Poor Education

Dear Ralph,
Your Oct/Nov ’96 issue illustrates one of the major problems in educating snowmobilers: CONFLICTING INFORMATION! On pages 66 & 67 Jim Shepard and Bill Westhoff tell us that a more aggressive (greater angle) secondary clutch cam will increase the squeeze on the belt.
This is contrary to the advice that Olav Aaen has been giving us for years: “The smaller the angle, the more torque feedback and higher belt pressure you get”. (Page 16 of Olav Aaen’s Clutch Tuning Handbook).
How are people supposed to learn from such conflicting info?

Gerry Smerchanski
Teulon, MB

This is a tricky one – you’re assuming that “increase the squeeze on the belt” is the same as “higher belt pressure”. What I believe Jim Shepard was referring to was that when you use a more aggressive helix is that the drive clutch is allowed to increase its squeeze on the belt. Aaen is also right in saying that a smaller angle helix increases the belt pressure in the secondary.