My Phazer MTX Turbo Project Log

[DigitalFusion]

This isnt really a build thread, just a place for me to keep track of progress of updates/modifications/etc on my new-to-me phazer. I always get a kick out of going back in time and reading these things, and sometimes its nice to go back to see what I did and when I did it when trying to fix things down the road. Plus I hope maybe it can help a future searcher or two if they encounter any of the same things I did. Especially with the Boondocker turbo, since there is NO information out there on this thing.

I plan to swap a bunch of parts off the '08 Phazer that I am parting out in my signature, and then sell as much as I can from it to help fund this project. I'll keep the long block to build for boost in the future.

Here she is as I bought her (from the sellers picture). 2010 MTX with 1800 miles, a Boondockers turbo kit, and a limp mode issue from the drive indicator. IMHO its ugly as sin, in a good way. The boondockers intercooler isnt nearly as nice the MCX version, it completely ruins the lines of the Phazer up front (but its a side mount system with much less lag):

The first thing I did was start taking it apart, only to find this. Since the radiator is deleted with the now no-longer-produced boondocker kit, the PO slapped an extra cooler on it. By slapped I mean literally just set it on top of the tunnel opening with a rats nest of connections that leaked if I even looked at them wrong.

I found a huge cooler from ebay for a great price. I decided that since I really wanted a black tunnel, and it would be so much easier to install the cooler if the tunnel was removed, I might as well pull it to install, and then send it out for coating.

5 bolts on each side, 5 rivets in the middle, and the 4 skid bolts and it comes right off

I got all the holes drilled for the cooler and removed the rear bumper/snow flap. Just waiting on my Mountain Tech running boards and then I can send everything off for powder coating

New and improved Yamaha Phazer! Now comes with ez-folding(TM) technology for more convenient storage!

 

[DigitalFusion]

Between the holidays and a much needed vacation progress crawled to a standstill. I was looking forward to diving back into this when I returned from my trip. I got back only to discover that my radiant heat froze and ruptured while we were away. Every. Single. Line. I have some temporary heat while insurance and the contractor come up with a plan thanks to my buddies kerosene heater.

I picked up my tunnel and various parts from the powder coater, got my seat back from the upholstery shop, and dove back in.

I got a GYTR bumper for a great deal, because it had suffered the fate of the broken flap tabs. I took it over to my friends place and he fab'ed up a new one and welded it all together.

I installed the exchanger and board onto the tunnel with black rivets, and got the tunnel reinstalled.

Since I am parting out that 08 Phazer, I pilfered all the coolant lines from it and made some much cleaner connections for the new tunnel cooler.

I pulled the manifold off in order to rewrap it, and allow easier access to the neutral switch. I found this. The manifold had cracked at some point and had been rewelded. Its a stainless manifold and the weld was regular steel. They heat up at different rates so its just cracking all over again. Off to my friend to cut/grind all this off and tig it up with some stainless rod.

I installed the powdercoated riser, the RSI pivot riser, a set of RSI carbon fiber handlebars, and some Powermadd guards. It actually is starting to look like a snowmobile once again!

 

[charlevoixboy]

Moarrr!

 

[DigitalFusion]

I really need to update this more often so I dont have to try and remember everything I did and upload elventy billion files! Some of this is probably out of order and I am sure I am missing some things: I had to go back and take some pictures after the fact as I realized I forgot to take some:

I pulled the rear bumper, running board edges, and skid rails and sent them out for powder coating in Yamaha blue (RAL 5002). I'll do the control arms in the offseason.

In order to make sure there wasn't any cracks that are hiding from the naked eye, my friend recommended we sandblast the manifold and use CRC's 3 part weld check system to show if anything is hiding on us. Its a good thing we did, because there were cracks and pinholes all over the place! It seems that not only is this manifold a really funky design (seriously look how angular it is!), its also prone to cracking.

The PO relocated the battery under the seat via zip ties, and had the main wiring harness wrapped in a heat shield that lost all of its reflective coating. I bolted an OEM battery box in place, wrapped the main wiring harness with the original no-longer-reflective-coated-nomex, and covered that with some reflective foil tape. I also re-wrapped the downpipe. I picked up some DEI battery wrap to insulate the battery from getting too warm, which I have yet to install.

