Clutch side venting

[Joe ltx-le]

recently I was on the phone with excell performance. Great guys.

They told me they are working on and almost finished making a vent kit for the winder. They claim a drastic difference in temps under the hood clutch side.

Has anyone already experimented with this. If so what did you find and pics?

 

[Yamadog]

Well back when I was blowing belts every 100 miles or so on the turbo viper I did and found it did not fix the belt problem and even with frog skin left snow in when boondocking which immediately stopped the sled in 7' of snow. The temp inside the clutch area is not that high and my belts and clutches were never hotter than a bare hand could touch. If you are worried about intake temps there are ways to address that but I would not think there is much to gain by lowering temps in there

 

[Joe ltx-le]

Well back when I was blowing belts every 100 miles or so on the turbo viper I did and found it did not fix the belt problem and even with frog skin left snow in when boondocking which immediately stopped the sled in 7' of snow. The temp inside the clutch area is not that high and my belts and clutches were never hotter than a bare hand could touch. If you are worried about intake temps there are ways to address that but I would not think there is much to gain by lowering temps in there

Thank, I am doughtful aswell. Honestly I've tried everything else and my stock winder is still eating belts.

 

[Yamadog]

Are you eating them every 100 miles or so. I still cannot understand why Yamaha changed from a clutch setup that was proved for almost 20 yrs to teh winder clutch. They did a bit of a hack job when they put the standard clutches on the viper and then we really found out about the problems when we boosted them. Even though Hauck had built several hundred boosted rx, apex and nytros he did not understand the problems. It took Ulmer to straighten mine out and that was i was only pushing about 225 hp. Then when we knew it would handle it we pushed again to 265 hp and have not blown one yet wth over 3000 miles between the original 14 and the newer 15. In 07 i bought a project 03 rx-1 mountain with a bender stage III rear mount turbo on it and worked the kinks out. That was over 300 hp on the old 1 ton and never had belt issues but gave up cause jetting and octane blending was a nightmare.

 

[34pontiac]

So what was it that ulmer ended up figuring out for you?
Lots want to know?

 

[KnappAttack]

Any type of venting will always help prolong belt life and improve clutch consistency. Cooler belts and clutches run faster and more consistent always!


What are you doing with a stock winder to kill these belts? Something wrong somewhere if a stock machine is killing them.

 

[krm]

I'm using the doo ones on mine .,small,neat fit ,and look good ,add great cooling

 

[stevewithOCD]

When i snapped my belt at 900 miles, the clutches were surprisingly cool! Lower underhood temps can help cool a clutch which will help belts last longer, but my belt "snapped" so i had a different issue. I was planning on bringing a temp gun to compare mine to 850 Doo & other sleds, but once i get riding.....well i'm riding......so i forgot

 

[Byam]

Here is what i did on my sled 20$ frogskin and it helped cooling the clutch a lot.....

Its gona work even better this year whit the cold air intake

 

[Yamadog]

So what was it that ulmer ended up figuring out for you?
Lots want to know?

Well we threw away Hauck's overdrive sheave because he only machines one side which causes an offset in the belt We junked Hauck's clutch kit cause it was not capable of loading enough weight for the power and was banging off the rev limiter all of the time. He machined the spring pocket on the secondary to relieve the spring bind. he played with helix angles to get the timing between the primary and secondary shift outs proper.

 

[34pontiac]

Great. Thanks
I'll have to get in touch with Ulmer as I don't know how to do any of that. Haha

 

[Joe ltx-le]

Here is what i did on my sled 20$ frogskin and it helped cooling the clutch a lot.....

Its gona work even better this year whit the cold air intake


View attachment 129120

looks slick. did you have any belt issues this year?

 

[Joe ltx-le]

Any type of venting will always help prolong belt life and improve clutch consistency. Cooler belts and clutches run faster and more consistent always!


What are you doing with a stock winder to kill these belts? Something wrong somewhere if a stock machine is killing them.

What am i doing? driving my 180 hp sled like it should be driven. i agree something is wrong. but i dont know what.

 

[Joe ltx-le]

Are you eating them every 100 miles or so. I still cannot understand why Yamaha changed from a clutch setup that was proved for almost 20 yrs to teh winder clutch. They did a bit of a hack job when they put the standard clutches on the viper and then we really found out about the problems when we boosted them. Even though Hauck had built several hundred boosted rx, apex and nytros he did not understand the problems. It took Ulmer to straighten mine out and that was i was only pushing about 225 hp. Then when we knew it would handle it we pushed again to 265 hp and have not blown one yet wth over 3000 miles between the original 14 and the newer 15. In 07 i bought a project 03 rx-1 mountain with a bender stage III rear mount turbo on it and worked the kinks out. That was over 300 hp on the old 1 ton and never had belt issues but gave up cause jetting and octane blending was a nightmare.

im not eating belts every 100 miles. theres no rime or reason it seems. most go around the 500 mile mark just as im feeling like i got it fixed ,caboomm.

alignment is good, im going to check it more precisely this summer but i dont think thats it. 8jp and 8dn belts go on this maching.

 

[KnappAttack]

Here is what i did on my sled 20$ frogskin and it helped cooling the clutch a lot.....

Its gona work even better this year whit the cold air intake

Adding a cold air intake is not going to cool the clutchs down any, if anything it will make it worse and rob air coming thru the vent meant for the clutchs and get used to feed the engine. Just something to keep in mind.

I'd add venting and frogskins in front of the clutch to cool it and make up for the cold air intake stealing the air meant for the clutch cooling.

What am i doing? driving my 180 hp sled like it should be driven. i agree something is wrong. but i dont know what.

Then that's what you are doing wrong, you keep running it without finding the real issue causing the problem. If you dig deep enough you will find the problem or multiple problems. Check alignment and engine lead first, pull drive and driven apart to check for binding or loose bushings rollers and inspect every inch of them. If you are not able to do so, then get it to a real tuner who knows what to look for. You have something way out of whack or multiple issues if you have gone thru that many belts.

I've flogged mine beyond hard in deep wet heavy snow which will generally kill a belt on a turbo machine in no time and the clutches and belt held up great with what I would call no heat at all. This is with the vents all plugged with heavy snow too!

Vents will not be of much help to your machine until you get things in alignment and clutch's working properly. Is there a chance you've twisted the front end and twisted the bulkhead knocking engine out of alignment at all?