jst4fun
02-28-2011, 07:27 AM
September 13, 2007
Vmax4…ever
I had an interesting comment come in on the ‘FX Nytro Fuel Capacity‘ post from V-Max Forever. He has over 20,000 miles on his Vmax4 and he reminded me of my experiences on several of the big 4′s. How many 15 year old snowmobiles are still going strong with a die-hard owners posse, complete with their own exclusive, web-site? I have seen this in motorcycles where a particular model will attain ‘cult’ status within a group but I can’t think of any other sleds that have carved quite the niche that the Vmax4 has.
The Vmax4 has special meaning for me as a Yamaha product manager. It was the first project I got to work on from concept right through to production and what a project it turned out to be. Kenny Takada was the lead development engineer or, as we refer to the position, ‘project leader’. He had a strong background in motorcycle and a whole bunch of new ideas he wanted to develop with this new sled. I remember the first sessions of ‘sketch checking’ the concepts. We were way out there compared to the ‘wedgey’ styling of the day. One thing that I really thought cool was
the original headlight which had triple beams, two of which were pointed off to the sides of the trail and were ‘switched’ by the steering system, only illuminating when turning in the direction of the beam. This was to give a lighting function much like the original Phazer with the handlebar mounted headlight, alas we had to abandon based on cost issues. We decided to build an all aluminum chassis to save weight (no Skidoo didn’t invent that concept ), this included the bulkheads and much of the linkage but the eye-opener for me was the aluminum skis. At the time nobody was using plastic for OE skis, we kicked it around but there were concerns over the properties relative to ultraviolet rays. We didn’t know if they could become brittle in time and crack (or worse) so we opted for the next best thing, aluminum. I had recently moved from the mountains of BC and was aware of a new trend out west. Some guys from the oil patch in Alberta had discovered a plastic material used for lining steel so products wouldn’t corrode, stick or abrade especially at sub zero temps. Soon after a couple of after-market companies started making ski, belly-pan and running board covers out of the stuff to reduce the drag of sticky snow. Ekholm Enterprises out of the Okanagan valley was one of the first to employ the new UHMW plastic, which has become the ‘norm’ for many snowmobile applications. I pushed hard for a plastic base for the new skis and Kenny made it happen but you know, I’m still not sure if pink should have been our first color of choice or was that ‘fuscia’… doh! . There were many firsts on the sled but the big news was the engine which I believe is the reason there are still a bunch of them still running around today. The idea of gearing two twins together and using 90 degree timing with small bore flats slides went beyond anything we expected. To keep the drive line alive, a new secondary was designed. As it turned out, it was this new secondary that would prove to be our Achilles in extracting the maximum performance. The center to center of the clutches required a new longer drive belt which introduced the friction reducing ‘top cog’ design common on most new sleds these days.
We hosted some special testing in Canada during the spring of 1991. Our QA division (quality assurance) needed to find some good sea level snow and ‘volunteers’ to assist them in confirming final specifications using a special pre-production sled.
A pre-production sled differs from a prototype where the latter is generally hand fabricated using sand-castings and other time consuming, expensive, one-off processes for early testing where a pre-production is built using die-cast and other parts from the same tooling to be used in mass production. The pre-pro sleds are assembled as close to final production as possible, carefully monitored, tested and disassembled under a microscope before final approval is given to go into full production but I digress...
Tim Chelli, our newly appointed national service manager and myself were asked to join the testing team near Mont Joli, Gaspé QC. When we were all done, the engineers offered us a great opportunity to allow some VIP media guys to ride the sled prior to its formal introduction. (This was before the ‘sneek peek’ events so common today). I asked March Maeda if he would set up the sled for maximum performance and was shocked at what he did. He removed the brand new drive belt and dug one of the old testing belts out of a box destined for Japan quickly installing it on the sled. He explained that the new belt required about 1200km to break-in and produce the best speed as he dusted off his hands and walked away. I was stunned, up until then most sleds were doing pretty good to get a1000km out of a V-belt without loosing performance or smoking them entirely.
It took a very brief phone call to Mark Lester at Supertrax who was heading for the airport before I could hang up the phone. Another old friend of mine was quick to respond, Rollie Faille tech writer for Motoneige Quebec magazine (and ambassador for the Lanaudiere region) got there before the Lester’s. I recall looking over my shoulder as we were leading Rollie out onto the trails, just as he happened to drop the pre-pro into a huge sucker hole surrounding a power pole. All I could see was a vacant sled ghost-riding towards me with some flailing arms and legs behind it. No damage done but a couple of days later I received the call that Rollie suffered a heart attack upon returning home. I sent him a get well message with the comment I was hoping the Vmax would have made a strong impression on him but this was not what I was expecting. That same snowmobile now resides at the Bombardier Museum in Valcourt Quebec, one of only two Yamaha’s on display (the second being an 84 Phazer) to be recognized by Skidoo as benchmark sleds in the industry. Merci Pierre.
