08-10 DRAGON Burned DOWN Again Get MTNTK'S (THE FIX)

[PMSPOLARIS]

How “THE FIX” came about! Another 1st from MTNTK Performance & DYNO
MTNTK Performance has done it again. They are in the business to find solutions to the problems many have been having in this industry. Whether it has been different turbo manufacturer major issues or even minor complaints, MTNTK Performance is committed to building the best products that work, period. Last year MTNTK came out with the Big Boost Turbo for the Dragon, for 2011 MTNTK has a sweet “Pull the Rope and Ride” turbo system for your 2011 Pro or RMK. They have also spent considerable time on a new product called “THE FIX” for the burn down plagued 08-10 Dragon and RMK's “THE FIX” comes with a set of new taller pistons along with a cylinder shim, longer cylinder bolts and alignment dowels. This is designed to eliminate the piston rocking in the cylinder bore which is the real reason for the engine going down. By doing this it boosts power by 5 horsepower and peaks 100 rpm higher than stock, but they did not create it for the horse power gain alone, they did it so the rider can keep riding on that good snow when the snow is good.
(THE FIX) sells for $585 and a local Polaris Dealer near you can install it. Or you can always come over to southern Idaho and have us install it.

visit www.pmspolaris.com for more information.

 

[diamonddave]

Couple questions:


1) What brand is the piston? Is it an OEM piston?

2) Is it modified?

3) Does it have to be installed by a Polaris dealer? IE is there some sort of relash or other reason for this?

Reason asking is for ease of future replacement, out of town, etc.

 

[slash]

I was wondering how long It would take you to run info on your kit,think I found a 08 with a bad top end and a tired owner..

 

[07dragon]

have you tested this kit extensively? do you have thousands of proven miles on numerous sleds?

 

[AndrettiDog]

I hope you have a good product, but what a very misleading title. It's bad enough everyone is convinced that all D8's/Assault's burn down.

 

[600xc4me]

PMSPolaris. Very fitting name. All my D8 has done since it was new was PMS. You very well might have the fix, and it sounds like an interesting idea, but I hope I won't have my sled long enough to find out.

 

[mfarmboy95]

you've got my attention

How many sleds has this been done to?

 

[AKSNOWRIDER]

honestly, if indeed the rod ratio on this motor is that low to cause that much piston side load...dont see how putting a longer piston is gonna be anymore then a bandaid fix...to fix it you would have to shim the cylinder and install a longer rod...of course if the piston is beefy enough I suppose it would hold up better then the stock piston..but I think the beefy piston is gonna be heavy enough to kill both the crank balance and the big end bearings..so my question is..how much time/distance and on how many motors do you have this tested in? next..how heavy is the piston/pin/ring package compared to stock....and finally..what kind of written warranty would you give with this "kit" and does it cover the crank/cases/cylinders against damage?...honestly..I think polaris would have gladly changed pistons/rods to fix these motors along time ago vrs all the cylinders/heads/pistons/cranks/cases they went thru..but that is just my opinion...

 

[600xc4me]

Very good point. ^

 

[skibreeze]

I'm skeptical of the other cooling mod that is supposed to be the fix, this one just seems even more far fetched.

 

[Kraven]

honestly, if indeed the rod ratio on this motor is that low to cause that much piston side load...dont see how putting a longer piston is gonna be anymore then a bandaid fix...to fix it you would have to shim the cylinder and install a longer rod...of course if the piston is beefy enough I suppose it would hold up better then the stock piston..but I think the beefy piston is gonna be heavy enough to kill both the crank balance and the big end bearings..so my question is..how much time/distance and on how many motors do you have this tested in? next..how heavy is the piston/pin/ring package compared to stock....and finally..what kind of written warranty would you give with this "kit" and does it cover the crank/cases/cylinders against damage?...honestly..I think polaris would have gladly changed pistons/rods to fix these motors along time ago vrs all the cylinders/heads/pistons/cranks/cases they went thru..but that is just my opinion...

Not saying the "miracle cure" product works or doesn't, just trying to answer your ?????

