Silver Lake Dunes, Michigan

[jpswift1]

I always wanted to run a 6x6 on the sand dunes, especially after seeing videos on Youtube of all the sand rails. I was looking for places to go this summer and I came across a place that is motor vehicle friendly. I didnt know there were any big sand dune places in the Northeast. I thought I would have to go to Arizona or somewhere like that (and that is a faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar ride there from upstate NY).
I saw a video shot by George of Hydromike and Joe H riding their Attex racers on the sand dunes at Ledges and thought that it would be very cool to do that up at Silver Lakes. The only issue is that the heat might not be very for the 2 stroke JLO/Rockwell/Cuyuna 440 in my racer. I thought of a really crazy idea (I have tons of them, trust me.) I thought since a lot of the forced induction people running intercoolers on their cars and trucks shoot nitrous to keep their intercoolers cool, why couldn't I shoot some spray between the cooling fins through the pulley driven fan on my 440. I've seen some cheap kits on ebay! Time to put that idea for another day and work on some of my other rigs for now though. If anyone wants to get up that way for the spring/summer of '08 post up and maybe we can invade the dune scene with some amphibs! Here is a link:

ParkList

[whipper-ag]

I've never been to Silver Lake, but I'm sure it's similar to the Imperial Sand Dunes in Glamis, Ca. The dunes in Ca. are 8 miles wide and 35 miles long and you can get lost. Sometimes you think you're on another planet. It's truely awesome. It's very hard on motors and trannys. I've lost several myself.The sand is finer than a grain of salt, and it gets everywhere. You've got to have lots of HP to go out on the big dunes. I took my old Max II there several years ago with a 400 JLO in it and had a tough time going anywhere. I couldn't even make it 1/2 way up the big hill in the 1st pic. That hill is over 200ft tall. The sand is just too soft and I didn't have enough HP to stay on top.You might always see a picture of a 6x6 in the sand, but they won't be out on the BIG dunes. I plan on taking the Yellow Spider soon. You can bet I'll get some vid's of that. I think I have the HP and ground clearance to get out there.

[hydromike]

Don't sweat the heat. Two stroke powered chain saws, weedeaters, leafblowers, and oh yeah... ultralight aircraft seem to run great all summer long. It's still an air cooled engine, like (most) lawn mowers. Granted they run at a higher temperature, but problems arise when you begin to restrict the "natural" airflow around the engine, or if you have problems with your air to fuel/oil mixture. When you hear about two stroke engines "over heating", I would be willing to wager my entire collection that it's due to oil/fuel deliver problems and the mixture has gone way lean (e.g., a leaky carb boot, a leaky head gasket, a leaky crank seal, a leaky crank case gasket... Some early versions of the JLO/Cuyunas did indeed have cooling issues with an early (6 bolt) head design, but they've since upgraded the design, and I think all 2Si versions had them. Keep in mind that ultralights are screaming away between 4 and 7 constantly without idling, or slowing down to grab the next beer out of the cooler. It's not that much cooler at 1000 ft.

I picked up a second 503 Rotax that the guy said "overheated" when he was out riding. He said it was getting pretty warm that day for riding, and he thinks the warmer air fried the engine. It was in the upper 30s. When I took the engine apart, I had found that he had thrown the fan belt.

Keep all the rubber parts in good shape, run a safe mixture, and you can run it in 100 degree heat all day. No problem.

~m