Racing help from the JDSleds faithful Winnepeg 1-500

[JRC ETD]

Its time, first snow in the next 30 days! Brian will get a very similar the original 1-500 course, my prediction! Game on......so let's make fact what we understand the last 3 years racing Deeres. The 80-83 liquifires are simply huge efforts to make reliable regardless of investment, they handle OK, but are small and so far unreliable without a offsetting positive in speed. Small in size is important, but the older chassis are straight line positive reaction ditch sleds, and more reliable, Liquidator excused!!! Don't believe the county road running in th old days will prevail with the course Brian will negioate with the state of MN......so with a 78 Cyclone 440, with bars, brakes, track, clutches, plastic skis, new shocks, better seat, tall windshield, geared for the ditch.......what do you think! First of all bullet proof! Remember 3 day race....Regards JRC

[400brian]

A Cyclone is a lower maintenance 340/S. Preaching to the choir here, as a committed collector of Kioritz powered sleds.

If i was a bit younger I'd be hot to try this. I'll be interested in hearing how it works.

I tend to hope for snow after Christmas

[JDXspec]

That very model sled has been discussed to be raced with a certain board member here. I think it would be a good race sled. Will it happen? not sure, I am not racing it either. Will I be at the race? You Bet!

[johnnycyclone]

Although I have never raced a snowmobile, and probably never will, my choices for a CC race sled would either be a Sportfire, or a 78 Cyclone, closely followed by a 78 Liquifire. You can't win the race if you can't finish the race, and I think those three choices would give you the best combination of reliability and speed. But that's the opinion of a novice that has never raced one, only ridden them, so take it for what it's worth. If you build one Jon, I would love to see some photos of the build. I won't be at the race, but I will be pulling for the Deere riders for sure.

Terre

[Grumpy]

Jon, although I agree with the choice for the reliability, I have my doubts about the speed of the Cyclone for which you professional ditch runners are accustomed to, & unlike the 340/S engine I don't think that the gearing can be raised to gain speed without sacraficing the power of the Cyclone...
Think back to some of the average finish race speeds that you guys ran during ditch racing no matter what the snow conditions were..
In 79 we ran a Tailfire in the stock classes to see IF we could do any good, But with the stock competiders sleds running duel carbs & more HP we didn't have a chance.. Granted the tunnel would probably have been better if it was aluminum, but the HP & speed just wasn't there...
I'm not certain of this but did anyone ever do any good on the TXC's? wasn't this suppose to be Polaris's answer to lighter weight & more reliability than the TXL's?
sorry for any spelling errors I can't find a spell Ck over here..

good luck no matter which chassis you choose..

Grumpy

[S_Kyle]

I have to say I agree with the chassis choice. The sled I have done most of my riding on was a 77 440LF, it is a ditch/ cc machine. The amount of abuse that machine took even after it was 30 years old was ungodly. I have not raced much outside of the 100miler single cylinders, but if you had to choose +10hp or +40 lbs which would give you more?

[JoeRainville]

Hi Jon,

This question took some time to consider. I do understand where you are coming from with the Kawi powered Liquifire reliability and size, as you are pretty tall for that small chassis. The reasons for my reliability issues were self inflicted assembly errors. Even after both wrecks last year, my sled still finished the 150 mile Vintage Challenge, and it "could have" finished the I-500 has the fuel line not fallen off due to swelling.

Things I like about the 76-78 full size sleds include the 121" track, long seating area, good handling and iron bore motors. Negatives include short travel suspension (that can be legally changed to a "Dator-Lite" or 78 CC) no oil injection, weak factory ignitions, handle bar ergo's and weight.

Looking at the competitive sleds, Brian's El Tigre's have won twice now, and are pushing and estimated 70 hp. I think the Cyclone's 45 hp might struggle with that 25 hp gap. But a single carb Yami SS440 was tearing up the track the first year, before he burned down. The Joey Halstrom won the race in 2011 in just under 4 hrs, while last years winner, Peter Behm's time was better, at 3:43. The best finish for an 80-81 Liqufire was 4:07 for Jeremy Klund, taking 6th place.

An updated 78 Cyclone might be able to keep that pace if you used a cloned 78 CC skid with two FOX shocks on a single ply track with a .75" lug (if they are available that short, or cut down) A repop Dator seat could be used, along with the plastic ski's and CC bars you mentioned. You could gear it down for acceleration while using OD Cat or Polaris clutches to keep the top speed about the same as stock.