A custom piston could be built and;

a) Have the wrist pin located higher up in the piston until it interfered with the rings (to accommodate the longer rod if need be)

b) The wrist pin location could be "offset" (to one side rather centered) in an order to reduce piston slap.


Agreed on the rest of your comments would like to see some answers and real life test results on more than just a couple of sleds.

 

[Trenchmaster]

I got some 2 stroke snake oil, that will keep your CFI running till ya die, wanna buy some? Let me know.

 

[AKSNOWRIDER]

Not saying the "miracle cure" product works or doesn't, just trying to answer your ?????

A custom piston could be built and;

a) Have the wrist pin located higher up in the piston until it interfered with the rings (to accommodate the longer rod if need be)

b) The wrist pin location could be "offset" (to one side rather centered) in an order to reduce piston slap.


Agreed on the rest of your comments would like to see some answers and real life test results on more than just a couple of sleds.

yes, I know...i have built alot of custom longrod/moved pin motors back in the racing days...some very wild ones in fact...and thats what I am saying..polaris wouldnt have built this motor with too short of a rod ratio for several reasons..piston/cylinder wall loading, port breathing, piston aceleration...all would have dictated a longer rod ratio for both best performance and longevity...and after looking at quite a few poo pistons..i have never seen one that showed a rodratio issue..all showed lean scoring/deto/lack of lubricant..but no rod loading...

 

[rocket]

I agree about it being possible to make the dimensional changes with a different piston. However, I question whether this mod actually does anything for longevity because the piston skirt will still drop the same amount out of the bottom of the cylinder (because the ports are still in the same place and you still have to move the piston far enough to open them). The bottom of the stroke is where the piston could "rock" and this does nothing for that. The fellow claims a HP increase - that is certainly possible because what he describes will also change the volume of the crankcase. That change will alter how the motor acts, maybe in a beneficial way. In addition, just having a correctly sized piston would also improve HP. When DTR did their write-up on the 800 update, they performed the update stepwise and recorded a HP increase just by swapping out the old, worn pistons. So, its nice someone found some additional HP, but I question whether this will really accomplish anything as far as longevity is concerned.

 

[instigator]

The Fix

I won't comment on longevity but I will say that i have a bud that has done basically this same mod on his own on his 09 Assault and is in the process of doing this mod on a 2010 800 CFI. His assault has had porting improved and the cases cleaned up. The 09 saw some huge HP increases over stock and has lasted approx 1500 mi and pistons look like new. For comparisson sake - his MY10 has only been idled/moved around from trailer - trailer etc and on dissassembly the front coating on the factory pistons was all worn down and missing (this motor doesn't have a couple of hours of run time! The taller piston ends up supporting the piston in the cylinder better then the original design on the 09's and gets even better support on the 2010 models as the skirts are longer and thicker. Also, improving the wall/piston clearence makes the motor happier in the long run. He's running weiscco pistons which are lighter then the factory polaris pistons which addresses the piston weight issue. this mod along with cleaning up the cases and porting has provided a very broad power band and significant increase in HP back up with dyno runs. I'm not going to get into quoting dyno #'s because that's all they are is #'s and I'm not going to listen to everyone crying BS to whatever the #'s are. All I'm saying is I've seen a very similiar "Fix" on a sled first hand and it's been all positive so far!!!

Great work by Mtn Performance - keep it up!!!

 

[MTNTK]

It does work.

yes, I know...i have built alot of custom longrod/moved pin motors back in the racing days...some very wild ones in fact...and thats what I am saying..polaris wouldnt have built this motor with too short of a rod ratio for several reasons..piston/cylinder wall loading, port breathing, piston aceleration...all would have dictated a longer rod ratio for both best performance and longevity...and after looking at quite a few poo pistons..i have never seen one that showed a rodratio issue..all showed lean scoring/deto/lack of lubricant..but no rod loading...

