2018 Wildcat XX Engine Knock

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Removed the head. Looks like a wrist pin in cyl 3.

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I had my 2018 engine blow up with a little over 500 miles on it ( Very little time to ride it, got it and moved my biz and myself to a new house). I got a new 2020 engine that I am installing. Just been busy with work, and I making a video of the entire thing so its taking a little bit of time. But as I was tearing it down I found the bolts on the intake were finger tight if even that. So it had been sucking crap for a long time. I got it second hand, but it looked like there had never been a wrench on the bolts ever. Great machines just need to go over them and make sure they got put together right. I also found that one of the vents for the CVT was half on so crap was getting in there too. I am doing it myself so I know what was not together correct and what was. I am pretty much taking the entire car apart to make sure everything is put together properly. I would double check everything on your Cat as you fix yours's.

 

Thanks for the insight. I plan on taking the time and putting a wrench on everything I can as well. This is the downside with getting a second hand machine unfortunately.

When your original engine blew, did you find the actual failure point? Good luck with the new one, the vid will be cool to watch.

Does anyone have any insight on what 2018 engine components are worth replacing while I have it out? Like the water pump, oil pump, etc? What is known to go bad on these? Id like to make it as bullet proof as I can (within reason) while its out so I'm only doing this once (knocks on wood). Already planning on replacing the pistons, connecting rods & manual chain tensioner with Alba stuff. Praying that only a wrist pin went and the crank & block are still good. I should have it out and broken down by this weekend, so I'll know for sure whats been damaged then.

 

The connecting rods and some other stuff is a little better in the newer engine. From what I have seen on here the Speed water pump impeller is a good mod. I'm going to run the OEM water pump with a Speedwerx auto bleed kit. It is supposed to fix the water pump issues and costs much less. The Speedwerx PTO shaft is another item I'm gonna upgrade to. I also plan on going with Evens coolant. Ive been reading a lot on here since before I got my XX and the issues people seem to have with the engine have been the water pump impellers , the cause seems to be air getting into the system some how. And clogged oil filters, clogged with assembly lube , or a clogged oil pick up. If you think you might want to do a turbo , the rods and pistons are an upgrade you would want to do. I have not torn my bad engine down yet. Depending on whats bad in it I was thinking of rebuilding it and building it for adding a turbo. There are people using the same engine in some gyrocopters and it is supposed to be a very reliable engine. When mine first started to knock I read every thread I could find on here and emailed anybody who I saw online that had a XX engine issue. I too want to put mine back together as strong as possible. Another reason I got the newer engine with the better internals. I tried checking part numbers to see what had changed but they " Updated" the internal part numbers to the parts in the new engine on the website I was looking at. And all of the stock motors that failed were from a lack of oil. either the filter clogged or the tube that sucks it into the oil pump and an oil pump failed on one other car. It seems like if the engine is stock, the only issues are the assembly lube that is in them to start, and then if you get air in the cooling system the water pump impellor can fail. I read some YXZ forum stuff too since they are close . And I saw some people have issues with the cam chain tensioner. I was looking for mostly issues with newer lower mileage XX's though . I found more people that had an issue around the same mileage as I did ,than had issues with higher amounts of time on their cars. I'll keep an eye on this post and possibly add some of the items people suggest. Either to the new engine or when I rebuild the old one, or both. Another thing that I saw a lot of was the issues with the XX having not been put together correctly. Like a loose connection in the wiring, or bolts loose, etc. Again it was mostly on the 18 since that was what I have and what I was looking for. I knew all of this when I got mine. At the time there were not any new ones around. After I bought the engine I'll be around the price of what a new one would have been. I had hoped by getting the second hand XX I could avoid some of the issues I saw people have in the first 500 miles. But it looks like the guy that sold it to me either saw them coming, or got lucky and he avoided them and they happened just in time for me to take it on a long ride. But nothing I can do now but fix my XX . And I have gotten to know my XX better than I might have if it had not broken. I was blown away at all the sand and dirt I have cleaned out. I'm sure my trans axle will go at some point too and I'll get the newer one with the wider gears. And after that I hope its solid for years to come, and I can rip it around my small c track I'm also making on my property. More of a trail system , its only a mile right now and it needs a lot of work still. Just not enough time in the day to do everything.

 

Finished tearing down the engine today. It was a spun rod bearing on #3. Also, a main journal on the crankcase has some slop, so some machining to the block is needed.

While pricing out parts, I noticed that oem YXZ1000r engine internal parts are literally 1/2 the cost of the same oem Wildcat XX parts?! For example, the XX crankshaft & crankcase is $800 & $3000 respectively. While what I assume are the same exact parts on the YXZ, the crank & case are only $400 & $1600. Is this just Textron putting their middle man fee on the same parts?

From what i've gathered on this forum and others, the internal engine components are the same with the exception of the cams. If this is the case, ill be buying the engine internals from yamaha directly. Am I missing something here?

 

I have noticed that some of the parts I have ordered for my XX that were for the engine came with a Textron decal over a Yamaha decal. They re label the parts but do not remove the Yamaha labels so maybe somebody that has bought an OEM crank and case could let you know for sure. Or if somebody from a dealer could peak at parts and see if they are also just re labeled . Some stuff may not be the same , but works in both engines. Like the aftermarket rods and pistons are the same for both engines.

 

I was looking around for aftermarket cranks and came across this page. They list a lot of the stuff as fitting the XX. But none of the cranks say they fit the XX. Maybe you could get ahold of them and ask them if their cranks do fit the XX and if they do not, maybe they can tell you why and they may also know if the OEM parts are the same and or if one would be better than the other. They do not have an application for the XX, but they list some of the parts as fitting the XX as well as the YXZ. So look up the YXZ parts. I'm not sure if posting a link like this is ok. I am not trying to sell anything so I would think it is ok. But if not please let me know. https://store.briancrower.com/collections/yamaha-yxz

 

Timmy, good find man. Looked around on that site and found this page (https://briancrower.com/utv/yamaha/yamaha-yxz1000r_stroker.shtml) that labels the kits as YXZ & XX stoker kits. So them being interchangeable is looking promising. Ill make some calls this week and post my findings.

 

The XX pulls power off of what would be the nose of the crankshaft in the YXZ. Keep that in mind as you look through engine parts.

 

Update. Purchased Yamaha internals (crank, rods, pistons etc) and saved a bunch of $$$ compared to buying from Textron/cat. Made sure to get the beefier rods too that come in the later models. About to start putting the lower together this week.

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Definitely saving money, just like in my more nefarious days every time a part changes hands the price goes up, for the most part you can order the yamaha parts and cut arctic cat out of the picture. It works with almost everything internal!