(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of articles about converting a 2015 Arctic Cat M 8000 SnoPro into a SnoWest Forums 2016 Project Cat giveaway sled. Throughout the summer and fall we will be working with SnoWest Forum members to build the perfect snowmobile … and then we will give it away to a Forum member at the end of the build.)
Summer is the time when most snowmobilers find themselves either on their dirt toys, on the golf course or dangling a line in the water at their favorite fishing hole. It’s not the time most think of for wrenching on a snowmobile.
But that’s exactly what we’ve been doing at SnoWest (well … along with the dirt thing and golf course). But in recent weeks we’ve been doing some wrenching on our Project Cat to get it ready for some lucky SnoWest Forum member this fall. Actually, we’ve been mostly looking over the shoulder of an Arctic Cat engineer, Shay Smith, who has been doing most of the wrenching.
But regardless, we’ve been there to hand Smith the wrenches while we’ve been taking plenty of notes and photos about the various installs.
In this story, we’re looking at a cool install of a belt drive system—something a little different from your standard Arctic Cat accessory parts—that we’re adding to our 2015 Arctic Cat M 8000 SnoPro.
This belt system, manufactured by Mountain Valley Machine (http://mountainvalleymachine.com), is a lightweight performance enhancement drive system that not only eliminates about 3 lbs. of rotating mass, but also sheds another 11 lbs. because we were able to remove the chaincase, chain and gears.
This is a slick install kit that is clean and simple. It’s also a system we can’t wait to test out on the snow.
Here are our installation notes and photographs.
Removal of chain and gears
(NOTE: Since we were replacing the drive shaft to install drivers for a three-inch track, this process would be incorporated with the belt drive installation. But we have separated these procedures to focus on each individual process.)