Proving Diesel Viability in the Snowmobile Industry

For the 2013 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge, the University at Buffalo (UB) Clean Snowmobile Team has made significant strides to reduce the environmental impact of snowmobiles while retaining the performance, cost, and durability that riders and manufacturers require. To achieve this, the UB team has reverse-engineered the snowmobile in its entirety. Systems such as the engine, drive train, suspension, cooling, and chassis were studied to determine the best medium between the environment, the operator, and the manufacturer. Our team has implemented a three-cylinder turbo diesel engine in a 2011 Polaris Turbo IQ chassis. The engine of choice is a Daihatsu made, Briggs and Stratton marketed, DM950DTH indirect injected engine. The engine was then tested, analyzed and calibrated to meet the specific needs of our application. A belt drive was chosen due to its numerous benefits over the traditional chain drive, and was manufactured to easily replace the stock unit. The stock front and rear suspension has been replaced with air shocks to aid with performance and adjustability. An intercooled intake design was also researched and implemented to achieve a more efficient performing engine. Significant weight reduction has been performed where possible in order to offset the addition of necessary heavier components. System design validation was achieved by both experimental testing on a dynamometer and theoretical modeling with Ricardo WAVE software. The Ricardo engine model was validated using data correlation between measured engine outputs and simulated software outputs. With these modifications to the stock snowmobile, our team has closed the performance gap between a diesel-powered snowmobile to those available today, while meeting the strict emissions standards of the EPA.