11'-12' Engine Issue

I have mention this before and will mention it again..

Ask the questions before buying any product!!!If the answers do not give you the confidence and clarity that you need to be sure of the product.... Then move on.

One important question would be(IMO)

"Why does my sled NEED this mod/part?"

I have asked the question regarding WHY this engine needs a long rod conversion and what it will do for the engine several times and have yet to receive an answer..

IMO, if the vendor can not provide the potential customer with a legitimate answer as to why their product is "needed".. I would suspect that is may not be needed..But that is just my opinion.. yours may be different.

Another good question to ask..

"What will this product do for my sled?"

the list goes on.....

It is also always wise to search out real experiences form others with any product..
Forums lke SnowWest can be full of good information and also full of bad information...

So it is wise to do your due diligence and try to find the real consensus about any product..

RKT said:

I have mention this before and will mention it again..

Ask the questions before buying any product!!!If the answers do not give you the confidence and clarity that you need to be sure of the product.... Then move on.

One important question would be(IMO)

"Why does my sled NEED this mod/part?"

I have asked the question regarding WHY this engine needs a long rod conversion and what it will do for the engine several times and have yet to receive an answer..

IMO, if the vendor can not provide the potential customer with a legitimate answer as to why their product is "needed".. I would suspect that is may not be needed..But that is just my opinion.. yours may be different.

Another good question to ask..

"What will this product do for my sled?"

the list goes on.....

It is also always wise to search out real experiences form others with any product..
Forums lke SnowWest can be full of good information and also full of bad information...

So it is wise to do your due diligence and try to find the real consensus about any product..

Click to expand...

AMEN! That is exactly why I choose the Indy Dan Long rod!

RKT

You are steering this thread down the same path as the thread that was pulled by the moderators, you have your client base, Dan has his, leave well enough alone!

wfieldin said:

RKT

You are steering this thread down the same path as the thread that was pulled by the moderators, you have your client base, Dan has his, leave well enough alone!

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I think the info he has given has been very helpful. I know where I am going to buy the parts for my girlfriends rmk.

I was interested in getting the best of both vendors but that couldn't happen. I am sure I will be happy with what I have but it would be nice to get both in the future. Hint hint.

More happening than just acceleration, of course.

The major source of external vibraton in a piston engine is - piston acceleration. More acceleration = more vibration.

Interested in more of a deep dive, here's interesting reading:

http://www.epi-eng.com/piston_engine_technology/piston_motion_basics.htm

BILTIT said:

I was interested in getting the best of both vendors but that couldn't happen. I am sure I will be happy with what I have but it would be nice to get both in the future. Hint hint.

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Maybe I'm off on this, as I don't know what Dan's kit does, but if the rod is longer, isn't he using a shorter piston? (he's got no info on his site, so I can't go find what he's doing for the kits) I can't see how you would have the two kits work together.

No he uses a shim to make up for the longer rod, pistons are stock polaris parts i believe.

BILTIT said:

No he uses a shim to make up for the longer rod, pistons are stock polaris parts i believe.

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He goes through all that trouble & uses polaris pistons? That seems really odd.

backcountryislife said:

He goes through all that trouble & uses polaris pistons? That seems really odd.

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There is NO Problem with the stock pistons WHEN the cylinder is the proper size and a True Cylinder. Which is very rare due to quality control issues at Polaris' cylinder vendor. Indy Dan resizes the cylinder to the proper size and corrects the taper and / or hourglassing. Other companies make oversized pistons to fit the Average stock cylinder. My choice is Indy Dan because I know everything gets sized to the right spec. "Blueprinted" as all engines should be. Which would you rather have? Pistons from a guy claiming to have measured 100's of cylinders and used that number to have His custom off the shelf one size fits all "drop in"pistons. Or someone who makes your engine right so you can go to any dealer and buy an off the shelf piston and know it is the right size?

LoudHandle said:

There is NO Problem with the stock pistons WHEN the cylinder is the proper size and a True Cylinder. Which is very rare due to quality control issues at Polaris' cylinder vendor. Indy Dan resizes the cylinder to the proper size and corrects the taper and / or hourglassing. Other companies make oversized pistons to fit the Average stock cylinder. My choice is Indy Dan because I know everything gets sized to the right spec. "Blueprinted" as all engines should be. Which would you rather have? Pistons from a guy claiming to have measured 100's of cylinders and used that number to have His custom off the shelf one size fits all "drop in"pistons. Or someone who makes your engine right so you can go to any dealer and buy an off the shelf piston and know it is the right size?

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Well... you've got two guys, one says that the cylinders are perfect, and there's no problems there, the other says the pistons are perfect, and there's no problems there. I'd go out on a limb & say they're BOTH likely wrong in SOME situations, but beyond that you simply have to shoose which one you want to choose.

You either get a one size fits all piston, or a on size fits all cylinder... either way, both are relying on poo to do 1/2 the job, and right now that's more than I trust them to do.

backcountryislife said:

Well... you've got two guys, one says that the cylinders are perfect, and there's no problems there, the other says the pistons are perfect, and there's no problems there. I'd go out on a limb & say they're BOTH likely wrong in SOME situations, but beyond that you simply have to shoose which one you want to choose.

You either get a one size fits all piston, or a on size fits all cylinder... either way, both are relying on poo to do 1/2 the job, and right now that's more than I trust them to do.

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At the end of 2 full seasons the results will speak for themselves..

