I have a 98 lakota. For a while now it has been smoking at times and is using a lot of oil> A couple of weeks ago I switched to a synthetic oil. After a hard 3 hour ride I was looking at the engine and I have oil leaking through the gasket below the cylinder head. I also oil foul plugs. I have never opened up this engine before and I am thinking maybe I just blew the gasket. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If any of you could recommend a good brand of top end gasket kit or they all the same, Ive seen them on ebay.

 

if its buring oil its not good at all. i guess i should tell you the story about my lakota...........when i first bought it, it smoked minimaly and i thought nothing of it(bought it last may) and it didnt burn noticeable ammounts of oil but things kept getting worse and worse where it started to make funny noises when i rode hard and then starting in december it could burn up to 2 quarts in about 8 hours so i had it tore down and just about the hole engine was shot. i nedded a new cam, valves, springs, cam chain, piston and rings all new gaskets and a new connecting rod and this ended up cosing a grand so if your smart and dont want to end up paying 1000 bucks to fix your lakota later on stop riding it now and tare down your top end and get it fixed, rightnow you probally onlyhave bad rings and valve seals but if you let it get worse the hole top end will go and then the connectiong rod and taking appart the bottom end and changing the connecting rod is a very costly reapir by it self so get yours fixed now so you will only have to spend maby 50 to 15 bucks insted of 1000. call greg@cwr he could hook you up with everytihng you need to get your lakota running good