I appreciate the comments on our products, but there are a few things your not getting quite right. Polaris built this motor to be very compact and lighter than previously designed engines. This being said there were compromises made that they thought were "acceptable". One of those were to shorten the piston as much as possible. This kit is not a rod ratio change nor does it fix a rod ratio. it does not use pistons with a higher rod location to allow a longer rod to change thrust loading. Nor has any of our research found that the polaris engine had improper thrust loading on the piston. If the thrust loading problems were true, then you and i would have seen scoring and piston damage on the thrust side of the pistion/cyl. I have never had a problem with the thrust/intake side of the piston. It always looks good, but the exhaust side looks really bad. But it is interesting to look at the design of the polaris engine, because it looks like an engine that they were trying to eliminate rod thrust loading because the stock piston has a rod pin location that is high on the piston almost like they were trying to get the longest rod possible without getting any deck height increase. What our kit does do is raise the cylinder up and allow us to put a taller piston in the cylinder. What we found is that the polaris engine has excessive piston to cylinder clearance. this allows the piston to rock in the bore effectively using the top and bottom edges of the piston instead of the entire bearing surface of the skirt. I have a very reliable source that stated polaris had a severe piston heating problem in the prototyping of the engine and so they elected to go with increased clearance to prevent piston seizure. This heat problem was fixed with the ecu reflash. The clearance combined with the piston design causes the piston to scrape the cylinder wall on the compression stroke, especially the exhaust side. This is why the piston looked like it ran out of oil on the exhaust side but not the intake. This is why the engine would never totally fail, just slowly start to run bad, not going into reverse and then hard to start and then put, put, put and barely back to the trailer. This is also why there was an interesting phenomenon that when using a turbo on this engine it would last longer than stock. Everyone thought it was a fuel issue, but it was not. It was a piston size problem. The turbo added heat and the piston grew taking up the clearance. The taller piston benefit can be easily described by the analogy if you have a smart car(which is a very short car!) on a single lane highway it would be much easier to turn around without going off the road than it would be to turn a tractor trailer semi (a very long vehicle)around on the same road. The piston does the same thing. It can't move away from the cylinder wall nearly as easy if it is longer and has tighter clearance than the stock piston. This makes horsepower in more than one way. The first way is because the piston is not leaned over it holds cylinder pressure longer and makes the power stroke longer. The second way is the piston is 40 grams lighter so there are not as much parasitic losses internally. Third and less known is the piston slap is reduced and excessive piston slap can set off the detonation sensor and back off timing. fourth is the previously stated crankcase volume increase, which has been proven in numerous sae studies with tuned pipes is almost always beneficial for engines designed for peak power. On our dyno it made 4.9 hp more and that was on a totally stock 2010 engine, airbox, and fuel. I hope this sheds some light on the product and I hope you can have some faith in it that we don't just come up with some gimic or "widget" and sell you on it. We test, we prove, we cannot sell you something we do not believe in. I welcome any more questions. Shawn, Mountain Tek Performance.

 

[diamonddave]

I appreciate the comments on our products, but there are a few things your not getting quite right. Polaris built this motor to be very compact and lighter than previously designed engines. This being said there were compromises made that they thought were "acceptable".


One of those were to shorten the piston as much as possible. This kit is not a rod ratio change nor does it fix a rod ratio. it does not use pistons with a higher rod location to allow a longer rod to change thrust loading. Nor has any of our research found that the polaris engine had improper thrust loading on the piston.



If the thrust loading problems were true, then you and i would have seen scoring and piston damage on the thrust side of the pistion/cyl. I have never had a problem with the thrust/intake side of the piston. It always looks good, but the exhaust side looks really bad. But it is interesting to look at the design of the polaris engine, because it looks like an engine that they were trying to eliminate rod thrust loading because the stock piston has a rod pin location that is high on the piston almost like they were trying to get the longest rod possible without getting any deck height increase.



What our kit does do is raise the cylinder up and allow us to put a taller piston in the cylinder. What we found is that the polaris engine has excessive piston to cylinder clearance. this allows the piston to rock in the bore effectively using the top and bottom edges of the piston instead of the entire bearing surface of the skirt.


