Snowmobile swap?

[Iliketogofast]

How practical would it be to swap a 3 cylinder snowmobile engine into a drag frame? what is teh drive line? Do they use a sprocket/chain setup or what?

[GPracer2500]

No. All snowmobiles engines that I know of don't use a gearbox. I think they usually use a variable-sized pully and belt arangement.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure it would work.

[Iliketogofast]

I thought they used manual transmissions and gearbox... that's a bummer.

I wasn't going to do it, but I like to draw up little spec sheets for stuff that would be cool. Maybe one day one of my ideas will make it from the paper to my garage floor!

I did hear of a guy putting a two stroke outboard marine motor in an R frame once, and I did not understand how the hell he did it. Boats use such an odd gear system and stuff, at least ours does. From my understanding it only has 3 gears - Reverse, Neutral and Forward. I wish someone would get some more info on that - That fellow hasn'tbeen around since I came back to the site under this name!

[xxnightraven73x]

a snow mobile uses a "slip clutch" and a secondary clutch along with a sprocket and chain set up that goes down to the track in a little cast case.nothing too overly complex but im pretty sure that would not be a good route to take .however it can probably be done with the right knowhow and one hell of a mechanic.and it all might work out well who knows if you got it and the knowhow... runahh

[400eXr1d3rZ]

i saw a video of a predator with a snowmobile motor in it, it was a "hill climber"

[jesshamner]

Not sure what you had in mind but there was a local in this area that did a polaris snowmobile to scrambler swap. It was unreal but also unrealistic and impractical. In a 200 ft hardpack drag, it never hooked up. He had it on the bottle too but never got to use it....not at that particular race anyway.

[400exstud]

Too much HEAT. My dad's ZRT 800 starts to over heat when the temp gets over 20 degrees.

You would probably need to hook up a trailer that holds an air conditioner for a radiator.

yes sled motors can be used in a drag quad...i dont see why a sled would overheat tho, i never had my sled over heat...

funny story...1 time out here in MI (our weather is nuts!!) well we had good snow in march and then a heat wave came tru and melted most of it in my field and we said what the hell and we took the 580 artic cat EXT twin out (the sled is a beater anyways) and i was on my banshee and my brother was on his Cr 125 and my pops was on the sled and boy that sled threw mud like u wouldnt beleive( those tracks on those things can throw ****! and i know it would put a beatin on my banshee in a drag and made the 125 look like a joke...


sled motors are sweet bottom line!

[xxnightraven73x]

funny thing i just rembered the guy i worked for at the garage a few years back used to build go carts with snowmobile engines on the he had 3 or 4 of them now that i think about it. he never had a problem with overheating or anything so im sure it could be done and if its a drag wheeler itll only be running for at most a minute or two so i dont see why it wouldnt work

[idontknowwhoiam]

They drag race sleds on grass and black top..and have some sorta cooling system they hook a garden hose up to after the race( iv seen it on tv)....and i got a buddy that races his sled on water down in CT.my artic cat is liquid cooled too by the way

[400exstud]

Originally posted by idontknowwhoiam
They drag race sleds on grass and black top..and have some sorta cooling system they hook a garden hose up to after the race( iv seen it on tv)....and i got a buddy that races his sled on water down in CT.my artic cat is liquid cooled too by the way

Yeah, heat is a big problem in the summer. My friend that I go riding (sleds) with in the winter just about every weekend is big into grass drags. He had one sled that would require a rebuild after every 3 runs because the heat would kill the rings.

[05trx400exridr]

me and a friend recently put an old rotax 440 in a go cart. its still not completely finished, needs a little tweeking here and there. its fan cooled, so we re-geared the pulley/belt system on the fan so that it spins about twice as fast

[400exrider707]

Originally posted by 400exstud
Yeah, heat is a big problem in the summer. My friend that I go riding (sleds) with in the winter just about every weekend is big into grass drags. He had one sled that would require a rebuild after every 3 runs because the heat would kill the rings.

Rejetting for the warmer weather should take care of the heat problem.

[Speed_MDS2]

With the right sized radiator they will work. Sleds use a heat exchanger not a radiator as far as I know, it works more like a heat sink and the track constantly throws snow on it to cool it. There was a banshee with a 700 arcticat tripple in it at silver lake last weekend and it had no problem layin the smack down on every one foolish enough to mess with it. That thing was a rocket.