FOR SERIOUS RACERS AND ANYONE WHO WANTS MORE PERFORMANCE FROM HEIR Maeda RATIO BELT- MidAbout Our Involvement When | first rode @ snowmobile in the Black Hills in 1968, | had no idea I was to be involved with this vehicle for most of the rest of my adult working life. Looking back 38 yeors later it has been quite a trip. | was then a mechanical engineering student at the South Dakota School of Mines in Rapid City. Aftor Fin- ishing my Masters at Purdue, | was recruited by OMC to work with the Evinrude and Johnson Snowmobiles, cand just happend to land square in the middle of snowmobilings first “Golden” age. The snowmobile wos a crude vehicle with plenty of room for improvement, and clutches and belts were in great need of developments. Racing kept the pace of progress up, and new inventions popped up left and right. Progress was rapid and the Comet end Polaris clutches that now are the benchmark developed quickly. New and botter flyweight curva- tures increased power output and belt life. During this time | worked on new clutch designs, including o unit with wo selective and distinct shift pat tars that could be used for trail riding or hot dogging One of the projacts was to develop a useful computer program to design and predict clutch performance. This wos not completed before OMC left the snowmobile industry in 1975, but a lot of the engineering research has been carried forward and is presented in this book. When we started Aaen Performance in 1975, it ‘was cleor that there was @ need for information on clutch tuning, and cur eriginel Clutch Tuning Book was a small type written book produced on @ copy machine. Since then we have gone through lots of new, updat ed and expanded editions of this book. You are read- ing the ninth edition of this handbook which has now been published for 31 years. Today, AAEN Performance is one of the major manufacturers of high performance snowmobile products The variable speed belt transmission is an inte: gral part of the medern snowmabile, Most performance increases necessitate recolibrotion of the transmission, cand continuous clutch development is therefore a natural part of the business. AEN Performance also distributes © full ine of Comet and Polaris clulches as well as all tun- ing components and tools. With extensive and continu- ous experience in all design aspects of the voriable speed belt ansmission, we have contributed many arti cles on clutch tuning to the snowmobile press. We also publish the “Carb Tuning Handbook” for Mikuni Carbs. 'AAEN Performance sponsors several snowme- bile race teams in Oval, SnoCross, Drag Racing and Speed Runs along with F-500 cars to test the latest ideos in transmission design. Our latest “test bed" is @ “D Sports" race car running on the SCCA circuit with a continuously vari- ‘able ratio belt transmission. With a 200 HP engine in «@ 1,000 Ib. car, the belt transmission is tested to its lim- its. This book represents our 37 years of engineering design and development experience with the voriable ratio belt drive transmission.Table of Contents Introduction vee etee ences ease 3 Chapter1 — History.........eeeceeees ee a Chapter 2 Speed & Power......... ee 6 Chapter 3 Drive Ratio & Efficiency... 0. eeeeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeee 12 Chapter 4 The Driven Clutch . .. 215 (Chapter, 5) = The Dive Cliches seiner teane tri cred Chapter 6 The Pressure Spring ...... 24 Chapter 7 The Flyweight System... Sera OT, Chapter 8 The Belt .............0. 37 Chapter9 Gearing. eee 42 Caper iO Tesi 1246 Chapter 11 Looking Into The Future ............0000e eeeeeeeeee eee SH Append | Colelece ete cee etc: 54 Poem rs 57 Yamaha oo... cees 60 POP Meeceeeaeeteeeceeemaereeeel eeaeeeet eee See Arctic & Yamaha Roller Action Clutches ......00.00000ceeeessreeees ..67 SkiDoo TRA ee ee eee 70 Front Roller Gluich seer ssas tates trates reas rnee aeeras 7 Belt Drive Transmissions For ATV's 72 Polaris P-90 ATV Clutches... 74 Changing Tuning Components ... 75 Quickfunmdsesson cnt ae ee Te @ by Olav Aaen 1986 Revised 1989, 1993, 1995, 1996, Nov. 98, Dec. 01, June 06 Thanks to Terri Aaen, Elana Tarwid and Jeanette Selberlich