850 gone down already??

[indydan]

HAHAHA !

Haha. It’s definitely not the drop in kit man.

There’s not enough anger pouring out in the words and the infamous .... ...... ... ..... after each sentence......

Haha.

Yes this is the missing link........ That says it is not ( I ride sitting bull ) he is not near mad enough.

HAHAHA ! LOL ! ????

 

[sledcaddie]

new 850

Whew! Reading this thread has worn me out. Being the owner of a new 850, this has me fearful of taking my sled out on its first run. Some of the claims made here predict doom and gloom for all 850's. Some say, why bother, with the 4 year warranty. A warranty doesn't do you much good when you're 20 miles out from the parking lot, in the mountains. I guess we can plan for the worst, and hope for the best.

 

[indydan]

Leak down

Add a leak down test to that.
It may show a problem before a compression test.

Side note, as busy as Dan is, I appreciate the time he is sharing with us in this thread.
Lord knows a busy business man has a way more profitable way to spend his time.

EXACTLY RIGHT !!

The leak down never lies....... Run any plated cylinder motor 1000 miles and then leak down test it.

Then find a motor Indy Specialty honed and test against it.

Then if you can find any with 5000 miles test them.

The HG7 finish cylinder will most likely be in the 1 to 4% range

After that pull them apart and measure the ring end gaps against each other.

The HG7 cylinder by Indy Specialty will have a ring end gap within .0005 tenth to .005 thou max most often.

What you will see in leak down & ring gap from the others will tell you the rest of story.


Dan

 

[indydan]

Please do not feel doom.

Whew! Reading this thread has worn me out. Being the owner of a new 850, this has me fearful of taking my sled out on its first run. Some of the claims made here predict doom and gloom for all 850's. Some say, why bother, with the 4 year warranty. A warranty doesn't do you much good when you're 20 miles out from the parking lot, in the mountains. I guess we can plan for the worst, and hope for the best.

Indy Specialty does not want to to create any fear...... Believe it or not there are not that many people that ride hard enough or often enough to see a failure the first season even on a really poor finish honed cylinder.

Reports of locked up motors at this point will not be honing related..... It's way to soon for that.

Early Locked up motors mostly means lack of oil somewhere in the bottom-end, or bearings moving sideways.

THE MORE YOU RIDE THEM THE FASTER POLAIRS WILL GET THE BUGS WORKED OUT.

RIDE AND ENJOY YOUR NEW 850 !!

Dan

 

[volcano buster]

How long will the piston coating last on new Polaris pistons installed in an IndyDan built motor?

 

[indydan]

How long will the piston coating last on new Polaris pistons installed in an IndyDan built motor?

On a 800 S/B piston it will almost all stay for the life of the piston.

From what I have seen of the 850 Pistons nothing will help the costing it just falls off with almost no miles.

So obviously Polaris changed vendors or the same vendor went with a new coating that didn't adhere like the 800 Pistons.

But as stated by others the coating really doesn't matter ( and even the 800 small block Pistons have runs of Pistons where it doesn't stay on at all and the piston itself remains flawless )

The key to it all ( 2 factors )

How tight does the ring end gap stay from where it was set....

And how well does the bottom 1/2 inch of the piston skirt size hold up.

That's all that matters.


Dan

 

[aj1180]

The lessons you learn best in life usually cost you lots of dollars. Those are also the lessons you only have to learn once! Indy Dan learned a 200k plus lesson on this. My guess is he is unwilling to pay for that lesson again so he figured out how to fix the problem. Ill believe the guy that learned that lesson and is willing to stick his money where his mouth is. Indy Dan has done exactly that with his warranty. I've done business with Indy Dan and they are great to work with and do top notch work.

 

[Solarguy]

Dan thank you for taking the time to educate those of us (most of us) who want to understand. We will ride our 850's as hard as possible and hope we get new motors if necessary.
I also know where I would bring a motor to bullet proof it. I also learned many lessons while running my business and being humbled is part of becoming successful.
Happy Holidays to you and your family!!!

 

[Norway]

I actually met Dan, in 2003, long before the Dragon and early pro days.. and to be completely honest Dan is not what I would call a humble person!

