I recently went snowmobiling in Canada with some buddies and met some new people, one guy being a worker/engineer for Polaris. We got talking about new technology and finally power valves and how they require so much maintenence. He thinks its funny how some snowmobile and dirtbike junkies rip out and clean their powervalves every 10 hours of riding. According to him, he said it doesnt matter what oil you run, $1 or $100 a quart but more what gas you run- the higher the octane the better it is. On one hand, this makes sense because the higher the octane the better it burns, the more it burns, less left over to get thrown into the powervalves, but on the other hand there must be some logic to dirtbikers and snowmobilers cleaning their powervalves all the time. So tell me, does this stand true for snowmobilers, maybe because they have oil injectors and because dirtbikers mix their oil (that seems to make sense) or is this guy full of crap?
Powervalves
- Thread starter FDR492
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The oil does play a part in powervalve cleanliness (like Castor927 vs. Mobil 1 MX2T), but not NEARLY as much as proper jetting and heat range on the plug. The octane has nothing to do with how clean the fuel burns. On my experience with sleds/bikes the jetting has played the biggest part in powervalve cleanliness. If your jetting is correct your engine will be getting up into the optimum temps and leaving less deposits. For the record, I tryed every oil known to man (because that is what I was told was causing the problem by most dumb dealers) on my '99 Arctic Cat Sno-Pro to keep it from gumming up the powervalves, when in reality all I needed to do was get it jetted right. I went from cleaning powervalves about every 10 hours as you say to cleaning them once a season (50+hours) and they still were fairly clean.
Why don't dirtbikes have a RAVE set-up? Even an APV, cable operated would be ok. Kawi's KIPS has so many moving parts its a pain. The sled powervalves are much simpler and a ton easier to clean. Most snowmobile exhaust valves only need to be cleaned every 800 miles. What do you think?
