It's not a Sea Doo but I think its cool

[dan87951]

Anyone else have a secret crush on these older Tigershark Daytona's? I ran across an ad on craigslist where the owner was giving away his 97' Tigershark Daytona 1000 that needed a new starter bendix. I tried contacting him for 3 days straight until yesterday at around 2PM he finally called me. He had one of those ads with no phone number (don't you love those?) listed and it looks like he got back with me just in time as he was getting ready to cut it up and drop it off at the dump. Yikes!

I'll admit... I have always loved the look of these Tigershark's and believe it was a time when Arctic Cat was just starting to get things right. It's unfortunate that Tigershark dropped out of the game as i'm sure their future was starting to look brighter. I don't know much about working on a Tigershark and it looks very tight in there. I plan on pulling the engine to make my life easier when changing out the bendix and also go though the rest of the sub systems. Any words of wisdom for a newb Tigershark owner?

 

[hfgreg]

Looks sharp. Can you still find parts though? lol.

 

[dan87951]

Yea, you can still get parts. SBT has cranks and top end kits for them but they are expensive. As long as the motor is sound I will fix it. It's a cool piece of PWC history, that's for sure!

 

[benjilafouine]

There is a guy here who owns an antique Polaris one (like 1990) and he is still running it with the original engine. He paid 200$ for it! Seems to be working great.

I had no idea Arctic Cat ever made one! So you got both skis?

Benji.

 

[dan87951]

I wish my XP 800 was free! No I bought the XP 800 about 4-5 years ago from the original owner and have no plans on selling that beast. I still have the original dealer purchase order where he paid a few hundred over MSRP in order to secure a XP800 for himself. In 95' most people were paying over sticker to have bragging rights to say they had the fastest ski on the water. I didn't feel like removing the XP800 from the trailer so it came on the journey to get the Tigershark.

That's cool! I had no idea Polaris went that far back. I thought Polaris started in 1992 but it's all getting hazzy as I get older. The Tigershark engine is made with some quality components. I was surprised to learn the bores have nikasil plating on them which allows for weight savings and tighter tolerances to be used. Porsche, BMW, Rolls Royce and Jaguar have all used nikasil bores in the past.

 

[benjilafouine]

Could be 1992. The thing just looked like an antique.

Benji.

 

[Spimothy Leary]

you should be able to find the bendix on fleabay w/o much trouble.

probably a fun ride, and you sure as hell can't beat the price, definitely worth tinkering with it to see if you can get her running. I parted one out a couple of years back and sold the electronic's and a few other parts quickly so even if you can't get it running, you can probably get a quick couple hondo on parts, if you get it running but decide its not for you, you can almost always get 5-700 for a ski that runs.

 

[dan87951]

That's what I was thinking. Eventually I will have a mint Daytona 1000 (haven't found one worthy yet) so I could use this one for parts as a worst case scenario.

The ski sure is a lot heavier than any of my X4's. We had a heck of time getting it on the trailer.

 

[critracer]

I saw that ad to but with no contact info I didn't bother. Nice follow through.

 

[dan87951]

The seller wasn't the most responsive as I tried numerous times via email to get a hold of him. My main concern was making sure it didn't go to the dump. Where in Michigan are you?

 

[critracer]

I'm in Kalamazoo.