Since I was doing electrical items, I figured it was time to tackle the gauges and wiring. The original setup was a bit too function-over-form for me.

While playing around with different layouts ( flipping gauges around, mounting them to sides of the riser, on top of the pivot riser, down by the headlight, etc) I managed to break the boost gauge. I ordered the matching AEM boost gauge but upgraded to digital with recall and warn functions.

I learned after the fact that AEM discontinued the style of my AFR gauge, so they dont quite match. Plus, the newest style has an extremely shallow gauge. It was so shallow that the clamps for the pods wouldn't even hold it in place. I had to cut off the back of the old boost gauge and fasten it to the new one to get it to hold.

The PO had originally sourced power for the AFR gauge by tapping into the wire for the tail light, and the ground by sticking a bare wire under a screw near the seat rail mount. That bugged me, and now that I had two gauges to wire up. I decided to make some actual connections for them.

I sacrificed the main harness from the 08 by clipping the connection for the tail light off, and made a plug-and-play harness that has two leads for the power/ground for the gauges. I then took the OEM display holder from the 08 and tried to mock up some way to hold everything. I don't like how it is, even with planning to cut the bracket to the height of the control box

After getting tired of spending way too much time playing around with gauges and electrical, I decided it was time to move on for a while. This sled was going into limp mode when I purchased it. The forward light would flash and it wouldn't go over 3K RPMs. A little digging here I found that it was due to the forward gear sensor being bad. Even tho I ordered a new forward sensor, as well as a reverse sensor just in case, I decided to just completely remove / delete reverse. The 08 I am parting out is the base model without reverse, so I have all the parts I needed on hand. I pulled the chain case & driveshaft and swapped out the normal jackshaft with the reverse transmission on it for the base model, saving 8 lbs in the process as well as eliminating the limp mode issue and the common issue of melting the reverse servo due to the manifold being so close to it (or at least I hope).

I pulled the spindles and skis off and swapped them with the 08 which I had curve skis on. I dont know why, but now the toe out is insane. I'll have to get that dialed in later. Eventually I'd like to put some pure mountain skis on it like some 8" PowderPro's from SLP.

I got my manifold back from my TIG welding buddy. I told him I was dropping it off in the AM for ceramic coating and he said I shouldn't do it. He just wasn't confident in the manifold. He said every time he would fix one crack pinholes would just pop up everywhere, and new cracks would form. He is a damn good welder (that's his trade, and he has been doing it for a living for 20+ years) and we are great friends so I know he wasn't BS'ing me. When I got home I sent out half a dozen request-for-quote's just to get an idea of what it would cost for a custom tubular manifold that would actually flow and not crack. I have plenty of extra space for some equal length runners now that reverse has been removed.

I decided to just run this manifold for now, and that coating it didnt make sense, so I pulled the inlet pipe in order to re-wrap it along with the manifold. The inlet had a really crappy gasket on it that was obviously leaking a lot for quite some time! Between all the cracks in the manifold, the slip fit connection on the inlet pipe, and the blown out gasket I have no idea how this thing even built any boost before redline!

I got the inlet pipe wrapped, and finished wrapping the manifold. It looked pretty damn good considering the whacky angles of that thing. That's when I discovered the flange is warped all to hell.

I pulled all the wrap off and started looking around for some place that would be able to mill it. I have a friend who is a co-owner of a performance 4x4 shop, so when I asked him about it, he said he knew a guy who could just build me a whole new manifold! Im looking forward to speaking with him about it to see if its even something that is in my budget.

 

[DigitalFusion]

I heard back from a couple of places on having a custom tubular manifold made. I was expecting somewhere in the $200-$300 range. That was way off. The quotes were anywhere from $350 for 18ga 504 stainless (too damn thin, and not a good alloy for high heat and cycling) to $450 for 16ga 321 (better for high heat and cycling), and the highest was "$500'ish"

I'm seriously considering making my own in the offseason. I am not a good welder, and my welder is a POS flux core 110, but that would be good enough to tack the parts together to have either one of my welder friends finish it up with a tig welder. (one friend did the GYTR bumper fix, the other the manifold, so thankful for great friends!)


