Good week of dunes

[Sand Shark]

Got back yesterday from Glamis.  Got there Christmas day and the place was pretty empty.  The washes had scatterings of camps.  Gecko had some space from what I could see.  I was the first in the group to arrive and was able to get a nice spot in Wash 15.   With the rain hitting it made everything nice and compact.  No dust issues the entire time. The wind made everything nice and smooth in the dunes.  There were some of those weird wind whip bumps on the top of some of the bigger dunes.  Otherwise the dunes were great.    

Overall a great trip with no issues for my X3.  We had several in our group that made the trip from Texas. A great group of guys and they like to dune. We call them the Texas turtles after the very first time we met them in Glamis.  A few decided to turtle there cars that trip. LOL!  No Texas turtles this trip.  We did have a newbie turtle though.  LOL!

Took the Texas crew down to Buttercup so they could check out the border wall and enjoy the fun of the Buttercup dunes.  Gordon's was almost a ghost town.  I think Buttercup had more people camping. 

Carnage for the week was 3 Polaris belts, one polaris power steering unit (Coyne in El Centro took care of that and I can not say enough how great the service and parts department at the dealership are when you need something.  They try to save your trip.), and one Polaris Turbo motor after the oil drain plug somehow fell out.  Also some cosmetic damage and a radiator for the car that end up on the lid.  Oh and one broken axle on the RS1.  

My buddy @megadesertdiesel drives the crap out of that RS1.   Drifting the turns and jumping the where he can.  They look like an absolute blast to drive. 

Lots of fuel was burned and lots of dune miles covered.  I think I was around 400 miles for the 5 days.   

 

[Sand Shark]

 

[Sand Shark]

Learned the RS1 does not make the 89 mile ride from Wash 15 to Buttercup and back.  He ran out of gas with about 8 miles to go.  His gas warning light never came on.  We carried extra fuel so splashed some gas in the RS1 and we continued on.  We had to take the long way back on Sand Highway due to it being dark and my dumbass only having my tinted lens on my helmet.  It was hard to see.  LOL!   Had the mishap with the Polaris motor on the way back so that eat up the daylight.  

Got to show the Texas crew the border wall and had lunch at the canal in Buttercup.  

 

[John@Outfront]

Cool. What is an RS1 for those who don’t know

 

[tjZ06]

Got back yesterday from Glamis.  Got there Christmas day and the place was pretty empty.  The washes had scatterings of camps.  Gecko had some space from what I could see.  I was the first in the group to arrive and was able to get a nice spot in Wash 15.   With the rain hitting it made everything nice and compact.  No dust issues the entire time. The wind made everything nice and smooth in the dunes.  There were some of those weird wind whip bumps on the top of some of the bigger dunes.  Otherwise the dunes were great.    

Overall a great trip with no issues for my X3.  We had several in our group that made the trip from Texas. A great group of guys and they like to dune. We call them the Texas turtles after the very first time we met them in Glamis.  A few decided to turtle there cars that trip. LOL!  No Texas turtles this trip.  We did have a newbie turtle though.  LOL!

Took the Texas crew down to Buttercup so they could check out the border wall and enjoy the fun of the Buttercup dunes.  Gordon's was almost a ghost town.  I think Buttercup had more people camping. 

Carnage for the week was 3 Polaris belts, one polaris power steering unit (Coyne in El Centro took care of that and I can not say enough how great the service and parts department at the dealership are when you need something.  They try to save your trip.), and one Polaris Turbo motor after the oil drain plug somehow fell out.  Also some cosmetic damage and a radiator for the car that end up on the lid.  Oh and one broken axle on the RS1.  

My buddy @megadesertdiesel drives the crap out of that RS1.   Drifting the turns and jumping the where he can.  They look like an absolute blast to drive. 

Lots of fuel was burned and lots of dune miles covered.  I think I was around 400 miles for the 5 days.   

Sounds like a good time, nice report!  On the p00-p00s blowing belts, were they running clutch covers?  Super bummer on the drain plug on the Turbo, was maintenance just done on it? 

View attachment 22288

Learned the RS1 does not make the 89 mile ride from Wash 15 to Buttercup and back.  He ran out of gas with about 8 miles to go.  His gas warning light never came on.  

Weird the light never came on, I've found with my RZRs the light is super conservative and I still have 2-3 gallons left when it comes on (which is a good 20-30% of the capacity of the system).  

Cool. What is an RS1 for those who don’t know

Single seat Polaris.  The only pic I left in my quote of the OP's post is the RS1...

-TJ

 

[Sand Shark]

Sounds like a good time, nice report!  On the p00-p00s blowing belts, were they running clutch covers?  Super bummer on the drain plug on the Turbo, was maintenance just done on it? 

Weird the light never came on, I've found with my RZRs the light is super conservative and I still have 2-3 gallons left when it comes on (which is a good 20-30% of the capacity of the system).  

Single seat Polaris.  The only pic I left in my quote of the OP's post is the RS1...

-TJ

They all were running covers.  Not sure running without a cover would make a difference.  I am pretty sure all the belts that let go had some miles on them.  All the belts going bye bye were on the trip to Buttercup.  2 on that sand highway.

My buddy's X3 belt let go on a dune ride, but he had 3200+ miles on his belt.  LOL!

