Gorilla winches have been...
Gorilla winches have been saving riders for years, and now we get to put them to the test.
With any good mud build, you're going to need a strong winch to help you out of tough situations. But we all know that getting out of sticky situations without a winch or a few more bowls of Wheaties is not an easy task. This is where Gorilla Winches comes into play. The Gorilla winch line is stacked with great products and many very affordable options for a quad owner's wallet. Our choice was the 2500-pound XTR winch package. This little kit comes with an abundance of necessities to get your winching jobs done. The kit has an 8000-pound snatch block, rubber line stopper, 10-foot corded remote switch as well as a handlebar-mounted control switch. We chose the new waterproof synthetic line instead of the typical steel cable just for the lower cost and safety. The kit has an aluminum Hawse fairlead for the front of the winch. The motor is also sealed and watertight. Gorilla is a great source for ATV mounting plates for its winches, so you can pick up literally everything you need in one-stop shopping. The mounting of our winch required us to remove the front plastics. This is the easiest way to get the job finished right. Again, it is a very simple product to install, and we spent just over 2.5 hours from the first push pin pulled out of the plastics to the last one pushed back in.
Lastly, we chose Acerbis ATV hand guards to protect our hands from debris being thrown around in the mud pit or on the trails. Most hand guards are very easy to mount, but these honestly have to be the easiest mounting that we've installed to date; they literally fell into position without any hassle. Aside from the easy install, they accomplished their job very well, protecting our hands and offering great coverage. And to top it off, they completed the great look of our mud/trail build to perfection.
Getting in deep water is now...
Getting in deep water is now a reality with our SubMarine snorkel.
The Results
On our mild-powered rig, we knew that extra weight would lend to less power. The power of any ATV is affected by the size change and added weight of tires and wheels. The Foreman definitely needed a pipe and rejetting to give it a bit more power, but it performed like a champ given the circumstances. Trail riding this Foreman was a dream. The added ground clearance made crossing downed trees and relatively deep creeks a cinch. The power steering turned riding into a dream at lower speeds because it allowed the Foreman to feel like it still had stock wheels and tires on it. Anyone who has built one of these type of machines knows that adding size to the tires creates a difficult-steering quad. But with the power steering, there wasn't even a hesitation or wearing down of our shoulder muscles. Our ITP tires grabbed and clawed with intensity and kept on digging and churning us through and to the other side of most muck. Although the black coloring on our SS212 ITP wheels are prone to be scratched in extremely muddy conditions, ours held up well and wicked away the mud and water. The machined version of the SS212 may be a better choice on this wheel, but that is really up to you.
Once we finally completely submerged our Foreman, we felt at ease as the SubMarine snorkel kit did its job well. No water had been sucked into the machine, and soon our confidence built up for going deeper and deeper. To be honest, we were very impressed with this kit as it was low priced, easy to install and we did not experience any scary leakages throughout our full day of swimming with our budget mudder. Great job on this kit, SubMarine! And just like the snorkel kit, our Xtreme Products two-inch lift kit raised our machine up off the ground, but not too much. The machine remained stable and now had the extra ground clearance we needed to tackle anything Mother Nature threw our way. Once again, we were impressed with this lift, as it was low cost, simple to install and performed with perfection.