The 4-stroke Polaris snowmobile configured by the team of Badger engineering students won top overall honors and placed first in the all-important emissions category, for which the team received the coveted Lotus Engineering and Horiba Instruments Award.

The Polaris FS engine in the winning sled is the same engine used in Polaris FS production snowmobiles such as the 2007 FS Touring, and a turbocharged version of the engine is used in FST models such as the 2007 FST™ IQ®.

Polaris 4-stroke engines powered the top three finishers in the 2006 SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge. The winning Wisconsin team earned 1,033 points with its FS-powered entry while second- and third-place teams from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Kettering University, respectively, used Polaris sleds with turbocharged FST 4-strokes.

The competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) was held march 13-18 at the Michigan Tech Keweenaw Research Center, just north of Houghton, Michigan.

The competition consists of teams of engineering students beginning with stock snowmobiles and reconfiguring them to produce cleaner emissions and less noise while still delivering suitable performance. The sleds must meet emissions and noise standards scheduled to take effect in 2012.

Categories on which teams and their sleds are judged include a design paper, the static display of the sled, multiple handling tests, fuel economy, acceleration, noise, emissions, cold starting, cost and vehicle weight. Teams try to operate within budgets that prohibit the use of costly materials or operating systems.

“Our Polaris snowmobile remained pretty close to stock,” said Badger Team Captain Gary Diehl, a senior engineering student at Madison. “We switched some suspension components and changed the intake setup, but we didn’t touch the engine. It was still the stock Polaris engine.”

Reliable Polaris 4-Stroke Run 1,000 Miles in 24 Hours
The reliability and performance of Polaris 4-stroke snowmobile engines were proven anew on March 10, 2006, when Polaris riders Larry Stolte and Jerry Juett rode 1,000 in just under 24 hours. Stolte rode his FST Classic while Juett was on his FST Switchback for the ride that took them throughout Ontario.

To ride 1,000 miles in a single calendar day, they started promptly at midnight in Timmins, Ontario, and paused only for fuel before reaching the 1,000-mile mark back in Timmins after 24 hours, 44 minutes on the trails.

The Polaris turbocharged 4-stroke engines performed flawlessly, allowing the riders to reach the personal endurance riding milestone. They turned off the sleds after recording 1,002.9 miles for the day, but were back on the trails the following day, rolling up another 200 trouble-free miles.

A Growing Heritage of Proven 4-Stroke Efficiency
Polaris has been developing clean, efficient 4-stroke engines for several years. Polaris has earned U.S. Department of the Interior Best Available Technology (BAT) certification for 4-stroke snowmobiles every year since the 2002 model year. The 4-stroke 2006 Polaris FS is the latest model to earn BAT certification. Polaris will submit the necessary data to have the 2007 FS Touring, which has an 80-hp 4-stroke engine, certified as BAT.

Only BAT-certified snowmobiles may be operated in select National Parks such as Yellowstone. Polaris has provided snowmobilers with clean, efficient sleds on which to enjoy Yellowstone’s scenic wonders for the past five winters.