The cylinder and piston failures disappear using the better piston(which is NOT oversized at all (at least the RK Tek piston)

If the problem was truely the cylinder, then changing the piston would not fix anything.. Agreed?? but it has..

Have yet to see any oversized or hour-glassed cylinder and have measured plenty... Seen many failed pistons (stock and aftermarket) that are simply out of spec after a very short run time..

All one can go by is what they have personally seen and measured...

Comments that the cylinders are hour-glassed (which would not cause piston wear), cylinders are over-sized (which would cause piston wear), the aftermarket piston are larger etc. etc.. really need to be back-up with measurements.. wouldn't you agree?


Loudhandle.. I will ,politely, ask you a question... have you measured your pistons after a season from your several long rod engines?

If so, what was the measurement?

RKT said:

At the end of 2 full seasons the results will speak for themselves..

The cylinder and piston failures disappear using the better piston(which is NOT oversized at all (at least the RK Tek piston).. again, wrong information)

If the problem was truely the cylinder, then changing the piston would not fix anything.. Agreed?? but it has..

Have yet to see any oversized or hour-glassed cylinder and have measured plenty... Seen many failed pistons (stock and aftermarket) that are simply out of spec after a very short run time..

All one can go by is what they have personally seen and measured... Not internet here-say...


Loudhandle.. I will ,politely, ask you a question... have you measured your pistons after a season from your several long rod engines?

If so, what was the measurement?

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When I can cram 5000 plus miles in a season I will measure, so all will know. Until then I will continue to run the sh_t out of them.

LoudHandle said:

When I can cram 5000 plus miles in a season I will measure, so all will know. Until then I will continue to run the sh_t out of them.

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Hey,, got no problem with that.. so, you have not measured your cylinder or pistons after a season or two.. Yet... you are sure they are still in spec??

How can you know they are still in spec?

We pull down the engines very frequently and look at many of the failed engines from the local dealers just to take measurements and see how things are wearing (or not wearing)..

Again.. measurements really do tell the story...

With all due respect... if you have no measurements to show how your engine internals are holding up... then how can you make claims that they are still in spec??.. Not being rude.. just asking the question?

Thanks for everyone contributing to an informative thread.
Flat landers like myself are starting to have problems show up with more miles. There are several threads on HCS regarding such failures , buddy had his 11 assault go down last yr. , broken skirt, hole in case.. his was fixed under extended warranty , several others went south last yr. in a spate.
I believe there will be a few HCS members that will be running the RK kit next yr. , I am sure they will post their results & opinions.

yzviper366 said:

it is quite surprising how many different opinions there are on this engineI have now heard three different stories one from RKT, one from a engine builder in my town and now one from youso it's pretty obvious to me that this issue with the 2011 and 2012 engine is still yet to be solved.

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I kinda agree with yzv.

I'm new to Poo ('13 800) and was told to replace pistons every 1000 miles and it would all be good. Oops, I went 1700 plus (32 to 1 semi-syn oil) in a great year cause of the snow and nothing broke.
When I was humming about a new '14 I went to the dealer to let service dept. check it out for a trade in value. Dealer said he was a little hesitant to take it in because of the mods (cooling, pipe-head-PCV) and high percent of full throttle (they said it was 18% lol, is that a new sales technique?). I said thanx for making my decision easy (wanted to pull this one apart any way) cause there is nothing I want more from a sled anyway.
I was also told that they may have difficulty getting warranty for me now that I have "modded" it lol (another new sales technique? lol).

So I started taking it apart a while ago. A little after work as I feel like it. I don`t know what it started at but right now the piston clearance (using Snap-on cylinder feeler gauges which is just fine to find out if the piston-cyl clearance is good or not without the techno mumbo jumbo to a hundredth of a thou.) and I have 7ish thou at the base of the cyl and 6.5ish at the top.
Better than I thought I would find from reading on here but still a little too loose for me. I would ask for a slight taper bore anyway.

Rings are way too loose (27 to 29 thou.) but no flaking. Too much blow by for me which would start skirt problems and scoring soon (really clean now).

Crank "feels" good now and bathed in oil (happy, happy lol).

I Zyglowed (inexpensive 2 part crack detector) the block and pistons and they look good.

I'm gonna take the crank out and check it on a lathe with my crank guy and asked him to knock it around a bit to see if he thinks we need to weld some pins or what. I'm also gonna order a couple of sets of pistons and bring out the mics and feeler gauges and check them at the counter.
I'll order 2 sets of poo pistons (I hear they changed for '14 lol) from 2 different dealers and a set of aftermarket lightweights. I'll pick the ones that fit my cylinders for piston clearance and ring end gap. If something doesn't fit I have no problem saying so to the parts guy and he can do whatever he wants with them.
I'll be looking for 4.5 to 5 max for the pistons with freshly Sunnen honed cylinders and rings that I can fit to 16 to18ish thou. because that will be 5 to 5.5 and 20 to 22 in a hour or less of running. How close I get to these no. will tell me how I need to break in the new topend and if I'm just beating a dead horse with the block I have.

More later (couple of months) but I can already feel the power gain from the fresh pistons lol.
But,, my bike is pissed at me for paying too much attention to the sled this summer so I have to get the M4, PC3, Ohlin, Racetech and Pilot R3's mounted and thrash her a bit.
It's so demanding in the shop this summer lol. Never promise more than you can do to your toys. They never forget.