Dan and Indy Specialty has jumped through the hoops and he knows it. Something was rotten in Denmark, and Dan pulled his sleeves up and jumped in, determined to climb out on the other side a winner (albeit a poorer one, LOL!).

Murphys Law, we all know the one; "what can go wrong.." and so on. But I once found a bunch of his laws, and remember some of them.
One being; "If it's stupid and it Works, it aint' stupid!".

Yes, I feel the urge to pick a small point in Dans reasoning here and there, with what little I think I know. But to what end??
Tony and these other guys up North are able to kill everything BUT Dans motors! And there is just no way around that.. Even if Dan cant' explain it so that I can understand it..


Now, if 850s will be blowing left and right.... we'll just have to wait, ride and see.

Cheers!

 

[CATDIESELPOWER]

Still waiting for answer from Addie........

 

[High Voltage]

Still waiting for answer from Addie........

What time do the engineers at Polaris take lunch?

 

[richracer1]

What time do the engineers at Polaris take lunch?

Well, I on Mtn time so probably about now as it's 12:06 in Mn.

 

[dboivin]

never bought a motor from indy dan...but i had his number in my phone for when it happened (when i was on a polaris in 16').

also had buddy with one of his motors in a pro...motor gave out with like a week over his 3yr warranty and dan got him a replacement. my buddy rides an absolute ton of days a year out west. In my book Dan is a stand up guy and stands behind his product 110%. very rare these days.

absolutely love reading his posts. so much information. i just take it all in.

 

[indydan]

Ok, now That honing is out of the way.

Honing trouble will come later.


Let’s talk what we are working on now with the 850

CRANKSHAFTS

OK, there has been a slow growing number of 850’s that
Have a little PTO bearing ( engineering blooper )

Looks to be a pretty easy fix ( the PTO bearing seems ito be sliding over
Towards the wheel and dragging on the crank ) not sure if it’s the same in all of them
But it happened to one we have apart. And dealers have been calling us about this.

It’s been slow until this morning.... 3 shops called today l.

It’s not pretty..... it grinds metal to metal and and sends it
Up the transfers ports and thrashes the cylinder, piston, and head.

I will post pictures a little later after I lock down the fix.

Let’s see how long polaris tried to hide this.

Dan

 

[ADDIE]

You say the cylinder is not wearing the piston because it does not come in contact with it , correct? Then you state that it is probable that the piston with the most worn coating is the one more successful in flattening the peaks? Please explain how the piston doesn’t contact the cylinder yet the cylinder wears the coating off piston.

If the piston or any part of it comes in direct, alloy to alloy, contact with cylinder, the part will begin to gall. This is not a theory.

You must be able to accept this fact that the piston is not contacting the cylinder wall directly. The piston and ring run on an oil barrier and must run on this barrier to survive.

The oil barrier is still a medium that has mass and friction, so it has the ability to wear anything it touches.

The contact, via the oil barrier, between the ring and cylinder wall are what wears or mates the ring to the plating. The plating is much harder than the ring material so the ring will take the brunt of the wear. This is a normal process sometimes called "seating the rings". If the finish is to harsh, then the cylinder will show signs minor galling which can show up as vertical stripes on the cylinder wall.

Any piston skirt coating, or piston that is worn or missing is mainly do to heat and when it is thrusted at BDC and TDC.

As for Dan's theory about the injector washing the piston vs. not doing with with a carb set-up. The injector is only firing when the piston is below the injector. The injector is not firing directly at the piston skirt washing any oil from it.
Now, at idle, this is where things like this can cause oil supply issues because there is no sufficient medium or velocity internally to transfer the oil to the walls and piston. Once at a decent rpm, the oil migration is in full effect.

Please investigate how these processes work inside an engine vs. just accepting anybody's explanation of how it is working. Get some knowledge on it and then you can see through the parts that are not ture.
Just because somebody writes it on a forum and it sounds legit, does not mean it is accurate. That goes for my posts as well.

 

[Murph]

Please investigate how these processes work inside an engine vs. just accepting anybody's explanation of how it is working. Get some knowledge on it and then you can see through the parts that are not ture.
Just because somebody writes it on a forum and it sounds legit, does not mean it is accurate. That goes for my posts as well.

