1989 El Tigre' cylinder problems...? - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

polaris_indy900 · 01-22-2006, 11:55 PM

Hey,

I have a 1989 Arctic Cat El Tigre' and it ran great untill it suddely lost all power. We took it home and found that the jet thing on the left side of the Mikuni carb was missing .we put a new one it and it ran horrible. We cleaned out the carbs than one cylinder works and the other dont. One side gets fuel and runs but the other is overloaded with gas but dont ignite. Spark is just insane, Great spark. Not the problem. We cleaned out BOTH the carbs several times and each time it just switches back and forth like #1 cylinder would only work. clean the carbs. Then only # 2 would work. Totally Stumped. Dont know what to do PLEASE help! THanks!

**smallengineguy** · 01-23-2006, 07:00 AM

Could be thefuel pump starting to go on you. Take the lines off the carbs and pull it over. Fuel should pulse out of both fuel lines. If not, the pump is AFU.

polaris_indy900 · 01-23-2006, 01:11 PM

Already tried the fuel pump test. It works great... Got ANY other idea's?

**RJ Gleason** · 01-23-2006, 02:18 PM

Blown center seal.

Requires a full teardown and the crank split.

**smallengineguy** · 01-23-2006, 06:51 PM

That was my next suggestion....

**RJ Gleason** · 01-23-2006, 10:32 PM

A symptom that was very common with the mid 70's Kawasaki engines that cat used then.

polaris_indy900 · 01-23-2006, 11:49 PM

Any other idea's? lol sorry but that one sounds costly... Any ideas at all! What are the syptoms of the blown center seal? Do they really mach up to the cylinder "trading spaces"????

**smallengineguy** · 01-24-2006, 06:47 AM

If the non firing cylinder is changing sides, and you've already done the coil, that's the problem. You asked, we answered....

fr0st · 01-24-2006, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RJ Gleason
A symptom that was very common with the mid 70's Kawasaki engines that cat used then.

yeah exept he has the same engine as i have in my pantera and it's a suzooki

those 440 engines seem to be very solid.. ives seen some with over 15000 MILES on it with out ever being opened.

of course, 2 cycle engine science is not perfect so..

sh!t happens..

could it be a reed valve thats doing that?

Fr0sT

polaris_indy900 · 01-24-2006, 10:48 PM

This engine dont have any reeds though, and we have GREAT spark but still just swaps sides, dunno what else I could explain..
Thanks for the help though... Keep your idea's commin'

**smallengineguy** · 01-25-2006, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by smallengineguy
If the non firing cylinder is changing sides, and you've already done the coil, that's the problem. You asked, we answered....

There's the idea.

polaris_indy900 · 01-25-2006, 10:06 AM

We've tried a few differant coils, the original, a new one plus a slightly used one. No differance except the original one was bad, didnt work at all. But the other two worked great... Somebody said the stator could cause weird problems.. Whatcha think?

polaris_indy900 · 01-25-2006, 10:08 AM

Both sides always have great spark, but the fuel just dont ignite. Get what Im tryin to say? Sorry bout the confusion...

**smallengineguy** · 01-25-2006, 11:06 AM

If you have great spark and fuel, the only other thing is compression. With the center seal blown, when the pistons go up and down, the compression bypasses the seal and the pressure just goes back and forth between the cylinders instead of up through the ports. Are the plugs wet when you take them out? Do a compression test also.

polaris_indy900 · 01-25-2006, 11:23 AM

At the time when one of the cylinders fires it will sit there and run on one cylinder. Burns nice and clean. Great compression on the running one whichever it is at the time. The side that dont run at the time just basically pumps gas through the cylinder and everything and right out the exhust.It floods it. But the cylinder always has great spark. Sometimes you can hear the non working one try to boom but it dont just fire right up. When we take apart the carbs and put them back on, the working side just switches places. This is one heck of a fusterating sled...

**smallengineguy** · 01-25-2006, 12:09 PM

Are the carbs going on the same side they came off of? You might have one bad carb....

polaris_indy900 · 01-25-2006, 02:08 PM

We always have put the same carb on the same cylinder.

**smallengineguy** · 01-25-2006, 02:45 PM

Have you put an actual inline spark tester on it while you started it? You need 3 things to run, spark, fuel, and compression, you obviously don't have one of them.

polaris_indy900 · 01-25-2006, 02:55 PM

They BOTH have GREAT spark, good compression, and it gets plenty of fuel... Everybody here is stumped, I think its just one of them problems where the sled just dont want to run anymore...

**smallengineguy** · 01-25-2006, 04:55 PM

Think about it, if you have all 3, then it MUST be the center seal.