All 686 owners how reliable have your raptors turned out to be. How have they held up during those loooong dune rides. Do any of you wish you had not done the mod. And now that you have is there any thing you would do differently if you were going to do it again?

 

Mine has been just as reliable as its stock form. I have had a 686 for about six months now. A relatively short time but now problems so far.

~HoundDog

 

HoundDog, how wild is your engine? Compression, cam, porting, and how hard do you beat on it? I'm wondering about some kind of buildup for mine and this thread could answer all my questions![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img]

 

Mine blew up after only a couple months (rod failure). If I could of done anything at all when I was building it before it would be to make sure EVERY stock part that I could replace or beef up I would of. Right now it's getting fixed and everything is getting the heavy duty treatment so hopefully it will last till I have to at least rebuild it again. I kinda regret building it but don't at the same time, I love reliability but I think I love speed more [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

Get a Carillo rod for it. Or a TI rod. Or something stronger than stock. Don't save the money, because it could end up costing you a lot more. Mine let go after 4-5 rides. It busted the end out of the stock rod, and split down the middle. Luckily it only broke a few pieces off the inside of the case, and didn't destroy the case. It did however need: new rod(Carillo), sleeve, Piston, exhaust valves, crank deburred, and balanced, main bearings, crank pin, wrist pin, and a slew of other small parts. About $1000. I had 12:1 comp. JE piston, Hotcams Stage II, ported head, SS valves, Kibble springs, etc. It was making very good power.

Some have been lucky some have not. It's not worth the chance in my opinion. My bike would be still running strong with a better rod. So for what it's worth get a better rod also. I could kick myself now. I even had the motor tore all the way down to install the 02 gears since the tranny had let go. Would have cost me another $300-400 maybe. Consider it insurance. Mines been down for 3 months now, and may be another month.

 

I think if you go to the 12:1 and stage 2 cam you should get all the coatings and all the balancing of the rod and crank,i wouldent cut any shortcuts after seeing what happens,i have the mild 686 and it holds up rather nice and i ride the **** out of it..

 

bad660r: Same exact thing happened to mind cept my rod took out the tranny and both cases along with all that other stuff, almost lost the crank too.

 

I have had good luck with my 686 engine. I have a 13:1 Je piston, Hotcams stage 2, Ti springs, and I have it on the bottle with no problems, KIND OF. I have had to replace a decompression pin, a starter solenoid, a stator, and a one-way bearing, but the engine itself has done fine. You wouldn't want to take it on a long dune ride though, it does heat up pretty fast

 

alot of the issues might be user error tooo,so if you take all the right precautions then it should be fine,and also who puts it together makes a big diffrence,the jetting,the gas flow,if it's running too hot..these are alot of the issues you need to look out for.I really doubt that the rod is the weak link,there is too much going on in that engine that could go wrong besides the rod that may be a factor..

 

I've got about 20 hours on my 12:1 (13:1) Craycraft-spec JE piston, Hotcams Stage II, Kibblewhite springs, Craycraft P&P, Craycraft piston and head coating, stock rod, 03 Raptor. I run my Raptor as hard as it will go but don't run it wide open for long distances, no dunes in my area. There were some issues with piston/bore clearance that may have contributed to stock rods giving up on stock bore high-compression Raptors, don't know if that was an issue for some 686s also.