Since I am stuck with this manifold for now, and every place I contacted said they couldn't mill the manifold flange as they would have no way to clamp it, the only option left was to see if it could be trued via the home-brew method. Never under estimate the power of some good clamps, heat, and abrasives! My buddy and I were able to get it completely flat once again last night. We also did the 3 part weld check again just to make sure our clamping/heating/loving taps with BFH's didnt cause any damage.

A few weeks ago I found a smoking good deal on a 151" x 16" x 2" track off a Summit on ebay. $250 shipped and the only issue with it was that one lug was partially torn about an inch from the edge of the track. Perfect since I would be cutting an inch off each side anyways!

My buddies said they would give me a hand cutting the track down on my table saw tomorrow, so I went out to the garage tonight to get everything setup and ready to go. I clipped the zip ties on the track to wrap it around the table saw, and couldn't help but feel like it didn't look any longer than my stock track. I checked the Camoplast part number on it, and sure enough, its a 144, not a 151! I contacted the seller, but its an actual store that closed a few hours ago, so I wont be hearing back from them until tomorrow.

 

[DigitalFusion]

Welp, one step forward, ten steps back. I got a return auth on the wrong track, and I ordered a different track and a slew of misc parts that will be arriving this week. While waiting for parts, I decided to do a compression test just for the heck of it. I'll let the pic speak for itself.

 

[mtuyamaha]

What was the compression?

 

[DigitalFusion]

125'ish both sides cold, poured a little oil in and got 175 and 155. The 155 side would slowly loose pressure as well. One plug (from the 155 side) was oil fouled and the plug from the 175 side looked like hell from what I assume was pre-ignition or detonation. When I bought it the PO ran pump gas so I ASSumed it had the headshim. I did a bunch of digging and managed to find the first owner of this sled. He never installed the head shim and ran 100 octane. The sled was sold to the guy I bought it from with 1200 miles on it running great. He put 600 miles on it with pump gas and that was the outcome.

I planned to build the '08 motor some time in the future. Now it looks like I will be swapping them around and building the 2010 motor sometime in the future.

 

[2stroken]

When you say building, will you stay with the head shim? Do anything else to it?

 

[DigitalFusion]

Not sure to be honest. You can't get the head shims anymore, at least not that I have found, and it appears that no one makes low comp pistons either. Carillo does make rods, but the stock rods have been shown to hold up very well even in high boost situations. For now I am just going to swap the 08 motor in and try and get this thing usable. We were supposed to go hit the Big Horns in 3 weeks, but at this rate I am going to miss that trip. Just hoping I can have it done for our Togwotee trip in March.

 

[2stroken]

Any thought to cutting a little on the factory piston to get compression down? What about a valve job and opening up some area around the valves? I haven't done any type of calcs, but think that might get it.

 

[DigitalFusion]

Those are definitely options. At one point JE did make 10.5:1 pistons for these. I contacted them to see if its still something that can be obtained. They have a two week turn around on completely custom pistons, and its only a $5 charge to change the compression from "stock" pistons so I am hoping that they will be able to do it, and they will not be insanely expensive.

They do make 77mm pistons for the YZ250F (13.5:1) so I dont understand why the phazer isnt listed.

 

[Snowman871]

Thanks for sharing, really awesome work you've done! That previous owner would make my farmer father-in-law proud...

 

[cannondale27]

This is awesome digital! Looking forward to you wrapping it up. Will be first class that I know.

 

[mysledblows]

Could you just do a double or triple stack head gasket to get it where you want? Or the one gasket company (cometic?) has varying thickness head gaskets. Maybe they have a phaser one. Or mark lepenheimer(pretty sure that’s not spelled right) out in mt is an mcx dealer and when I last chatted with him a couple years ago about phaser turbos he made it sound like all the mcx stuff was still available and they ran a shin in theirs.