97 XLT special limited woes - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

cliffhanger · 10-16-2009, 11:22 PM

Hi, I'm new to this site so I'm not sure how this works but I'm looking for some help in making a call on this sled. Anyway, season before last the sled was running fine. Went out to start it one day it backfire and blew the airbox ten feet into the air. Several others tried and got the same results trying to figure out the problem. I was advised that the 598cc triples had a pressed crank that had a habit of twisting. Is this true? I was also told that the cost to repair/rebuild would not be worth it. All the engines I see for this new generation style are going for $500 to $700. The sled is in pretty nice shape. Not show room by any means but I'm not sure if its worth a $700 engine. Will other Polaris engines hook up in this 97 body style. If yes then which ones? Are these engines less expensive? Does the crankshaft sound like the problem to you seasoned mechanics? And finally should I even try to fix or part it out and sell it in pieces. Hope I can get some advise, Thanks

**RJ Gleason** · 10-17-2009, 08:32 PM

Most guys are now going to WC (water craft) engines as replacements for reliability and big hp gains.

cliffhanger · 10-17-2009, 08:52 PM

A little confused by your response to my question

**RJ Gleason** · 10-17-2009, 08:54 PM

Rather than fixing the current engine, many are simply replacing them with WC triples instead. More hp for the size and lots more bolt on hp boosters too.

cliffhanger · 10-17-2009, 08:59 PM

And these are cheaper and would bolt right up without a ton of modifying?

**RJ Gleason** · 10-17-2009, 09:15 PM

I don't know about cheaper, but they will usually just bolt in.

To answer the question about the crank, yes, some are known to to actually go out of phase. The fix is to have them retrued and balanced and welded to prevent that from happening again. Usually not that expensive. (I think its about $150 or so)

cliffhanger · 10-17-2009, 09:29 PM

Thanks!!! thats what I was looking for. I appreciate it

Polaris87 · 10-18-2009, 09:53 AM

I thought the 97's had a 4 line oil pump that fixed the pto bearing failure...My 95 xlt only has a 3 line oil pump and the pto oil journal was actualy smaller than the rest. The 3rd bearing in on the pto side went and I replaced the crank with a used one and drilled out the oil jornal bigger. This is suppose to fix the oil troubles. But I thought they had that all sorted out in 97...not sure though.

**RJ Gleason** · 10-19-2009, 09:05 AM

They did, however, there was still the occasional engine that the crank would go out of phase.