Quick Bits

[Kartorbust]

And someone deemed plant seeds as nonessential in a certain area. Glad your garden has started to show signs of life.

 

[Flyinhillbilly]

Went racing with the big boys today, the unlimited all stars came to town (it a traveling series) and I decided to see if I could keep up with the top dogs of dirt. I kept up fine in hot laps, we’ll be running heat races soon.

 

[Solomonster212]

Hey flyinhillbilly, you've got some competition now buddy. Lol. I need to order some new slicks and install my fully built engine. Once I do that, it'll do whatever I want it to. See my new thread called "euphoric monster"

 

[Whitetrashrocker]

FHB! go kick some bigboy butt.

It's fun being an underdog they are scared of.

 

[Kartorbust]

So just watched a Stephen Cox livestream. Lanse aka Chucke2009 was apart of it. Sounds like he'll be making a return to YouTube soon, if only just to have his welding and farming videos uploaded as an archive, since others have downloaded them and uploaded them to YouTube. He may make new videos as well. So great news for those who enjoyed his welding videos.

Glad he'll be back in one form or another.

 

[Flyinhillbilly]

There were some bad karts there, and you know what? I outran all but one, and it had an animal on it. Two small blocks beat the wheels off of all those big motors, and I ended up second. I was on hoosier treads, which was completely the wrong tire for that track. I think if I’d been on slicks id would’ve been fighting for first.
It was a great night, my first race with the all stars, and the first time I had ever pulled onto that track.
Overall I’m calling it a success.

 

[Kartorbust]

Welp, after trying to go to a Walmart here in town to do some business, come to find out that all 4 of them decided to close at 5pm today and barricade the doors. Part that sucks is, I get off work at 5:30pm so that was an irritant. Had to go to a CVS drug store to do what I needed to do. Hopefully by Wednesday this will I'll be the proud owner of a Arctic Cat 440 Panther. Can't wait to bring it home and rip that engine out.

 

[Kartorbust]

Yesterday, my dad and brother drove up to get the sled. It's a 1979 Arctic Cat Panther 5000. From some of the research I've done, it has a Suzuki 500cc twin with a single VM32mm Mikuni carburetor. It's a fan cooled engine, mixed not oil injected, which makes it a bit easier. These Panthers came in 3 flavors, a 3000 with a 340cc Suzuki, a 4000 with a 440cc Suzuki, and the 5000 with three 500cc Suzuki.

Under good conditions, should be around 60hp. Unsure of what the CVT setup it has at the moment, looking for an owner's manual and service/shop manual so I'll have more info on how to work on it and service it when i get it down here.

These older engines are a bit different than engines of the era. These engines have a longer stroke, smaller bore. Their theory behind this was, lower end power to get up and go and lower RPM for similar performance. Wouldn't be surprised if the chain final drive wasn't geared higher than similar engine sizes to make up in the top end with the slower engine speed. It appears as this sled was garaged majority of its life because the paint is in good shape and the seat is only cracked and not really torn to the point that you can pull the foam from under it. But I only bought it for the engine, CVT, etc and it'll be just an empty shell. Will allow my dad and brother bomb around on the lake with it this winter, long as they can get the carb cleaned and nothing else is wrong with it. But it's a 2 smoke, which means, stupid simple to rebuild and dirt cheap...relatively speaking.

 

[karl]

Yesterday, my dad and brother drove up to get the sled. It's a 1979 Arctic Cat Panther 5000.

Id send it.

 

[Kartorbust]

Trust me, I will try to make it as strong as possible so I can go full send with it. Funny enough, these old fan cooled sleds had an optional left and right cylinder temp gauge. So I'll be getting that gauge and hopefully a tachometer for it. Just has a speedometer at the moment, not sure if I'll have the ability to adapt it for the buggy. Been looking at Dennis Kirk and they have a Comet 102 driver as an upgrade for this one (still unsure on what's currently on there now). Also debating as to try to go through the hassle of converting to a dual carb or leave it as a single carb to keep some of my sanity as far as syncing carbs go.

 

[Solomonster212]

Mikuni!!!

 

[Karts of Kaos]

good find. how much did you pay?

 

[Kartorbust]

$295 for it. 2,158 miles on it. It just happened to be a Craigslist find honestly. Had my brother contact the guy, since it had been on there for 25 days. I sent my dad the cash and they picked it up. I had been looking for sleds or motorcycles for sale that were runners. This one just needs a carb cleaning or rebuild to get it to run. Just had to be patient and jumped on the opportunity. I was actually really close on doing this whole thing with a Predator 420 and a Comet 790 setup. Thankfully I found this and will not be regretting not have more power...hopefully.

