OK, I noticed that the newer model 4wd's have the same tire ratio front to back. What did they do to change this over the years?? Would the same thing happen with the newer models that if you put different sized tires front to back that happened with older models or would the ratio still have to be kept? Just wondering if anyone knew??

 

Ratio still needs to be kept.
the Polaris has about 20% more tire speed on Front tires than the Rear. Thats why 4x4 only works after you switch it on and rear tires slip about 1/5 of a rotation on loose surface. This allows for easy steering of the quad.
This means the when in 4x4 mode and spinning all four tires the front still spin 20% faster than rear tires.

 

WTF you don't know what your talking about, the front spin SLOWER than the rear, if the front spinned faster they would be pulling you all over hell on dry ground

 

Geeeez! Settle down there!

 

LOL. Yeh calm down a little bit, he was just backwards thinking, it happens to all of us sometimes. I can understand the ratio has to be kept, but how are they accomplishing it? The old way was with big tires front, small back. Is there gearing changes in the tranny or something since they have the same size tires now or what?

 

On the new Sportsmens that have the same tires all around the differential ratios must be the same and the tranfer case ratio is the same coming out for the front or back. Now on my Scrambler the front tires are bigger than the rears so the ring&pinion ratio in the front dif. needs to be lower(numericaly higher)in order for them to match the tavel distance as the rears. One full rotation of my front tires goes farther than one rotation of the rears, thats why they have to make up the difference with gearing. If i changed my front tire size to the same as the rears something would break(u-joint,front dif,transfer-case) because the drivetrain would BIND as it was trying to compensate for the change. Equal tire size is easy to figure out but different tires sizes requires some formulas to get it right. If you dropped 1" in tire size on the front you need to drop the same 1" on the rear. You gearing has not changed only your top speed and acceleration.

 

Cool, I was unsure how all that worked. Thanks for the info.