Clutching for Slow Technical Riding

I get a phone call almost every single day asking about clutching a RZR for slow riding, rock crawling and slow technical riders mostly with big tires and they all want more belt grip.  What do I do more times than not? Tell them do nothing that stock clutching works pretty good for slow moving and big tires.  Two issues, one they don't get anything any better than stock and we don't get to sell them anything really a loss loss.  This may be hard for me to explain but I discussed what I wanted to do with Dalton and we came up with a better solution for the issue. You might take away from the above statement I just want to sell something but that is not true, I hate telling a guy to do nothing when he is reaching out to me for something to help him with his belt slippage.

Before I get started on what we are going to do let me attempt to explain why I have been saying stock works as good as any. Assuming stock clutching is right for stock tires, emphasis is on assuming as Polaris rarely gets it right and 16 RZR 1000 is the best example, that clutch calibration is just awful. But anyway, assuming stock is right the weights and springs are matched up for stock tires.  If you was going to put larger tires on then for performance riding you would put lighter weights and stiffer springs in which would raise rpm during shift phase to put the engine rpm back where it belongs after you added your big tires. What does lighter weights and stiffer primary springs do for a slow mover? It would make it slip the belt even more and this is why I don't sell slow only riders kits. So the stock is too heavy for the larger tires but does give better grip on the belt down low therefore I say keep it stock for slow only riding. We now can improve belt grip over stock but I have just not thought about it really until now.

What I am talking about ONLY works for people who actually ONLY use low range and more or less never exceed 20-30 mph who are ONLY rock crawlers and ONLY slow technical riders not so much mud guys because you normally floor it in a mud holes so normal clutching better fits you. This would not work for anyone uses his RZR for any fast riding or any kind of fast climbing. I realize this is for just a small group of people but I get this call everyday.

There is clutch tuning for performance for people who drive fast or duners and added performance is very important to them, one thing they are not concerned about is belt grip down low because they don't drive slow and their clutch will be set up for what they are doing. This will be what I call normal clutching. A slow technical rider is not concerned about increased performance his only concern is belt grip so he does not slip his belt. Anyone who stays in low range driving slow really never can get any kind of performance enhancement anyway no matter what they do to clutch.

So what we are going to do is offer you the same clutch kit as fast riders with a optional primary spring that is weaker than the one in the kit then we are going to set the flyweights up much heavier than the instructions say, remember the instructions are for normal clutching.  A weaker primary spring allows the clutch to engage quicker and at a lower rpm. Example: I was looking at the instructions for one of the 1000 kits yesterday and it called for a .85 gr rivet and 1 long screw and one short for 32" tires, on this we would go to three full set screws to make them heavy and try it, if still not enough, we would go to the next heavier rivet in the kit then add screws.  This is just an example but I can help you on the set ups for anyone.

It goes deeper than this. I called Dalton to talk to him about what my plan was and ask about leaving out the helix out of the kit since we just wanted belt grip and he explained something I just should have known.  When you make flyweights really heavy your clutch will close up faster with more grip but will also shift out faster which means the belt will ride higher in primary faster too so the helix in the kit slows shift out down and aids in backshifting meaning when you let off the gas it will come back to low ratio quicker. The point? you still need the helix.

What is the downside of doing this? If you haul butt and hit a hill or any kind of elevation change, the clutch will not backshift as fast as a normal clutched vehicle, the belt will be too high in the primary clutch and it will possibly slip the belt there.  This is why earlier I said ONLY slow people who don't do anything but go slow in low. One upside is the added engine braking you will get from the heavier flyweights because they make the primary clutch stay engaged longer.

Switching gears for a second. Anyone who rock crawls on saturday and hauls butt on Sunday no clutch kit is going to help you in both locations, you will set it up for what we are calling normal or this and neither will do the other so you are in a bad spot and have to decide what you want. I tell people everyday, when you are trying to acheive maximum performance for whatever you are doing then clutching gets very specific.

We are trying to help a wider range of people with their clutching issues.  The groups we can cover are duners, fast trail riders, high elevation guys and now slow technical riders. The only person that is hard to help is the guy who wants to do technical riding and something else faster in the same day or weekend who wants one set up, it just does not work that way for him.

This way of clutching as mentioned is only for the slow riders but tire size really won't affect this as much as it does for fast riding because our only mission to grab the belt better. When you are trying to get moving obviously larger tires take more effort to get them moving so there is more possibility of belt slippage therefore your clutch weights may need to be even heavier than a small tire guy.

So in the end what we are offering is hopefully a solution to your issue or at least a whole lot better than it is right now. At the end of the day you will still have a clutch that has to come together and grab the belt to get you moving and stay clamped down on the belt to keep from slipping. What we are doing just does this faster and more clamping force.

We highly recommend a gear reduction for larger tires for anyone really but more so for this group of people. I do get the call again almost daily, I have 34" terms on a XP1000 two seater and rock crawl, help me.  He really would benefit from gear reduction and this set up. Keep in mind a RZR was geared to haul butt not crawl. The HL editions have lower gear ratios, the 4 seaters have lower and the rock crawling edition has a 55% lower low gear but more times than not the guy making this phone call is a normal two seat 1000. As of today the only set up like this we have is the 1000 RZR 14-17 and 16-17 900 RZR models but it can be done with others but I have not picked the primary springs out for those kits yet.

So if you fall into this group give me a call and we can get you set up.  I realize this will be small number of people in the grand scheme of things but we don't want to leave anyone out and turn you away when more times than not those people I turn away go elsewhere and just get a normal clutch kit set up and make it worse than it is now.

Todd