Never check, assume! - well, she's running anyway.

[SIIaCanuck]

Finally finished installing/wiring in my Polaris stator/flywheel/CDI so I pulled her over and SPARK!

A few more pulls and four pulls after fuel was seen bubbling through the line to the float bowl and my 1980 Liquifire was running with a '86 Polaris Indy 400 ignition system. Starts better than it ever did before . . . but:

That's the good news.

The bad news:

No Tach - I suspect a bad ground but I'm going to bi-pass the loom in the short term. I need RPM to check/adjust timing.
No temp gauge - gave up the ghost after 34 years. New one on the way from newbreedparts.com.
Creeps at idle so I need to sort out the anti-creep shimming in the secondary before I do anything more.

Now for the 'Never check, assume' bit:

While I had her apart, I thought I'd improve on the 'quick clean' carb job I did last spring. A previous mechanic/owner had scratched 'Left' and 'Right' on the side of the float bowls and I left them there last time (the assume). With a full strip and re-build I discovered that the PTO and Mag jetting was reversed.

Anyway, they're now on the correct jugs and re-labelled.

Other bits:

New 108 EXP clutch. Yamaha -0.014" offset (compared with -0.020" for the Deere). Clutch alignment worked out well so good so far. Running B-3/Purple to start but have C-2/red to play with too.

New chain-case oil, gear-case oil, new oil lines/filter, new fuel lines throughout.

Hopefully more news next week. I'll sort out the secondary and rpm-o-meter on Monday and then see how I get on with timing the old girl.

[JDT]

The Polaris stator may not compatable with the JD tach.
Even if you get it to read it will not read correctly.

If you know hole may poles are on your new stator there maybe a Deere Tach that will work like one from a CCW or Kohler.

[SIIaCanuck]

The JD and Polaris Stators are virtually identical so I'm working on a 'get it working' plan first. Magnet positioning on the flywheel is also identical.

I've got a digital laser tach that I'll use to confirm the reading once I've got it working and go from there.

[motoXman]

Sounds awesome. Why the Indy setup and not an ignition from a newer LF? Guess you need to be very carful it doesn't burn a hole in your pistons if the timing doesnt work out. Keep us posted

[AirborneX4Special]

Sounds awesome. Why the Indy setup and not an ignition from a newer LF? Guess you need to be very carful it doesn't burn a hole in your pistons if the timing doesnt work out. Keep us posted

I presume it's because the HSR setups are nearly impossible to locate without buying a complete snowmobile.

[SIIaCanuck]

OK, time to wake up this old thread to update progress (or lack thereof) and capture comments on my setup(s).

After several weeks of frigging around, I joined the Air Reserves in February. OK, not because the Liquifire was frustrating me, it was pre-planned as I retired as a regular May last year and would have been straight into the reserves if some work-shy bureaucrat hadn't screwed up my file so badly I had to start the process all over again. One wonders why one bothers sometimes, but 'the greater good' / 'Per Ardua ad Astra' / 'for Queen and Country' and all that malarkey. Or perhaps I'm just a glutton for punishment who likes flying green helicopters and doesn't mind getting shot at as long as I'm allowed to respond in kind. I digress . . .

Long story short, I ran out of time with job and family pressures so my main winter mistress (I have two SS Elans) was wheeled into the corner and told to wait.

What did I learn with my frigging around? Well, I'm about 90% convinced that the lighting coil on my stator is a. shot or b. has a broken wire between it and the loom. So, I've got another Indy 400 stator that'll go in with a better plug between it and the loom. Once it's out, I'll check the original and decide if its worth fixing.

I got lumbered with two HE-5 weights due to an unscrupulous dealer who ordered the wrong thing and then played the 'no refunds on special orders' card after I got home and found they weren't B-1s. So, I've managed to snag myself a NOS gold primary spring and a third HE-5 weight. This now means I'll have four combinations to play with once I've got the old girl running again; a. B-1/purple, b. C-2/red, c. HE-5/gold and B-3/purple.

The first is the stock setup. The second is a setup that has worked well for others and the third is the high altitude setup for the 102c.

In the 102c (JD Fine Tune Manual);
the stock setup should engage ~4400/4600rpm and shift ~8000/8200rpm,
the hi-alt setup should engage ~5200/5400rpm and shift ~8200/8400rpm.

Comet's 102c/108c engagement figures are:
B-1/purple ~4900rpm
C-2/red ~4700rpm
HE-5/gold ~5250rpm
B-3/purple ~5650rpm

Comet's 108EXP engagement figures are:
B-1/purple ~4500rpm
C-2/red ~4600rpm
HE-5/gold ~4600rpm
B-3/purple ~5100rpm

As I'm donating a good 440 Trailfire skid to my cousin, who is fixing up a Sportfire for yet another cousin, I have a cunning plan in which I con him into a series of 'scientific' tests in which we test each combination over 1/8 mile and a series of roll-on accelerations.

All of this depends on me not blowing the motor up with my Polaris CDI experiment, but I remain positive until proven wrong.

Perhaps I had better get shopping for some tunnel protectors and a large bag of track studs.

Any comment or experiences with any of these combinations in a 108EXP would be gratefully received.

[ljm]

That sounds like an awesome sled. I know a Polaris ignition has been put on a Kawasaki Invader. I believe the timing was very close to the JD HSR timing.

What did you do about the different sized key way's? I think the Liquifire crank has a bigger key than the Polaris flywheel.

Keep us posted.

Lloyd

[SIIaCanuck]

Hasn't seemed so awesome thus far, but I hope it works out.

The Invader job was done by 'Checkmarks' who shows up on this forum occasionally but is mostly found on the kawatrax site. It seems to have worked well for him and I've used his starting point for my experiment so I'm not going in totally blind. Between his HSR and Indy timing measurements, my interpretation of the only HSR curve graph that I've seen and digging through a bunch of ignition sections in old Polaris Indy manuals, I think I'm 95% there. I just need to fine tune the timing at 6500rpm.

As I said last winter, it started up straight away, I'm just struggling with the tach/lights etc and don't want to load the engine until I've got the timing fairly close to the stock HSR settings.

To fit the Polaris flywheel, I had to take the key down 1/16" for the section that was clear of the slot in the crank. A slow/careful effort with a good file produces an acceptable job and the key takes little/no load, it's just there to ensure accurate/repeatable orientation for the flywheel.

What I'd especially appreciate is any willing volunteers with '82-'84 sleds taking some baseline timing measurements for me so I can confirm Checkmarks measurements (he only tested his '83, so one sled only). A baseline at 6500rpm would be great, anything else would be gravy.

I'll keep everyone informed as I go along, but as you have already seen, I can't guarantee that it'll all happen before the snow flies.

[webman]

Have you had any luck with the Polaris CDI?