The Kitten RZR S hasn't had much in the way of performance mods since we have had access to play with it, in fact all our SxS attention has been put into the SxS Machine race team RZR (which we will feature soon) so it was a nice change to give the Kitten a little boost with the Dalton Clutch kit from ATV Offroad in QLD.

The Dalton Clutch kit for the Polaris RZR and RZR S models comes with two primary spring options, Orange/Blue and Black Orange which offer different rates of engagement, and a set of adjustable flyweights which have a hole in the tip for the addition of an aluminiuim rivet (if required) and come with a collection of long and short set screws to add extra weight as required.

We have fitted the kit (see the video article about fitting a clutch kit) with the Orange/Blue spring preference out of the two options in the kit (the other being a slightly higher engaging Black/Orange spring) as it is more suitable for the recovery work the RZR S sometimes gets used for at MX events. Also the adjustable flyweights have been installed with the reccomended amount of weight of having the aluminium tip rivet and also three of the large set screws installed in each one, the weight is added by both aliminium rivets through the tip of the fly weight and by adding set screws into a threaded hole down the length of the fly weight. The rest of the weights in the kit are to set the fly weights up for different size tyres, bigger tyre sizes typically require less fly weight so that the CVT won't shift up as quickly to compensate.

The heavier weights allow for more positive and faster engagement over the RPM range that the spring is set for (the orange spring is closer to stock) which in turn makes for a better reaction of the driving wheels and hence better acceleration.

The addition of this clutch kit has given the Kitten RZR S a much better feel to drive, the engament rate make it easier to slide through corners and gives much better response when approaching obstacles that require acceleration to drive over such as large logs and rocks. I feel that this has been a worthwhile addition to our SxS for the all round application that it is used for and also if e decide to put some big tyres on then it is just a matter of changing weights to suit instead of another whole kit.

The Go Pro HD Hero camera is a wonderous piece of technology, it can record HD video in 720p, 960p and 1080p and can alos record at 60 frames per second (in 720p record mode) which is slow motion video when played back. Race Recall, who are Australian distributors for the Go Pro series of cameras along with many other solid state recording devices, have sent us a couple of these gadgets try out and use for making videos for thumbpump.com.

I got hold of the HD Hero kit to have a play with on a weekend of track marking for the QRCV enduro and also to get some footage for a track review of the Tooleen Park MX track and while my main focus in the world of thumbpump.com is not the video production I found the HD Hero easy to set up and use, there are only two buttons to navigate a reasonably simple menu system to set the camera up in the mode you want to record in, then it is just a matter of mounting it up and pushing the button to record. The HD Hero's wide angle settings are perfect for both helment mounted cameras and also mounting onboard on an ATV.

The footage you are getting is easy to check too, just pop the SD card straight out of the camera and into you laptop and you can play the footage straight back as an MP4. We used a 16Gb SD card which is good for about 4hrs of footage (although the camera's battery will need charging before then it only lasts for 2.5hrs constant use). Some of the other features of the HD Hero also include timelapse photography (at 2, 5, 10, 30 or 60 sec intervals) and 3 shot bursts or capture a single shot with the timer function all at 5 Megapixel resolution.

The Go Pro HD hero is available in a number of kits starting from $395 from www.racerecall.com ranging up to $630 depening on which mounts and the size of memory card you need.