Hi everyone,
Just wanted to check in and post some pics of my latest project. Some of you probably remember me... I used to be fairly active on the forum, but haven't posted much in the last couple of years. Still been lurking though.
From about 1990 to 2006 I was really into hard core mountain sledding, had just about every kind of sled, from a 1989 Indy 650 to a 2006 Apex that I had bought a turbo for. Went out sledding every chance I could.
Then on Feb. 4/06, I was out riding near Mcbride and had a cornice break underneath me and I fell down a 265 ft cliff, broke my leg, and laid there all night. A bunch of forum members were with me that day... SylvanLaker, dycker, Marcuso, Alberta Boy, and some others that I don't remember their forum names.
Since then I've only sledded once, I went out once last year on a rented sled, but lately I've been wanting to get back into it. The only problem was I've got a big mortgage, and 3 kids, so things were fairly tight financially, and with the current economic situation, I didn't want to go out and finance a new sled, I wanted to be able to pay cash and buy a sled with out going in to debt. That limited me to a budget of about $3000-$4000. Now down in the US, you can get a decent sled for that kind of money, but up here in Canada, about the only mountain sleds available in that price range are the old wedge chassis RMK's and the old S-chassis Summits. I wanted something a little newer, and a little lighter, with a little more power.
So I kept my eyes open for a deal, and sure enough, I heard about a 2001 Summit 800 for sale from a guy I work with, for only $1250. The only catch was that it needed a top end job. So I bought it. I thought about just getting some new pistons, cylinders and rings, but those parts would add up to well over $1000, so I kept looking for alternatives. I liked the idea of having RER, so I was kind of keeping my eyes open for a newer 800 engine.
It turns out SylvanLaker had one in his garage, it was a complete 800HO engine out of an 05 Rev, complete with wiring harness, MPEM, coils, voltage regulator, etc. He was nice enough to sell me the whole works for $1850. (Thanks Dave.)
I thought that it would pretty much be a plug and play swap, but it turns out Ski-doo made some pretty major changes to their wiring harnesses between 01 and 05, so none of the existing plugs on the 01 would plug in to the 05 wiring harness. But I was able to get wiring diagrams and modify the wiring harness to make it work. The RER even works, although I had to mount a new button on the handlebars for it.
I gutted the hood and got rid of the headlight/gauges/idiot lights. I bought a windshield from Murray at Mountain Mod to keep the weight down and improve the looks of the machine. I also had to repair a few cracks in the hood, and patch some holes in the belly pan. I mounted a digital tach on the handlebars to monitor RPM's. I also gave the sled a major cleaning, removed a bunch of stickers, and went through the suspension and checked the bearings and greased the cross shafts, etc. I rejetted it for the elevation I plan on riding at as well.
My total budget for the project so far:
Sled - $1250
Engine - $1850
Windshield - $150
Tiny-Tach - $36.95
Total: $3286.95
Future plans are an extended steering post from wildchild (the stock one is bent), a Lead Dog helmet light for those days where I end up coming down in the dark, and a Fabcraft gas rack.
So here it is - see the attached pics. It may not be a big dollar mod sled, or even a new XP, but it will be clean, well tuned, and well taken care of, and I plan on riding the heck out of it and getting lots of enjoyment out of it. I should have about 75% of the performance of an XP, for about 25% of the price.
Have a great season everyone,
Randy
Just wanted to check in and post some pics of my latest project. Some of you probably remember me... I used to be fairly active on the forum, but haven't posted much in the last couple of years. Still been lurking though.
From about 1990 to 2006 I was really into hard core mountain sledding, had just about every kind of sled, from a 1989 Indy 650 to a 2006 Apex that I had bought a turbo for. Went out sledding every chance I could.
Then on Feb. 4/06, I was out riding near Mcbride and had a cornice break underneath me and I fell down a 265 ft cliff, broke my leg, and laid there all night. A bunch of forum members were with me that day... SylvanLaker, dycker, Marcuso, Alberta Boy, and some others that I don't remember their forum names.
Since then I've only sledded once, I went out once last year on a rented sled, but lately I've been wanting to get back into it. The only problem was I've got a big mortgage, and 3 kids, so things were fairly tight financially, and with the current economic situation, I didn't want to go out and finance a new sled, I wanted to be able to pay cash and buy a sled with out going in to debt. That limited me to a budget of about $3000-$4000. Now down in the US, you can get a decent sled for that kind of money, but up here in Canada, about the only mountain sleds available in that price range are the old wedge chassis RMK's and the old S-chassis Summits. I wanted something a little newer, and a little lighter, with a little more power.
So I kept my eyes open for a deal, and sure enough, I heard about a 2001 Summit 800 for sale from a guy I work with, for only $1250. The only catch was that it needed a top end job. So I bought it. I thought about just getting some new pistons, cylinders and rings, but those parts would add up to well over $1000, so I kept looking for alternatives. I liked the idea of having RER, so I was kind of keeping my eyes open for a newer 800 engine.
It turns out SylvanLaker had one in his garage, it was a complete 800HO engine out of an 05 Rev, complete with wiring harness, MPEM, coils, voltage regulator, etc. He was nice enough to sell me the whole works for $1850. (Thanks Dave.)
I thought that it would pretty much be a plug and play swap, but it turns out Ski-doo made some pretty major changes to their wiring harnesses between 01 and 05, so none of the existing plugs on the 01 would plug in to the 05 wiring harness. But I was able to get wiring diagrams and modify the wiring harness to make it work. The RER even works, although I had to mount a new button on the handlebars for it.
I gutted the hood and got rid of the headlight/gauges/idiot lights. I bought a windshield from Murray at Mountain Mod to keep the weight down and improve the looks of the machine. I also had to repair a few cracks in the hood, and patch some holes in the belly pan. I mounted a digital tach on the handlebars to monitor RPM's. I also gave the sled a major cleaning, removed a bunch of stickers, and went through the suspension and checked the bearings and greased the cross shafts, etc. I rejetted it for the elevation I plan on riding at as well.
My total budget for the project so far:
Sled - $1250
Engine - $1850
Windshield - $150
Tiny-Tach - $36.95
Total: $3286.95
Future plans are an extended steering post from wildchild (the stock one is bent), a Lead Dog helmet light for those days where I end up coming down in the dark, and a Fabcraft gas rack.
So here it is - see the attached pics. It may not be a big dollar mod sled, or even a new XP, but it will be clean, well tuned, and well taken care of, and I plan on riding the heck out of it and getting lots of enjoyment out of it. I should have about 75% of the performance of an XP, for about 25% of the price.
Have a great season everyone,
Randy
