Piston Ring Failure

[Rob1334]

Just seeing what everyone else is seeing out there, knowing there are a LOT of skidoo riders on here figured be good place to ask.

Was out in West Yellowstone a couple weeks back and the rental place said they have now replaced every top end on their etec fleet (I saw the part racks in his shop, it was a LOT haha) because the piston ring pins were failing on them. Said they were all the same issue, said something about the pin had bad clearances and would elongate where it sat in the piston, eventually piston would move enough to catch. Really was not happy obviously. Said going right around the 100 hour mark. Dealer in town also has seen a handful go down, so not just isolated to that rental place or his maintenence.


We currently have a 2011 etec 154 and besides little things here and there it has ran great. MUCH better than the 08 that we had before. The sled is not quite to the failure spot they have seen and sled is still running good. Not looking for a bash session on the etec motor or just a praise fest for how good the motor is. Looking for more information if others have seen some of the same problems we have seen. Any talks of possible updated top end?

 

[Rob1334]

I do know that SPI makes a top end for the etecs that is a much better design for the pins and runs a dual ring design, I believe the MCB kit is also made by SPI, and both have tighter specs than factory. Possibly same design RKT uses? Was told currently that is the fix...

 

[DownhillBill]

Doos piston rings suck...happened to us three times and we had enough. All at the 2600km mark. We ride hard, lots of hillclimbs, wot for large pulls. Same thing, ring pin lets go, ring floats around till it catches & breaks and scours the cyclinders up.
Went to mcb and got the dual ring kit. 1400+ kms on so far and still shredding hard!:d

 

[Rob1334]

Was this on an etec? Were they the same piston design on the p-tek motors??

I didn't hear a lot of issues on the top end on the xp, only the crank bearing issue.

 

[Rob1334]

TTT, anyone know if the etec pistons have a different design than the p-tek? whats different on them? Wondering if this is only an issue on etecs or if this has been going on for some time...

 

[DownhillBill]

Im not sure if they are different or not. We have just noticed this problem with the 800ho and 800r engines we own as well as countless others we have talked to.