I just went through the dowel sticking bullcrap. I polished it still stuck. Replaced the dowel and cleaned the bore and still sticking. So I bit the bullet and tried the 2 5/16 ball bearings and my pressures are perfect by the book specs. With the dowel I was barely getting 1 psi at idle and it would not climb right away at full throttle hell it wouldn't climb until 5000 rpms. With the bearings it's perfect and smooth. So I'll never put the dowel back in ever again. I figured 0w40 would be fine and the racing oil has more zinc and Esther in it. Well any oil has more than ps4 most do anyway. Thx for the reply I like to hear others opinions on oil. It's interesting.
What dowel???
How much are the wix filters? I've been contemplating using a different filter. There are many conflicting opinions on that as well lol. I've read because of the sump on this motor certain filters are bad for it. Again that is just from reading forums and groups so basically not sure lol.
Pressure relief dowel. There is a nut just above oil filter. It's in there and is known to stick and burn up motors. Mine almost became a statistic.
I think the regular Wix filters are around $7-8 and the upgraded performance Wix filters are around $11-12.
I haven’t had any issues with mine but I clean and polish the dowel every oil change and also squirt some brake cleaner down the hole while the oil is draining out to make sure the bore is clean. I lube up the dowel with a oil additive with moly before I put it back in the bore.
I never heard of a dowel in regards to anything except a wooden dowel rod. I am lost on this. Where is this thing at again? Can you only see it after the filter is off? What does it do and why have I not heard of this before on other engines? I am getting ready to change the oil in my 2014 800 and looked the other night for the kit I bought before and can't seem to find what I got before. It was the Polaris oil and filter one I got from Rocky Mountain ATV but for some reason it does not come up in search for me. Found other ones but after going to several websites none match what was shown in the results page. In fact the one said does not fit your model.
It's the nut above oil filter can't miss it. Inside is a spring and a steel dowel. That dowel is what regulates the oil pressure. If it sticks closed it will over pressurize amd blow oil seal or float lifters. If it sticks open it will starve the motor of oil and burn it up. This issue is a serious problem on the 800 motor. My engine almost blew up from that dowel sticking. Many many many threads on the issue and videos.
I will have to do a search for them. I have limited success doing that on here for some reason. But thanks everyone for explaining this to me. I would have never guessed there was such a thing in a million years. Now I have yet another thing to worry about.
Lol yea I hear ya. I tested out the ball bearings with oil pressure gauge for 3 weeks of riding and monitoring pressures. It has been flawless. Like I said earlier with dowel in i was barely getting 1 psi at idle and dowel was sticking when you hit the gas and would barely climb until 5000 rpms. Should climb instantly. Plus stall outs at idle and nasty lifter tick. Since the ball bearings it runs so smooth with no tick nor stall at idle. Runs perfect. Next I have to do the pinion nut very soon. Pretty much I've become a polaris tech since I got this 800. The machine a bought was beat to shit and had so many tuning problems.I worked out all the issues and have it perfectly tuned. Did it all manually without hooking to a computer. Had it tested out at dealer on digital wrench and is perfectly tuned. The mechanic even asked me what dealer tuned it and said it's running and idling better than brand new ones. I just played stupid to see how well it was tuned knowing I did it all with no computer. Lol