I have a very reliable source that stated polaris had a severe piston heating problem in the prototyping of the engine and so they elected to go with increased clearance to prevent piston seizure. This heat problem was fixed with the ecu reflash. The clearance combined with the piston design causes the piston to scrape the cylinder wall on the compression stroke, especially the exhaust side.


This is why the piston looked like it ran out of oil on the exhaust side but not the intake. This is why the engine would never totally fail, just slowly start to run bad, not going into reverse and then hard to start and then put, put, put and barely back to the trailer. This is also why there was an interesting phenomenon that when using a turbo on this engine it would last longer than stock. Everyone thought it was a fuel issue, but it was not. It was a piston size problem. The turbo added heat and the piston grew taking up the clearance.


The taller piston benefit can be easily described by the analogy if you have a smart car(which is a very short car!) on a single lane highway it would be much easier to turn around without going off the road than it would be to turn a tractor trailer semi (a very long vehicle)around on the same road. The piston does the same thing. It can't move away from the cylinder wall nearly as easy if it is longer and has tighter clearance than the stock piston. This makes horsepower in more than one way.


The first way is because the piston is not leaned over it holds cylinder pressure longer and makes the power stroke longer. The second way is the piston is 40 grams lighter so there are not as much parasitic losses internally. Third and less known is the piston slap is reduced and excessive piston slap can set off the detonation sensor and back off timing. fourth is the previously stated crankcase volume increase, which has been proven in numerous sae studies with tuned pipes is almost always beneficial for engines designed for peak power.



On our dyno it made 4.9 hp more and that was on a totally stock 2010 engine, airbox, and fuel. I hope this sheds some light on the product and I hope you can have some faith in it that we don't just come up with some gimic or "widget" and sell you on it. We test, we prove, we cannot sell you something we do not believe in. I welcome any more questions. Shawn, Mountain Tek Performance.

Is this a little easier to read?

Thank you for your response. I was just curious what brand piston you're using. To me this is as important as what you're doing.

 

[akassault]

I have about 700 miles on updated motor 09 assault and my pistons look like brand new. I ride from 0 to 3000' in Alaska.

 

[Polar Express]

Well, it appears that you have done your homework. But pardon me if I'm still a bit skeptical.

I'm willing to believe you that you have a trusted source at Polaris that gave you info.

But....I have a hard time truly embracing the idea that Polaris would move forward with large scale production of a motor with the overall design flaws that you cite, (over a 3 year production run) and then engage in an extensive recall campaign on that engine, and not have the recall be some or all of the changes that your kit contains.

I'm not trying to throw darts... please know that. I love and fully support good old ingenuity, But I suspect that the R&D team and budget at Polaris is a bit larger than your company.

So.. why would Polaris industries run with a flawed design, then run a VERY costly recall campaign, and not solve all the issues that you mentioned? I realize that Polaris is subject to emission standards that the aftermarket is not subject too, but keep in mind, that Polaris already has a huge black eye on their image with the 900 that so many folks still hold against them. So, from my perspective, unless your kit puts the 800 over the emission threshold (which it may, I don't know) common sense (and business sense, and engineering sense, and marketing sense) all says there is something bigger in the equation. So, is that bigger item the emission issue, or something else? When your kit is under $600, for the parts only, that's in the neighborhood of the parts changed on the recall kit. (and that's keeping in mind Polaris' huge volume cost benefit)

In doing what you are doing, you also change your port timing, did you change your ignition timing to work with that port change? Did you check to see if it needed it?

I'm not trying to sharp-shoot anyone. And I promise that I REALLY want to believe that your idea really and truly solves the problems! I just have a hard time getting my head to wrap around the idea that everything is solved.

And, I'm with Diamond.... is your piston a custom made deal, or can it be bought off the shelf?

PE

 

[chumbilly1]

I would also liketo know what piston is being used. I know there are several chinese manufacturers of pistons and those dont belong in my mtn. sled.
40 g lighter is alot as well. is that lighter than single ring poo piston or updated 2 ring version?