider Grips came into play. Spider Grips offers a series of extreme-condition grips that are called SLT with Traction Gel technology. Another slippage control feature had to be our Quad Works seat cover that has extreme written all over it. This seat cover fits like a glove and is made of gripper material that keeps you planted on the quad at all times.

Have we left out any important items? Well, if you've ever had one of these things stuck without a winch handy, then you know how frustrating that can be. Warn Industries has come out with a heavy-duty winch line, the XT or Extreme Terrain series. We chose the XT30 because of the weight it had to pull and the conditions that this quad was to be ridden in. Having a quad that is now heavier than most other ATVs requires a tough winch, so we decided to add this small but powerful feature just in case we encounter the big one! And you know we eventually will. The final touch was adding a really trick-looking set of custom-designed G4-Graphics decals to protect our plastics and give this machine a nice look. The material and coverage were great, and every piece fit like a glove. And to top it off, it appeared that the quality of these stickers would enable them to withstand all of the abuse of mud and water. Now we were set.

Sink It Deep
After riding this behemoth through the trails to reach our test bogging location, we quickly figured out why it isn't a wise idea to ride it on trails. Gorilla has a disclaimer in its packaging that states this isn't a trail kit but rather a competition-only lift, and for good reason. The shocks are tweaked into the stiffest position and there's virtually no suspension. Therefore it doesn't like hills going up or down at all. On inclines it's very unstable and awkward to ride. Trust us when we say it isn't like a monster truck hitting a 40-foot pile of cars. This is now a mud competition-only quad, and when in the deep, it roars and handles like a dream.

When we finally reached our destination, deep holes of mud and water, we found out exactly what makes this machine such a dream. The Gorilla lift paired with the Silverback tires allowed it to stand high above the depths, letting us to go into very deep bogs. Our newfound power Penland dug up, paired with the NOS system and HMF Swamp series exhaust, made this motor scream beyond belief. Popping up the front end in the deepest muck was made easy, as this engine possessed a vicious low-end grunt.

Our Silverback tires also played a huge role in getting us through the thick marsh as they reached to the bottom of the bog scraping for hard ground. The enormous lugs would dig deep and propel our machine forward with an extremely aggressive-like manner. I wish we could say that we tested out our new Warn Industries XT30 winch, but we never got this beast stuck. I'm sure the day will creep up on us, and we'll report back with the results.

Putting It To The Ultimate Test
Yes, there will be a part two to this article. We didn't just build this massive monster to display it in our shop. We intend to get out to Round 3 of the CMR series at Creekbottom ATV Park in Warwick, Georgia, and compete with the open-class big boys of the mud racing sport. We'll relate detailed results of this machine's performance as well as our first experience at mud racing competitions. So stay tuned, it's coming soon.