R
RKT
Well-known member
Kelsey you have finally explained your position! Your a piston man and Dan is a clearance man! Your hook and bait tactics should get you a spot on Celebrity Apprentice! Both of you have very swelled heads but then all successful people do but your tactics on a social medium is just not cool! I have not run or dealt with your stuff so I will stop here! Dan has been spot on when I have needed something and if my question is warranted I get an answer. Same has applied with Hauck, Aaen, Bender, Artco Race, Polaris race on and on. If you BS these guys the phone goes dead or they get personal for wasting there time. But REALY Kelsey forged 4 stroke in your examples is like Mars to earth! We and I include myself with dealers and others in my flatland area that have done this stuff for far to long and have run every combination of cast to forged chromed, nicasil, sleeved in sno twisters, srx's, zr's whatever we could modify with usually my stuff being the guinea pig. Stock configurations ALLWAYS last the longest! Sometimes all they need is a little help. The minimum we have been able to make a forged piston last in RACING applications is .006 unless you dump a ton of fuel to it so the dome doesn't go squeak! They expand too fast and too far compared to cast in a naturally aspirated motor! When I can take a motor down in 400 feet it is either too tight or lean! Only other way is a bad crank, phase or way out of tolerance. We even tried oxy propylene which was dumb and we didn't know enough about at the time. This is something that has been going on for way longer then any of us on this forum have been around. Comes down to warranty, cost and profit margins. Didn't Chevy just have some issues with piston slap! Just rebuilt an 800 cat with this same problem all be it 2003. My ZR's had it and they were 600's. There was a time when clutches wore out motors and it wasn't that far back! Remember the 1980 srx's? Most beautiful sled ever produced in my mind. I found my third one from a guy in Utah that saved it from a dealer there. It had 1600 mountain miles on it and still had mountain clutching in it. Hood and seat gone but the motor was like new yet! Why is that? Come to find out it was ridden at 8 to 10000 feet all of its life! Here at 1800 at 1000 miles it would of needed pistons. Clutch would of needed rebuilding every 2 to 400 depending on the operator. Don't get me wrong mountain ridding is still hard on machines but the design margins are way less because of the loss in horse power! Enough rambling if the manufacturers could control us users maybe they could build a tighter motor not? Of course not because they need them to wear out to sell more hence your management and bean counters. Kelsey you and Dan are there biggest nightmares because now they live longer! Warrantys sell more sleds, cars, campers whatever. That is what angers me! Now I am hearing there is a dollar limit on my 4 year warranty? We should be up in arms! When I need my warranty is the 4th year! Enough wasted energy! Good Night! Out!
Jim, thanks for your response.. The personal attacks... Not so much...
Sound slike you have some racing experience, as do I.. Much is always learned from trying new things (pistons , fuels, clutching etc.) throughout decades of running these engines.. no doubt.. These engines are so fun!!
I will try and respond to a few of your statements. Please do not take offense because none is intended.
1)Clearance: There is not 1 production , snowmobile, 82mm or larger CAST piston that comes from the factory with a .004" or even .0045" piston to cylinder wall clearance..Smaller bore sizes.. you bet, but not the larger bores. ALL of them are .005" or larger .. CAT 800 is the tightest at .005" the others are larger.
2) Forged Pistons: You are 100% correct, that if you take an off the shelf forged piston and install it in an engine and pour the coals to it for extended periods, it will usually fail... NOW.. If one spends 2-3 years working on a piston design to address this issue, then you can design this "fail" out of the piston. That is what we have done... Our forged piston does not require ANY "soft glove" treatment. It can and is treated as a you would the OEM cast piston.. So, you get OEM "character" with all the benefits that accompany the forged piston (and there are many) and you do NOT neeed to run excessive clearances...I Think you must agree that there are some very good benefits that accompany a forged piston?? Hence the reason ALL the top race engines in ANY sport utilize them exclusively..
3)Sea level vs. Mountain: Again, 100% true about the power levels in the mountains vs. the lower elevations. the engine is surely making less power at elevation (stock for stock). OK.. So, now add in higher compression, larger bores, exhaust and intake systems, cylinder porting.. AND, the TURBO.. and ..you now have an engine that is making equal or MORE power than the stock engine AT ELEVATION and also being PUNISHED on the mountain, in a manner that can not be duplicated on a lake..
Point being...once you mod the engine, the delta between the power outputs lessens or even switches... So, the entire engine is subjected to even higher stress levels than production designed it for.
4)Polaris Warranty: I hear ya on that one.. it appears that the fine print on the warranty is pretty specific (and fine printed).. Bummer for sure for all those that are finding that out after the fact.. I get those phone calls every week and it is a sad deal to have a scattered engine and no support from the warranty that you thought you had.. All I can suggest is to not install the same "short lifetime" products back into the engine that have you stranded.. You can upgrade to the 2013 crank, install better pistons and you will be better off in the long run... It is very unfortunate that these sleds cost so darn much money and can not go the distance of the old SRX...