I have a 96 polaris sltx and the front cyclinder keeps overheating?

Question

i have a 96 polaris sltx and the front cylinder keeps over heating. it gets hott enough to burn the paint off the cylinder head cover. i have tried everything from cleaning the exaust ports to checking the thermostat. can anyone help

Answer 1

Run pre-mix fuel.

Polaris has a problem (all do but Polaris seems a bit worse) with oil injection. You probably have a scored cylinder already.

EDIT---

How did the old cylinder look? if scored, that could have been the source of overheating. Polaris does have some problem with fuel starvation to the front cylinder. The fuel pumps are not quite strong enough (especially after 12 years) to feed all three carbs. Many shops recommend adding a second fuel pump to solve that problem (remember a lean cylinder runs hotter). I believe yours may have pumps at each carb though, so that wouldn't apply, but the #1 carb may be too lean.

Just remove both the thermostat and pop-off valve and run it. Then replace the thermostat and watch some more. It won't hurt to eliminate the pop-off completely.

Find either a digital infrared thermometer, or temperature marking crayons and see waht the temp difference is. I suspect a lean/scored #1 was the source of the overheat to begin with.