Note: All of the images from this project can be found here. There are lots more.

Where do I begin? I’ve received a ton of questions from people of how I did this whole thing. They want to know what was involved in changing parts, why I decided to do what I did, and if it’s cost feasible to do it themselves.

It all started out with the idea of building a new sled. I already had a sled I built from the ground up but it was getting dated and I wanted something a little newer. During the summer of 2004 I stumbled upon an engine for a very good deal. Not having anything to do with my money I decided to buy it. If I couldn’t get a chassis I would simply replace my 700 with this 800 Liberty. The plan was fool proof. The search began for a chassis. Note: Click pictures to enlarge

The middle of October 2004, I finally acquired a chassis. A simple want ad I posted on the website yielded a reply from a guy in Williams, MN who had a chassis for sale. I was in luck. We communicated back and forth a few times and finally a deal was struck up. I was informed that the chassis had once belonged to DJ Eckstom. It was the one everyone saw in the X-Games of the previous race season. It was their mod sled and was only used for a couple of races.

After driving to Williams (a good two hour or so drive from my place) I immediately fell in love with the chassis and had no hesitation writing out the check so I could take it home. You’re going to wonder what I paid for the chassis, so I’ll just tell you. I paid $3000 for the rolling chassis. I got the sled home and the inspections began. I could only imagine how fun my winter would be. The snow would be here shortly, I had to get to work. Also, for those wondering; the track is 14 inches wide and has 1.75 inch lugs. It also had 96 two inch studs which I took out.



Counting up what I had, I was still short…short a lot of parts from what I needed to get this machine back into a more trail friendly form. Why back to trail form you may ask? A lot of you may know, 2004 is the year Polaris radically changed the steering on their Pro-X 440 racers. This included a new steering hoop, new steering post and a cut off hood. The hood was cut off so a rider can get their knees in farther while cornering. It also had a very small gas tank and with a big block 800 sucking out of it, I would run out of gas all too soon. Besides this, the seating position was just way too far forward for what I was used to. Even with the taller seat, it was too much of a stretch for me to lean forward and ride comfortably.

I needed parts, and lots of parts. The list went on and on. I needed everything from a new belly pan and a new hood to parts for the steering setup like the hoop and post. I also needed a new gas tank and lots of small parts for under the hood including a pipe, etc. I was in luck once again with the discovery of an almost complete chassis which was being scrapped for a good price. The sled was a 2003 Pro-X 700. Its parts were now mine.

The garage was filling up with parts. I had to get busy and start working on the sled. The initial big job was to tear down the sled to the basics. I got a good start on it. The following weekend Polaris-Man (Jeff) and his brother Bigwilly (William) decided to make the trip from Canada to help me with the tear down. The sled was now nothing but a chassis and suspension.



A few things needed to be fixed before we could continue. The shock tower needed to be patched back up. It was cut slightly to fit the twin pipes which were on the mod race sled. Not wanting to take a chance, I decided to get it patched back up.


At this point, we could start to assemble things. Once again Polaris-Man and Bigwilly came down to help for the evening. Everything went pretty smooth until it came time to put the new foot wells on. Since the old ones were more flat, the piece that comes from the trailing arm mount and attaches to it was shorter. I had some blocks cut out of aluminum to use as spacers but they were very difficult to get put in place. We added the new steering setup too. It now goes under the engine instead of over.



The assembly continued and soon we were ready to put the engine in place. It was a great feeling to finally drop that big block into the chassis. Raw power was waiting at my fingertips. While putting the engine in we did run into a slight problem. The bolt for the lever which runs the oil pump on the right side of the engine was hitting on the bulkhead. I guess this is common for those engines in those chassis so we just routed out a hole in the bulkhead so the oil pump would work properly.



With a lot of the tough work done, I started to think about graphics. I wanted to keep the stock graphics because they looked so awesome. I decided to order the entire graphics kit and it cost a small fortune. It’s amazing how much they can get for these things. Either way, I liked how it looked and glad I went with them. I transferred the new graphics to the new hood after taking the 2003 graphics off the new hood. It was an almost perfect duplicate.



I don’t think I need to go into particular depth explaining the rest of the steps. It’s mostly basic common knowledge that anyone who sleds would understand. We basically finished putting the sled together with no major obstacles. I was done with the sled more than a month before any major snow would even hit us. I took it for a couple of spins around on the grass and all I can say is WOW. It was absolutely amazing. The power is incredible. The only thing not stock on this engine is the reeds. I picked up a set of V-Force 3 reeds and put in. I haven’t compared them to stock, but compared to other sleds I’ve ridden I can sure feel a difference on throttle response.



The riding season began. I now have approximately 800 miles on the sled and love every mile. It’s set up for hole shots and wow can it ever get up and go. A simple tap on the throttle will bring the front end up like nobody’s business. It’s a blast riding it, to say the least.



Stay tuned next season. I’m planning on a similar project with an IQ racer from Polaris. I will probably sell this Pro-XR after I make sure I secure a new chassis for next season.

Thanks for reading.
Erick