If I was going to build a Kioritz powered sled, I would have to look hard at a 78 Liquifire 440. Wade Bennet finished the race on his last year, so he would be the one to really ask what he thinks. You could take off a few pounds with one of my repop Dator-lite hoods. They weigh about 15 lbs (the originals were 10) but I am not sure what a 78 hood scales at. I like the nice thick seat on the 78 LF's also. I would machine down the fins on the bulkhead heat exchanger, both for stud clearance and so it does not pack in with mud. The 78 LC 440 was 57 hp stock, and should be more than able to hold the pace needed to come in in 3.5 hrs. I would suggest the same chassis mod's as above, a clone of the 78 CC skid, a rubber track, FOX or similar type shocks, etc. I don't think there is room for a larger diameter track drive sprocket though, but I do have NOS 78 440 sprockets that fit the hex drive shaft.

When I spoke to Brian at Hay Days about running the I-500 from Winnipeg, he thought the vintage guys would only run the last day for 2015. We would really have to be on top of our game to run more than one day, especially since I have yet to make it to the first gas stop

Are you considering running this year's race in 2014 or the point to point race for 2015?

I hope this helps!
-Joe

[Danzig]

[Norton]

I think we have talked about this before. My thoughts were then and still are a 78 LF with clone 78 LF/CC skid (out of 80 to 84 LF) and built to spin a modern fast thin track and drive sprockets. Newer Polaris secondary and primary clutches. Course hyd brakes, higher bars and put her on a diet as is possible. A few threads back listed the Dator at 65 hp and in this thread Rainville listed the 78 LF at 57. That makes the 340 Liquidator the most powerful engine of the first gen LF's chassis? So what are the hp numbers for the Kaw 440 in the LF?? Anyone talk to the Wall Brothers about such a project? That 70 hp in the Cat is a challenge for Deere and even the rest of the manufactures from late 70's to early 80's. Course as all have said, it has to hang together to finish...

kb

[HoosierDeereMan]

Just thinking out loud here on the 78's: Obviously there is a weight difference in the Cyclone vs. the Liquifire. Liquid cooling being the added weight. There is also the possibility of anything in the liquid cooling system failing. With the hp of the Cyclone engine being the issue can a dual carb intake from a liquifire be added and be legal? It is a factory part. Would the addition of the second carb and the 440 Liquifire exhaust pipe give you the added hp you need to be competive? The weak link in any Kioritz engine is either the Prestolite CDI box or the stator. A Hewtech CDI box and rewound stator would be on my list for sure.

Troy

[lwb140]

personally I think the cyclone stock out of the box would have had plenty of suds this year for sure . it was rough because it was 35 degrees and the snow was completely gone in places and minimal in others . my blazing time was 5 1/2 hours . what I need to come up with to be more competitive is a bigger set of rocks to sit on. there really was only one time where I was able to air my sled out enough for there to have made horsepower an issue . if we were on deep fluffy snow that would be totally different I realize . obviously a vetran driver would make all the difference in the world . my mission was to finish in the 6 hour time limit . I grew up riding a 76 cyclone and many a time ive had the 80 mph speedo buried on hard pack granted I weigh a buck 60 . I wouldn't hesitate a minute to run a 78 cyclone with the mentioned modifications, painted mean green though for sure ;]. my biggest issue I think was limited front spring travel I ran nos multi leaf deals and when I finished they were completely smashed the stoppers were almost touching the skiis and the front "hook " on the spring was about an inch from its pin

[Danzig]

Those front springs, seems like a problem that has yet to show up. Of all the parts and pieces, these springs failing is my biggest worry and worry meaning getting bucked over the bars due to a front end nose dive when the spring snaps.

[JDT]

I saw a lot of vintage machines cross the finish line with broken springs and other suspension parts missing or mangled.

It is not a smooth ride on the course. Beefier is better. And Cyclones are beefy.

One non-Deere machine came in with the running boards on the ground as all four of the rear springs had broke.

[Grumpy]

I think you guys worry too much about the front leafs, granted we did snap some bolts that held the Multi-Leaf springs togather on the Dators but once Deere came out with the Mono-Leafs we didn't have anymore problems, It probably helped that we had the front suspension spring cranked right up tight. yes we did collapse the mono-leafs & we did have to replace them all the time after each race but thats just part of racing... Maybe one of the ETD guys will chime in on IF they had a breakage problem??

Grumpy

[dator-bob]

Ken, on all my Dators, in 1976--1977 I only used multi-leafs on the skis, not sure about the other guys, I think most used muti-leaf. In 1978 on the Liquifire, i tried to use the monos and sacked them out so bad,I could barley hang on in the rough stuff, so I switched back to the multi-leaf.


Bob E