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DKA Motorsports Polaris RZR Turbo XP

tribal4krawler

DKA Motorsports
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Member Number
1745
Messages
484
This will be the build/race/break/repeat thread for our Polaris RZR Turbo that my wife Alex races in the TexPlex UTV Series. Her first ever utv racing experience came in my old Yamaha YXZ1000R, but being set up for rocks/desert was not a good fit for the tight turns that TexPlex has.

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nevertheless, she was hooked and interested in getting an UTV that was specifically set up for short course. She wanted a Can Am, but those are typically a lot more money than the Polaris RZRs, and when they do break they seem to mainly break front differentials, which aren't cheap. The Polaris RZR isn't usually found on top of the podium in the pro classes anymore, but I thought it'd be at least a good first race car for her. I ended up finding a car in Arkansas from a guy named Hunter, who had built a pretty nice 2017 Polaris RZR turbo that was thinking about swapping to Can Am. He came down, I looked at the car, and we made a deal. It came with full SuperATV aftermarket arms, billet radius rods, billet rear carrier hubs, Rhino 2.0 axles, Hess 1.5:1 quickener, a race cage, a bunch of Aftermarket Assassins engine/clutching mods, and was extremely fast compared to the YXZ. Her first race with the new car was in November '20, and while she was extremely timid with the throttle (180-190 rwhp on e85), the car seemed to be working very well.
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she walked away with a solid 2nd place finish in Womens Amateur, with the determination to get better and smoother through the turns.
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We decided to turn the car down to stage 3 93 octane tune for prerunning at KOH 21, mainly so we didn't need to bring different fuel types out to the lakebed (buggy, race truck and utv all ran on 93). The power difference was very noticeable, but Alex said she felt more comfortable with the throttle on this setting, so we decided to leave it on the stage 3 for at least the first part of the UTV series season.

Race 1 went well, as you can see we got rid of the orange and went with black/gray and gold. We also got some new Methods wrapped with Hoosier M500 Turbo tires, and Alex really liked how those felt compared to the BigHorns. At this point we really hadn't changed anything else, but were dealing with a pesky but consistent slow coolant leak. Alex ended up 3rd in Womens Expert for the first round, which we were very happy with.
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Round 2, Alex was determined to run faster and tangle with the leaders in the Womens Expert class. I changed out the inner tierod ends and passenger outer as they were getting loose, and did a fluids change. First heat was super slick so we ran the bighorns, and almost immediately Alex lost control and had a slow flop. they got her uprighted and she finished the heat in last.

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In the afternoon, conditions had improved so we switched to the hoosiers and she was pushing very hard, running her best lap times ever and chasing down 3rd place when she made an error on one of the last turns and flopped the car.

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She was extremely disappointed with herself for making the mistake, but i reminded her it happens to everybody (ALOT of people roll on that offcamber away turn) but there was no damage to the car which was great.
 
After this race, Alex wanted to go out and practice as she'd just rolled twice in one event, and wanted to get past that mental block. The car didn't seem right, and kept breaking up and sputtering.

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After realizing we weren't getting any quality practice in we decided to pack it up and head back to Houston. I brought it to 3P offroad to look at it, and immediately a huge cloud of white smoke came out. crap, headgasket. After tearing down, we realized that the stock Polaris Intercooler plenum that sits on top of the motor had cracked, and was leaking coolant straight into the motor. Not good. We ordered some parts and decided the next race would be run with the newly purchased Polaris RS1 while we repaired the Turbo.
 
Our next race that we did with the temporarily repaired Turbo car (3P put on a spare intercooler plenum while we were waiting for the new upgraded CBR intercooler to come in) was the Mid America Outdoors Mayhem race. I spent a bunch of time going through axles, radius rod heims, replacing tie rod ends again, and basically doing a full service before we went to Oklahoma. I even went through the Double E coilovers with some new seals, Blud Lubricants 10w oil, and a fresh nitrogen charge. We got to MAO, and wow, what a freaking cool facility. Alex was extremely intimidated by the short course layout, which was technically almost a mile shorter than TexPlex but had ALOT more elevation change. She was happy to be back in the Turbo, as she has a lot more seat time in this than the RS1, and went out for her first practice. Unfortunately, there is very little track management in terms of employees slowing down the idiot racers who decided to go racing at 100% while people like Alex who had never been on the track were trying to sight lap and see what it looked like. Luckily, she didn't have any incidents but was a little shook up. She went out for Heat 1, and the shocks looked pretty soft for the hard G-outs, but she drove a good race and finished 3rd out of 7 with a very respectable laptime that would have put her mid pack in Expert Turbo. She was complaining about the car starting to pull to the right again, which we'd fought before and i replaced the tie rod ends again. Still pulling. We realized that it was actually the Polaris factory power steering pulling the wheel to the right. Nothing we can do about that. The next day, she went out for the main, determined to not be in the back at the landrush start. Flag drops, and I'm shocked to see her out next to the leader for the first time ever. She goes around the turn, the leader rolls, and suddenly she's in the lead. She held the lead for about a lap and half until her power steering completely locked up, and it took her a second to remember how to cycle the reset switch ** a very important mod that you need for a Polaris or Can Am, if the power steering sees an "unnatural occurance" it'll shut off by itself.** She recovered nicely, and motored her way to a 2nd place finish for a 2nd overall finish in Womens Turbo.

