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Belt drive kit for 11 and 12's

ditch1000

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I talked to the local dealer where I bought my 2012 163 Pro.... They said " there will be a kit available and that the Pro RMK was designed from day 1 to be a belt drive one day, so the retrofit will be easy". I hope so; for a thousand bucks, it will be a no brainer in my books!!
 

mountainhorse

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I've heard that there will not be a kit...but, after December or so.. you will be able to buy the individual parts... Hope I'm wrong... that would rock...

I DO know that you will not need to change the driveshaft from your 11/12.
 
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Oregonsledder

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I spoke with a rep from Polaris last weekend at the west Yellowstone Expo and asked that very question, and he said there was no plan for an upgrade kit.
 

rmk727

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Except for the fact that the belt drive looks cool and maybe a little lighter, why spend a grand to retro it , so far I've heard of no chaincase failures and its only a hand full of people who ever even change the fluid out in the life of a sled, there are xlts that have never had it changed
 
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sledneck_03

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The c3 one works well on the doos. They are said to be making one for the polaris, i would purchase it over a pure polaris kit any day (if existed).
 

Matte Murder

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Belt drive has several advantages. Stronger, lighter, simpler. Better throttle response both on and off the gas. Buddy of mine who has a ton of time on the 13s told me they handle better. Even easier to roll over and transitioning from side to side is effortless. He also said that you could walk the nose of the sled up and down in the air just by rolling on and off the throttle, he didn't have to change his body position. He compared it to a YZ250. Also said it felt like it had at least 10 more HP and the engineers told him that the sled he was riding had a 2012 spec engine. Major reason I am trading my 12 for a 13.
 

Chris the sled guy

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Seems to be a gearing issue they need to work out. Playing with the clutch weights only gets you so far. As to retro the 11' or 12' with the belt drive. You'll need new Jack shaft and drive shaft as they are different plus the cog gears and belt. IMO the need to think of a way to change the gearing.
 

Scott

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I was told pulley changes, ie gearing changes, may be available when 2013 gets here...January-ish.
 

jdtech65

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The way I looked at it was instead of spending 1,000 dollars to upgrade to the belt drive on my 12 Pro and another 250-300 dollars for the running boards or 500 for airframes, I would spend that 1250-1500 dollars on the 13 pro. So I ended up snowchecking one. My guess is even if the do end up offering a kit or just piecing the parts out, I wouldn't expect the parts to be available before the riding season starts. My guess would be end of December or in January.
 
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I agree, I also had my chain grenade last weekend @ 1250 miles....... It sucked, it is covered by my warranty but parts are on back order until mid April. Time to break out the RZR :face-icon-small-fro
 

mountainhorse

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Man that sucks about your chain grenading...

For all but very rare situations that are a very small % of the sleds out there... Properly maintaineed/adjusted chains are super reliable... Polaris makes no claims of increased reliability with the belt drive. Also, the drive belt from Gates has a proven track record of high HP reliability.

When tested to failure by Polaris... failure mode was not in breakage of the belt... but in stripping teeth off the belt by the top sprocket.

We'll see next season as the consumer tests the belt drive on production sleds over a large number of users in very different situations.

I agree with JDtech... the parts probably will not be available till late in the season for changing to a factory belt drive. Also... would that affect the warranty??? Even though they are factory parts...they might not cover damage if they can relate it to the parts that were installed that were not offered that year.
 

C3 PowerSports

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C3 SyncroDrive For 2011-12 Pro

C3 is just releasing our pre production Syncrodrive Kit for the Polaris Pro 2011-12 models. This is a picture of the prototype which is now on the snow for testing. We are taking orders on production kits which will be available in approximately 4 weeks. The retail price will be $950 but I will be running an introductory offer until Aug of $875. Stock as well as other gear ratios are available.

We have been making the XP SyncrDrive kit for three years now and some of the first kits we sold have over 10,000km (6000mi) on the original belt. If you stick with the same gear ratio that you currently have you harder acceleration like you geared down and higher top speed like you geared up. When you push the sled off the truck it roles further because of less rolling resistance.

Every OEM sled will have a belt drive in the next 5 years but you can have one now.

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