I am creating this thread because I saw at least some interest in the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge and the UW-Madison team. The competition is held every year in Houghton, MI around the end of March. This year it is March 19-24th. The event stemmed from the issues in Yellowstone and is intended to create a cleaner, quieter snowmobile that will maintain the interest of snowmobiles. It usually features about 15 teams from universities across the country. The teams are judged in 17 categories including cost, handling, fuel economy, emissions, sound, acceleration, and design. To learn more, go to
Clean Snowmobile Challenge. The MTU Keweenaw Research Center link if very informative.
As far as our team, we have placed first, third and first over the past three years. The beginning of our streak was due to our innovative electric-gas hybrid snowmobile. Last year we took the hybrid out of the snowmobile and put in a Weber 750 cc 4-stroke engine which comes out of the Polaris FS. The engine was put into a 2002 Polaris Frontier chassis. Installing the engine was a challenge to begin with, but modifications were focused on sound and emissions. This was done with a specially designed muffler, sound dampening in the engine bay and tunnel, and dual catalysts put into the exhaust. If you want to learn more about last years sled, check out our design paper at
http://www.mtukrc.org/download/madis...paper_2006.pdf
This year we are using the same chassis and engine, with our biggest goal being changing it over to run on E85. The muffler and engine bay are also being redesigned. I’m taking this semester off of school so I can’t give too much for updates or pictures of this years sled right now. I will be back in our shop in the middle of Jan. and will post updates then. For now, enjoy some pictures I attached from last years sled and competition.
SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge and UW-Madison
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