 

[Brianator]

Thought I'd show you folks a fold away work table I made, I had a small shelf there but it just wasn't cuttin the mustard! The tabletop is a piece of an auto parts store countertop that was being discarded, I used thick gauge garage door (#1) hinges, some 2x6 for mounting and 2x4 for the legs and is all stuff I had kicking around!

When you lift the tabletop the legs swing out on their own then I place the blocks under them to level the table and give a better "footprint" for the legs so they don't sink into soft ground 'round here (close to a lake) and it's working out well so far! It's in a nice sunny spot that catches a breeze, I may even reinstall the shelf close by because why not! Lol

 

[mckutzy]

Gota like that ehh.. folds flat, and out of the way.. Up in a jiff when you need it...

 

[landuse]

Good work Brian!

 

[Brianator]

Thank you sir!

 

[Kartorbust]

Well after coming up empty handed on what kind of CVT clutch was on my Panther, found out it is an Arctic Hex drive clutch. Assuming that means the PTO from the engine is a hex and not a tapered shaft? No idea. So now I just need to find an owner's manual and shop manual. Did some more reading, and it says the engine is more integral to the chassis...so either I'm reading into this wrong and am a complete idiot, but I take that as the engine block cannot be removed? Need a manual.

Its surprisingly hard to find much on the Panther 5000. Each time I look for something, the Pantera 5000 pops up. Difference is, the Pantera has dual Mikunis on it, whereas mine is a single Mikuni. From my understanding is, the Spirit 500cc was pretty much the same engine between the Pantera and Panther, meaning if I wanted to go through the headache, I could drop another carb on it. However the headache is running a second throttle cable and syncing the carbs together. Not sure if the small extra boost in power (maybe going from 40hp to 50 or 55?) would be worth it. But I am at least looking at a 102c Comet as an upgrade, may get more performance out of the engine on a buggy vs the Hex drive.

So I've been going back and forth for a few weeks, really a good year or so, just spending a bit of cash and buying buggy plans. Really liking the Badland Buggy ST2NG. They should fit a sled engine quite well, just hoping this doesn't end up really being a huge pain. Trying to do as much research as I can before I pull the trigger anymore on this project. Rather not start tearing into things and finding out I cannot do it because of unforeseen problems that I could avoid by getting a different powertrain. Or I may just be overthinking.

 

[Kaptain Krunch]

Well after coming up empty handed on what kind of CVT clutch was on my Panther, found out it is an Arctic Hex drive clutch. Assuming that means the PTO from the engine is a hex and not a tapered shaft? No idea. So now I just need to find an owner's manual and shop manual. Did some more reading, and it says the engine is more integral to the chassis...so either I'm reading into this wrong and am a complete idiot, but I take that as the engine block cannot be removed? Need a manual.

Its surprisingly hard to find much on the Panther 5000. Each time I look for something, the Pantera 5000 pops up. Difference is, the Pantera has dual Mikunis on it, whereas mine is a single Mikuni. From my understanding is, the Spirit 500cc was pretty much the same engine between the Pantera and Panther, meaning if I wanted to go through the headache, I could drop another carb on it. However the headache is running a second throttle cable and syncing the carbs together. Not sure if the small extra boost in power (maybe going from 40hp to 50 or 55?) would be worth it. But I am at least looking at a 102c Comet as an upgrade, may get more performance out of the engine on a buggy vs the Hex drive.

So I've been going back and forth for a few weeks, really a good year or so, just spending a bit of cash and buying buggy plans. Really liking the Badland Buggy ST2NG. They should fit a sled engine quite well, just hoping this doesn't end up really being a huge pain. Trying to do as much research as I can before I pull the trigger anymore on this project. Rather not start tearing into things and finding out I cannot do it because of unforeseen problems that I could avoid by getting a different powertrain. Or I may just be overthinking.

Hex drive, and integral. Youre definitely overthinking both. Clutch should be a standard 30:1 taper, hex refers to the weight/roller setup likely. As far as the engine, it comes out like any other. I've had quite a few old cats, chances are the integral part is the mounting plate, which reinforces the front clip.

As far as upgraded clutches, i would probably steer clear if a comet 102. I spent 7 years working at a polaris dealetship, and never saw one increase performance. Although these were all much newer machines than your cat.
The most cost effective solution would be a more modern cat or polaris p85 clutch setup (matched preferably). If you have your heart set on a comet, let me know i have an almost new one sitting on my shelf.

 

[Kartorbust]

I'm undecided on the clutch, it's just what I saw available on Dennis Kirk and whatnot. But seeing as you've worked around these, it has a chain case, is that integral or can it be removed for roller chain to run it on a jackshaft for my buggy?