Correct. Having worked in the motorcycle roadracing world championships for 20+ years-- both Motogp and World Superbike-- I can't tell you how many "all knowing" engineers failed miserably in racing. Racing is the ultimate crucible. It is why Sochiro Honda made his engineers go racing. It teaches humility. It also goes beyond the whiteboard.

Dan understands this. Too many times, in too many countries, at too many racetracks around the world I have had to deal with arrogant engineers.

Maybe it's because I am not an engineer that Dan and I get along so well.

He is not talking about theories-- he is speaking from experience. Measuring wear on pistons and cylinders after thousands of miles in customers hands. Taking notes, making improvements, learning all the time.

Dan is not arrogant-- he is the first to admit his mistakes. He was pro-active and called his customers BEFORE failures happened during the Indy Specialty honing debacle. He came on SnoWest and made an announcement to his customers about problems they were seeing. He did not hide from the issue. He figured out a solution. He took the heat. He suffered the financial setback.

This is a great video on Honda and how they approach engineering. It's also a great guide to life in general. Well worth the 9 minutes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAq6drKKzE

Sorry for the digression... Now, back to the original purpose of this post....

We will know a lot more about these engines this time next year. We don't need to run around like Chicken Little screaming "the sky is falling". Will some sleds fail? Absolutely, some always do.

Is it an inherent flaw? or is it a result of production? (remember the first glued driveshaft?-- not a bad design, just poor execution in production)

I, for one, am glad that Polaris keeps pushing.

Will there be mistakes and problems along the way, absolutely. But this is how we keep getting better and better sleds.

Don't worry about things that haven't happened yet.
If you are lucky enough to have an 850, ride that thing like it was designed to be ridden.... pinned!

 

[indydan]

If the piston or any part of it comes in direct, alloy to alloy, contact with cylinder, the part will begin to gall. This is not a theory.

You must be able to accept this fact that the piston is not contacting the cylinder wall directly. The piston and ring run on an oil barrier and must run on this barrier to survive.

The oil barrier is still a medium that has mass and friction, so it has the ability to wear anything it touches.

The contact, via the oil barrier, between the ring and cylinder wall are what wears or mates the ring to the plating. The plating is much harder than the ring material so the ring will take the brunt of the wear. This is a normal process sometimes called "seating the rings". If the finish is to harsh, then the cylinder will show signs minor galling which can show up as vertical stripes on the cylinder wall.

Any piston skirt coating, or piston that is worn or missing is mainly do to heat and when it is thrusted at BDC and TDC.

As for Dan's theory about the injector washing the piston vs. not doing with with a carb set-up. The injector is only firing when the piston is below the injector. The injector is not firing directly at the piston skirt washing any oil from it.
Now, at idle, this is where things like this can cause oil supply issues because there is no sufficient medium or velocity internally to transfer the oil to the walls and piston. Once at a decent rpm, the oil migration is in full effect.

Please investigate how these processes work inside an engine vs. just accepting anybody's explanation of how it is working. Get some knowledge on it and then you can see through the parts that are not ture.
Just because somebody writes it on a forum and it sounds legit, does not mean it is accurate. That goes for my posts as well.

ADDIE.... you do know anything about motors other then static talk.

The piston goes past that rear transfer port opening 140 times PER SECOND at 8400 RPM ..... so you think stops at the bottom and waits for the injector to get done spraying ? ( yes it stops )

Do you believe it locates the charge right by the spark plug ? and nothing gets wet ?

Its a **** storm in there at 8400........and if you look the injector sprays straight into the transfer casting..... if the piston was staticly at a dead stop at the bottom......whats the factory correct dwell time its down there at 140 times per second ?
( yes it stops ) for a nano second.

Ok..... all B.S. aside...........at 140 times per second the rear transfer is wet with fuel all the time.

anyway it seems i can go on forever proving you have no real world experience other then ( what you see in inside your brain only )

Anyway we are done with this honing topic for now.


Why don't you tell us why Polaris decided to use a PTO bearing with no outer lock ring ?

I hope you realize that if every 850 thats in the field has the same PTO bearing set up that i am looking at......it means only one thing and one thing only.

a full 100% recall because this will never hold up.

This would be the very reason ALL 800 - 3 year warranty Indy Specialty motors do NOT use Polaris PTO bearings.

They all have twin bearing with a PTO lock ring machined into the case.