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We were very pleased with that result, and almost immediately called up SuperATV for their Epower steering upgrade which provides a lot more power for steering and also doesnt cut out like the factory steering does. I also decided to get the CageWRX footbox and left foot brake pedal to see if this helps alex have more confidence to accelerate harder and brake before turns, instead of coasting and basically never using her brakes. I think if she can get used to this, she'll immediately chop off many seconds of time. The CBR intercooler should also be arriving any day now, which will provide better cooling for the intake charge. I'm tempted to put the Stage 6 E85 tune back in, mainly because the other two fast girls have built turbo Can Ams with ALOT more power than Alex's car on the small HP tune (guessing her car is somewhere around 130rwhp now) but we'll see.
 
So, I’m an idiot. I didn’t do the shocks right when I rebuilt them, and they had literally zero valving. I really can’t believe she drove as well as she did on absolute garbage. I pulled them back apart and hopefully have put them back together correctly this time. Feels better but we won’t know until she gets on the track and hits a jump.
 
Well, finally did the shocks right. They worked awesome all weekend.
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I need to go through her brakes as it’s been a consistent complaint for her that the brakes aren’t confidence inspiring compared to my old Yamaha or even the RS1 we have. I’m really not sure what to get, I did wave rotors on the Yamaha and we were happy with them.
 
Finally installed the new CBR intercooler and put e85 back in the tank. We also installed a SuperATV ezpower power steering unit, but it’s WAY too twitchy and unfortunately I think we’ll have to uninstall it and return it.
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Well, Alex got used to the ezpower, so that’s a plus. But a lot of components are getting crazy excessive wear, so I think we’re going to take a couple months off racing so that I can replace things such as the rack, all the radius rod heims (again), all the wheel bearings, replace the billet hub carrier that got damaged in a wreck a couple races ago, replace the primary and secondary and dyno tune the clutches and motor to make sure we’re making optimal power when we need it. We got 4th out of 6 entries at Visions Offroad, and the reality is that the top 3 just had far better cars. The 3rd place girl drove her butt off and went over 15 seconds faster a lap than she ever had, and that combined with Alex losing front shocks and brakes again was enough to keep her off the podium. It’s disappointing to see her trying so hard and it coming down to just crap equipment. I seriously doubt any of the other girls could drive as well as Alex does with this crusty old polaris. We still had a blast regardless at Visions Offroad, and are looking ahead to possibly attending the Labor Day race/event at Mid America Outdoors.
 
Pulled the Turbo out of retirement to let Charli (our 13 yr old) get some seat time as I think I’m going to sell the RS1 and downsize the collection. It’s still on the big HP E85 tune, but she was able to get the hang of it pretty quickly. She went out for Heat 1, and was staged on the far outside and couldn’t see the flagger, so she went off the line dead last (6 cars). Within the first lap she passed 2 cars, but the remaining 3 were quite a ways ahead. I told her over the radio if she felt comfortable to go ahead and start turning it up and catch them. By lap 3 she caught the pack and immediately started passing them (they’re notorious for trying to block) and was about to check out on the group when she took a bad line on a tricky corner and went for a ride. Luckily she was okay and hopped in the RS1 for heat 2 where she finished 3rd (first 2 cars are fast turbo cars). The turbo held up well but the driver main pillar did bend slightly. Not sure exactly what I’ll do to fix it.
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That looks like it was quite the ride.. Good on her for getting in the RS1 and getting back out there! :beer:
 
Damn! Glad to see she jumped back up on the horse.... she's gotta be loving that
 
Bad news is the cage is FUBAR. Started looking at how to repair it, and the more I looked the more i found stress cracks or buckling in different places, so I've decided to scrap it and start over with a new cage. Definitely a bummer but it is what it is. I was hoping to get the car back together in time for the SXS 12HR, but that's not looking like it'll happen. Ordered a DIY kit from Cage WRX as I've seen their kits before and was pretty impressed. We'll see what ends up happening.
 
Ordered a DIY kit from Cage WRX as I've seen their kits before and was pretty impressed. We'll see what ends up happening.
Which cage did you order from them? I have the Baja spec cage on my R&T. I am only trail riding though.
 
Which cage did you order from them? I have the Baja spec cage on my R&T. I am only trail riding though.
yep, Baja Spec. I should be able to reuse my door bars/skins and roof from the old cage. How long did it take you to get your cage?
 
yep, Baja Spec. I should be able to reuse my door bars/skins and roof from the old cage. How long did it take you to get your cage?
it's been 3+ years since I bought my cage from them. But if I recall it was a week or less.

I think the cage was $679 when I ordered plus the cost of the roof.

I was thinking about ordering their glass windshield. Last time i looked it was $499 but I see it's now $750.. nope. I'll make do with my poly since I only run it in the winter..
 
I called them out of curiosity and they said they had their bender go down, and are waiting for repair. They said they should be shipping the kit next week. We’ll see. 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️
 
Welp, cagewrx said it’s going to be a while before they get everything fixed so I canceled the order. 🤦‍♂️
 
No sir. We’ll be up in dfw area for a comp shooting match, maybe we’ll stop by for a little bit. I’ve been crazy busy with work but hopefully by mid dec things will chill out to where I can at least get the Polaris straightened out to where I can use it to get around at Hammers during KOH
 
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