It all began after some persuasion by a now fellow Polaris addict named Eric Bellinger. I decided to trade the Banshee to my mother for her 95 Scrambler 4x4 mostly because it would be a lot cheaper to make it fast. I know, some of you may be thinking I was crazy for trading my Banshee for a 4x4 Scrambler, maybe I was, but who knows why I did it. I just know that I haven't regretted it one time since.
Because the 4x4 Scrambler weighs in at nearly 500lbs stock it was a little slow for my type of riding (dunes) to say the least. After seeing other Sports/Scramblers that people had modified I was pretty confident that I could make mine fast. I started out by having the cylinder bored out .020 over and installing a Wiseco piston so that I would have a fresh top end. At the same time I was rebuilding the motor I bought a used HPD race pipe, K&N clamp on and Outerwear, HPD footpegs, one HPD motor mount, a custom Oregon legal silencer made by Mac racing and also some starter and oil injection block off plates. I also began stripping off all of the excess weight by removing everything that I didn't need, mainly the four wheel drive, but other things that were put on by Polaris to make it hold up to serious offroading. I must have removed atleast 100lbs by the time I was done.
When I was finished I took it down to the Thunder Valley sand drags in Albany, OR. It ran a 6.53 E/T on their 300ft sand track which is pretty good for what I had for mods and considering that it was only my second organized drag race. I was a little concerned because it was running poorly on the return road however I still managed to win 1st place in the Junior Sport class that day.
A few weeks later on the night before we were leaving for Florence I was getting it ready to go to the dunes and it would just not run right. It was backfiring and revving uncontrollably, when I managed to get it started, I figured something was plugged up in the carb so I took it off and cleaned it out. After putting the carb back on and starting her up it still wouldn't run right. My dad thought it just needed to be ridden and it would clean itself up and being so late at night I was tired and just figured he was right.
During the drive to the dunes the next day I was trying to think of what could be causing the problems. By the time we got to Florence I thought it could be an airleak causing all the trouble and not wanting to risk sucking sand into the engine I wanted to check it before I even started it up. After removing the carb and intake boot I discovered that my guess was dead on because the intake boot had a big rip in it (That was also the reason why it was running so poorly during the drags). We rigged up a temporary fix with silicone and I took it out into the sand, but as I found out later the damage to my new top end had already been done. I raced it up "Competition Hill" and the quad died before I even reached the top. I assumed I heat seized the engine. After sitting at competition hill for 45 minutes, broke down like a loser, she finally started up. I decided the safest thing to do was to take it back to camp and check a few things out. It seemed to be running fine by then so I decided to take it back out into the sand although taking it easy. She ran fine for the rest of the weekend, but I was going to tear down the motor when we got home just to see if everything was alright...
When we got home I pulled the motor out of the frame and I brought it into my room (yeah I know) and took the cylinder off to find that the piston and bore were completely trashed. I talked to a few people I found out that the airleak had obviously caused the damage. Since I would have to have the cylinder bored out (Again!)I decided to have it ported as well. I also thought that since the motor was being worked on I would begin to completely disassemble the whole quad and repair everything I could afford to during the winter/spring so that come summer she would run and ride great once again.
Once I get everything assembled and broken in I plan to race it again. I want to win most of the drag races this season so that I can place high in the points standings in hopes to gain some sponsors so I can do even more mods!