ALL OF THEM !!

as a matter of fact..... The Polaris 800 PTO bearings are bad enough that we do not even use them in our 1 year warrnty short rod motors.

We use 2 Small Block center bearings because i have a million of them and they never fail.

Fuji always used PTO lockers...... No problems.

The ski-doo 850 has a PTO locker...

A floating PTO bearing ( in a snowmobile is a death sentence ) the clutch
slapping belt at engangement is like a slide hammer.

The bearing will never stay put..... no matter how tight the case is.

I suppose you are going to tell me i am wrong about this also..... ?

I got news for you ADDIE........If all the 850's are like the ones at my shop right now.

Turn out the lights and start the recall.

A floating PTO bearing will be a 100% failure accross the board.

if they didn't have CVT clutches it might be different.

Dan

 

[redneckj]

 

[indydan]

Movie time

Popcorn ! Yummy !

I will have some shop pictures in the morning with a few things you all might like to see.

Dan

 

[ADDIE]

Correct. Having worked in the motorcycle roadracing world championships for 20+ years-- both Motogp and World Superbike-- I can't tell you how many "all knowing" engineers failed miserably in racing. Racing is the ultimate crucible. It is why Sochiro Honda made his engineers go racing. It teaches humility. It also goes beyond the whiteboard.

Dan understands this. Too many times, in too many countries, at too many racetracks around the world I have had to deal with arrogant engineers.

Maybe it's because I am not an engineer that Dan and I get along so well.

He is not talking about theories-- he is speaking from experience. Measuring wear on pistons and cylinders after thousands of miles in customers hands. Taking notes, making improvements, learning all the time.

Dan is not arrogant-- he is the first to admit his mistakes. He was pro-active and called his customers BEFORE failures happened during the Indy Specialty honing debacle. He came on SnoWest and made an announcement to his customers about problems they were seeing. He did not hide from the issue. He figured out a solution. He took the heat. He suffered the financial setback.

This is a great video on Honda and how they approach engineering. It's also a great guide to life in general. Well worth the 9 minutes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAq6drKKzE

Sorry for the digression... Now, back to the original purpose of this post....

We will know a lot more about these engines this time next year. We don't need to run around like Chicken Little screaming "the sky is falling". Will some sleds fail? Absolutely, some always do.

Is it an inherent flaw? or is it a result of production? (remember the first glued driveshaft?-- not a bad design, just poor execution in production)

I, for one, am glad that Polaris keeps pushing.

Will there be mistakes and problems along the way, absolutely. But this is how we keep getting better and better sleds.

Don't worry about things that haven't happened yet.
If you are lucky enough to have an 850, ride that thing like it was designed to be ridden.... pinned!

I can agree with most of what you say.

What is not agreeable is that you know how much experience myself or anybody else has with engines. You do not know any history and to state that Dan has more than myself or anybody else is nothing more than pure speculation on your part.
Dan,admittently, screwed up and paid the price for it. what that means is that he did not have the experience and knowledge he thought he did, hence the costly mistake. He put out a product(s) that was not ready or sufficient and it failed.

So, he, like anybody with a brain, learned from it and made adjustments and stored the knowledge to be used.

So, again, is Dan the only person that has made a mistake and benefitted from the knowledge learned from it? NO! We have all had that happen.
Here again you are assuming that none of us have any experience and that Dan is the only one who has this experience. This assumption would be totally wrong in many cases and especially with regards to myself.

Point being, there are many others who have the knowledge and experience (real world and academic) to support their postings. Just like Dan. Discounting their information is doing a dis-service IMO to the readers.

In short, Dan's experiences are valid, but so are others. Why put one's experiences above anothers simply because he has a following on this forum? Just sayin.

As far as him not bein arrogant, that is a tough one. If anybody else came on here ans spouted off with how great they were and how nobody knows as much as they do, they would be considered arrogant by any standard. I think this reverts back to the following on the forum?
Add in the snarky remarks against myself, same thing, an arrogance call is justified. Sometimes it is hard to see you friends or mentors for who they really are. That being said, arrogance is not always a bad thing, but supporting it can be.

Back on topic. The hone finish is not going to cause early piston failure. If early piston failure becomes common, IMO, it is not because of the hone finish (this is from lots of experience as well)

Cheers