On polaris machines the design of trans is used in twice as many units than any other single manufacturer. All the sportsman's, scrambler's, utv's use this design.
Most of the complaints/reliability issues are cases due to lack of driver knowing when to use low gear instead of high. Allot of people were leaving the machine in high gear for low torque situations causing the belt to slip thus destroing the belt and other parts of the trans/clutch system.

 

Where are all the post about a primary or secondary failing on any ATV of any year? Only Yamaha and Suzuki have the belt system figured out correctly?

Does not Arctic Cat use the same clutches as Suzuki sinces they have the same motors?

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote> I don't give a damn what's working in the sled motors, what matters to me is what comes down the atv pipeline. If they were using the same designs and parts then I might agree with you</end quote></div>

The Polaris 500 Indy snowmobiles used the same designs as the non ebs Polaris ATVs.

No need for the ebs part to be on a sled. Here a video of a guy who but a 120hp Polaris XC700 sled motor in his Scrambler. and he is still using the Scrambler's original primary and Secondary pulleys.

Mate that engine to a 5 speed tranny of a ATV and it would blow all its gears in no time flat.

 

I've read the polaris forum and read the kawasaki forum, lots of threads about belt drive issues. Also remember that the rubberband and the two things it hooks to aren't the only parts of the system. Maybe the EBS missing from the sleds is the saving grace, as Polaris isn't without it's problems with that system on the atvs. Did the primary fly out of the sidecover and kill a bystander? No, but if the machine isn't not moving down the trail there's something wrong with it. In Polaris' defense I have had good experience with 2 of their belt drives on atvs, it's just the electrical systems that have gone to hell lol. I have not been that lucky with the Kawasaki.

It's clear my experience differs from yours. That doesn't make me wrong any more than it makes you.

There are atvs with quite a bit more power running fine on modified manual transmissions and a number of them in the 80-120hp range running fine on OEM transmissions.

 

I don't think tequila13 started this thread to really ask who makes the better belt drive. I think he want's to know if they are plagued by the wet slippage problems that he was made to believe they are.

I can only comment on the places we have gone with three different machines. A Polaris Sportsman with belt drive, a Honda with electric shift and my Kodiak 450 with belt drive. We absolutely swamped all three machines and no one was effected. Traction, driving skill and luck determined the machine's fate.

So the simple answer is NO, good belt drives do not give wet slippage problems if you don't use you machine for a boat.

 

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>There are atvs with quite a bit more power running fine on modified manual transmissions and a number of them in the 80-120hp range running fine on OEM transmissions. </end quote></div>

Yes I have seen the hight powered motorcycle engine swaps in ATV also .BUT they still have the heavy motorcycle tranny with it,they do not mate it to the ATVs original 5 speed with a 1100 GRS engine.

 

I was talking about atvs with oem based engines, not street bike swaps.

 

Use goggle look up what ATVs win in a large mud run events, guaranteed its a belt drive. Not that the 5 speeds 4x4 are not good in the mud but more because ALL the Bad A$s high powered 4x4 are belt drive ONLY.

 

Belt drives work well, even for deep water, like TLC said. Look it up, and you will see that even if you are in the deep slop like at the highlifter mud nationals, belt drives are the transmission of choice. This is primarily because all of the powerful ATVs have belt drives. The belt drive intakes can be snorkeled if you plan on going deep in the mud and water. It is a lot easier to put a snorkel on an already powerful ATV than it is to get equal power out of the few manual transmission utlility quads that remain.


DV