340 Motor - nearly ready.

Step four: A Shiny "new" motor
Before I get started on today's update - I have to comment on the weather. It has turned cloudy, colder and beautiful. When I walk out into the shop now, my pace picks up a step or two. That's because I can feel fall, and thus winter are in the air. Race day draws near. I have tons of work left to do, but now it's getting really fun.

I should take a moment to mention that the Wahl Brothers are not building this sled - as incorrectly reported by one of my favorite magazines - merely they are giving me the space on this web site and offering me the tips, tricks and years of experience as I, an udder beginner racer, build my first race sled with Independent Front Suspension. I have built a number of race sleds - rather I should say I have restored a good number of original race sleds, but this is the first one I've done from the ground up with the intention of beating the snot out of it. If you have questions or comments about the build, feel free to email me or Joel Howard at Wahl Brothers.

Let's talk first about the motor. In tearing down the original Indy, we found the motor to be in very good condition, but a little worse for wear. First all the parts were cleaned very carefully. I then elected to take the bottom end and the crank shaft to Recreational Engineering. There, the crank was given new bearings and a good checking over to make it sure it's in balance and the tolerances are as good as we can get on shoestring budget for racing. Recreational Engineering also drilled the crankcase and added an additional impulse nipple so we can run the slide lubers from a fuel pump. We left the cylinders alone as the rules require. We did make sure the carb boots and exhaust Y-Pipes did match up to the cylinders nicely, but made no significant modifications.

Once that was done, we assembled the motor. We used new pistons, rings, wrist pins, bearings and gaskets. I wanted to try and re-use something out of that pile, but there really wasn't anything there that looked like it would last a whole race let alone the whole race season. As of this writing, we had not received the water pump belt, but that's easy to install when the motor is in the chassis.

Step Five: Painted Parts
We talked about these in the last update, but now that they are painted, I got some photos. First we added a small piece of curved tube to the trailing arms. It was welded to the trailing arm support, then welded to a piece of flat steel just big enough for the tube, and the 4 rivets used to attach it to the tunnel. Without this, I really didn't think there was enough support for the trailing arm, and they had broken at that point from the years of trail riding. I also repainted the handlebar hoop, the handlebars and some other small parts. I didn't have to paint the trailing arms, as they were already powder coated. A little scratched up, but they look pretty good. I also used a couple of small, thin aluminum plates with straps to hold on my new gas tank. I mounted the old, original tach, throttle and handlebar grip. I got a newer style brake from a scrap yard and fitted the calipers into the chaincase, the same way they came out from the original Indy. One note of caution: My old Indy chaincase was broken, so I got one from, I think, a 1978 TX out of a salvage yard. The larger (better) Indy style brake caliper did NOT fit that older chaincase (even though they look exactly the same!) so I had to do a little more carving on my 'holy' chaincase to get it to fit.

Trailing arms supports were added.	Installed Handlebar Mount and Handlebars.	An important addition to the front suspension is this metal retainer bolted in front of the lower radius rods and riveted to the bulkhead. It will help keep those bolts from breaking!

Step Five: Get a Hood to Fit
I started with the standard Wahl Champ Polaris hood. You are required to keep the motor in the stock position. This makes the motor stick up through the hood - right in the middle of where the windshield attaches to the hood. It would have worked had the motor stuck out in front of, or behind the windshield, but I could not picture it working, nor looking to good, going through both. You want to make sure the hood fits with the carbs, pipes and clutch guard in place. I finally decided to go retro, and ordered a 77 Polaris SnoPro hood. Remember, in both Formula 500 & 340, anything goes as far as the hood, seat, handlebars and gas tank - so make it look good!

We fabricated this RXL style belly pan and the rear of the clutch guard and covered it all with safety belting.

I copied, as much as I could, the bulkhead from a 78 RXL. This meant getting some thin aluminum sheeting, and some square tubing. It was all very inexpensive from my local farm supply store. I cut the pan pieces on either side to match the Indy chassis, riveted them on, then riveted on the square tubing around the edge, all the while trying the hood to check that I had it all straight and square.

Addendum to Part 2
The rules changed on both the Formula 500 class and the Formula 340 class. Both now allow your front end to be 45" wide from the outside edge of each ski, with a 1" offset. That means all the measurements from our 2nd installment of this build are NOT correct. For the 1980 Indy Chassis, I had Wahl Brothers build a 36" torsion bar from 7/8" Chrome Moly tube. The outside (recoil side) Radius rods are 16.5"and the inside ones measure 15.5". The outside tie-rod is 18" long, and the inside one is 17" long.

What's next?
Let's get it together!