Funny thing is when we put gas in the RS1 his gas light came on before we got back to camp.  LOL!  My gas light never came on and I had maybe a gallon left in my X3.  Usually the Can Am light comes on with 3 gallons left.   I used a lot of gas racing another X3 through the whoops for several miles. That RS1 was not too far behind us in those whoops either.  We were moving at a good clip for a lot of miles.  LOL! 

The Polaris did have his oil changed prior to the trip.  I think the thread on the oil pan were messed up and it it finally vibrated loose.  He tried to thread a bolt with the same pitch and size as the drain plug in and it would not tighten.  Freak deal and a bummer because he drove from Texas to make the trip.  He did get 3 solid days of riding in. 

 

[Sand Shark]

Cool. What is an RS1 for those who don’t know

It is a single seat Polaris with a XP1000 motor.  The wheelbase is shorter than a 2 seater, but suspension is the same as the 64" XP1000.  Bonus is the RS1 has the stronger Turbo Polaris drive train, but weighs much less.   110hp with a smaller wheelbase and less weight = a fun time.

The are super stable, drift in the turns in 2wd and are super nimble.   

The RS1 with about 130hp would be perfect.  That car with a turbo motor would be a handful.  

 

[John@Outfront]

Wow. That makes me want to finish my single seater buggy. Sequential trans  6-700 hp subaru 4 cylinder 1100 lbs

 

[tjZ06]

They all were running covers.  Not sure running without a cover would make a difference. 

The clutch cover 110% makes a difference on XPTs. 

The only belt I've ever blown on any of my RZRs (other than the 40psi of boost ~300 WHP, 2400+ lbs Z1 car) was one in our '16 XPT with the cover on.  I ran an infrared belt temp sensor on that car, and after that I pulled the cover I saw 80-100 degree belt temp reduction.  Again, it was an IR sensor so I was measuring actual belt temp, not just air temp in the housing like the bullshit garbage from Alba (which obviously would do nothing with the cover off). 

Without the cover I have now run in 90+ ambient temps up in Idaho chasing all sand cars, as well as longs of runs in G where I was the only RZR with big-dog cars without any failures.  That said, I do change my belts more often than most, and maintenance my clutches after every G season.  I'd rather change a belt in my clean, AC'ed garage with all the right tools than in the bottom of a bowl in G.  Also, another benefit of swapping the belt while it's still good is that you now have a good spare.  IF I do lose a belt out in G I'd rather put on a used spare, than a brand new belt.  You're never going to clean your clutches properly/thoroughly in G in the middle of a ride and you're also not going to be able to take it easy for a few heat cycles to break it in, so you're just going to ruin that new belt you throw on.  

Generally when I talk about running no cover people say "yeah but that'll wear out the clutches faster."  Sure, that's probably true - but I'd rather replace sliders and buttons a little more often than change belts in the dunes all the time.  Somewhere on here before "the crash" I had a long thread about clutch removal, maintenance and inspection.  I showed pics in that thread, after ~1k Glamis miles with the cover off on our '18 XPT the only wear that you might be able to say was accelerated were the 3 plastic sliders inside the secondary.  They're ridiculously over-priced at $15 each for little pieces of plastic... but for $45 to have my clutches be good as new I'll take it.  So, I certainly wouldn't say running no-cover will "ruin" your clutches, will it even accelerate wear?  Probably not as I bet those sliders would have worn either way... but let's call it "maybe".  Still, not blowing belts is worth accelerating wear on some replaceable parts to me.  

Also, a big thing here that seems generally overlooked is what happens when a belt breaks.  I've seen more clutches damaged/ruined by a belt break, than by anything else.  The belt breaking and flying around can do all sorts of damage.  How many people do you know that went thousands of miles on their first belt, but after the first belt blew they started going through belts like water?  Often blwoing a belt scars the sheaves which means every subsequent belt will be ruined quickly.  I've seen belt material wrap up on the weight pins and slightly bend them, binding the weights, which then causes all sorts of other damage as well as causing the primary to stay engaged even at idle.  I've seen belt material inside a secondary (in the tower between the sheaves, where the sliders I mentioned had worn on my '18 XPT live) that were preventing the sheaves from opening and closing causing all sorts of issues that the owner couldn't figure out. 

And of course we've all seen belt material wrap up behind the clutches on either the crank or the trans input shaft and ruin those seals.  IIRC Polaris changed the design, but until recently on a RZR motor the only *correct* way to change the front main seal was to separate the case (there are aftermarket solutions to replace it without doing this, but I'm not sure how much I trust them).  

Also, I've seen many belts go in the same scenario: long fast runs up/down sand highway when we made Duner's Diner runs.  There's no doubt about it, sustained high speed running in sand just puts tons of heat in these belts/clutches and they will blow with the cover on.  

-TJ

 

[tjZ06]

It is a single seat Polaris with a XP1000 motor.  The wheelbase is shorter than a 2 seater, but suspension is the same as the 64" XP1000.  Bonus is the RS1 has the stronger Turbo Polaris drive train, but weighs much less.   110hp with a smaller wheelbase and less weight = a fun time.

The are super stable, drift in the turns in 2wd and are super nimble.   

The RS1 with about 130hp would be perfect.  That car with a turbo motor would be a handful.  

The SxS Blog boys have already done that, and then some: 

-TJ

 

[Sand Shark]

6 minutes ago, tjZ06 said:

The SxS Blog boys have already done that, and then some: 

I watched a few of their turbo RS1 videoso and also when Packard had a turbo RS1.  It looks like a lot of fun and stupid fast.