There are a lot of Vmax stories that come to my mind, Tim Bender in corner three at Valcourt on the factory F-III, hit the afterburners in one of the most dramatic race finishes I have ever seen… Rick Cannon from Roller-Rooster on his turbo charged Vmax4 on a quiet sunlit lake at 9000rpm, what a sound… the frost bite I received on my face, riding for the original US brochure and video photo-shoot in Alaska… Wally from Sudbury performing an insanely long water-skip through a rocky gorge in the eerie moonlight while we watched from the cliffs above… Waldy Pietrowski bank turning the big sled through a long, deep, uncut meadow in his perfect style for the film cameras of Curt Peterson and Snowmotion 1… Pulling the trigger on the new 800 up the Denali Hiway at first light and watching the speedo climb rapidly into triple digits… Man I hope it snows somewhere soon.
Thanks for the memories Vmax Forever.
:smiley-12
Vmax4…ever
I had an interesting comment come in on the ‘FX Nytro Fuel Capacity‘ post from V-Max Forever. He has over 20,000 miles on his Vmax4 and he reminded me of my experiences on several of the big 4′s. How many 15 year old snowmobiles are still going strong with a die-hard owners posse, complete with their own exclusive, web-site? I have seen this in motorcycles where a particular model will attain ‘cult’ status within a group but I can’t think of any other sleds that have carved quite the niche that the Vmax4 has.
The Vmax4 has special meaning for me as a Yamaha product manager. It was the first project I got to work on from concept right through to production and what a project it turned out to be. Kenny Takada was the lead development engineer or, as we refer to the position, ‘project leader’. He had a strong background in motorcycle and a whole bunch of new ideas he wanted to develop with this new sled. I remember the first sessions of ‘sketch checking’ the concepts. We were way out there compared to the ‘wedgey’ styling of the day. One thing that I really thought cool was
the original headlight which had triple beams, two of which were pointed off to the sides of the trail and were ‘switched’ by the steering system, only illuminating when turning in the direction of the beam. This was to give a lighting function much like the original Phazer with the handlebar mounted headlight, alas we had to abandon based on cost issues. We decided to build an all aluminum chassis to save weight (no Skidoo didn’t invent that concept ), this included the bulkheads and much of the linkage but the eye-opener for me was the aluminum skis. At the time nobody was using plastic for OE skis, we kicked it around but there were concerns over the properties relative to ultraviolet rays. We didn’t know if they could become brittle in time and crack (or worse) so we opted for the next best thing, aluminum. I had recently moved from the mountains of BC and was aware of a new trend out west. Some guys from the oil patch in Alberta had discovered a plastic material used for lining steel so products wouldn’t corrode, stick or abrade especially at sub zero temps. Soon after a couple of after-market companies started making ski, belly-pan and running board covers out of the stuff to reduce the drag of sticky snow. Ekholm Enterprises out of the Okanagan valley was one of the first to employ the new UHMW plastic, which has become the ‘norm’ for many snowmobile applications. I pushed hard for a plastic base for the new skis and Kenny made it happen but you know, I’m still not sure if pink should have been our first color of choice or was that ‘fuscia’… doh! . There were many firsts on the sled but the big news was the engine which I believe is the reason there are still a bunch of them still running around today. The idea of gearing two twins together and using 90 degree timing with small bore flats slides went beyond anything we expected. To keep the drive line alive, a new secondary was designed. As it turned out, it was this new secondary that would prove to be our Achilles in extracting the maximum performance. The center to center of the clutches required a new longer drive belt which introduced the friction reducing ‘top cog’ design common on most new sleds these days.
We hosted some special testing in Canada during the spring of 1991. Our QA division (quality assurance) needed to find some good sea level snow and ‘volunteers’ to assist them in confirming final specifications using a special pre-production sled.
A pre-production sled differs from a prototype where the latter is generally hand fabricated using sand-castings and other time consuming, expensive, one-off processes for early testing where a pre-production is built using die-cast and other parts from the same tooling to be used in mass production. The pre-pro sleds are assembled as close to final production as possible, carefully monitored, tested and disassembled under a microscope before final approval is given to go into full production but I digress...
Tim Chelli, our newly appointed national service manager and myself were asked to join the testing team near Mont Joli, Gaspé QC. When we were all done, the engineers offered us a great opportunity to allow some VIP media guys to ride the sled prior to its formal introduction. (This was before the ‘sneek peek’ events so common today). I asked March Maeda if he would set up the sled for maximum performance and was shocked at what he did. He removed the brand new drive belt and dug one of the old testing belts out of a box destined for Japan quickly installing it on the sled. He explained that the new belt required about 1200km to break-in and produce the best speed as he dusted off his hands and walked away. I was stunned, up until then most sleds were doing pretty good to get a1000km out of a V-belt without loosing performance or smoking them entirely.
It took a very brief phone call to Mark Lester at Supertrax who was heading for the airport before I could hang up the phone. Another old friend of mine was quick to respond, Rollie Faille tech writer for Motoneige Quebec magazine (and ambassador for the Lanaudiere region) got there before the Lester’s. I recall looking over my shoulder as we were leading Rollie out onto the trails, just as he happened to drop the pre-pro into a huge sucker hole surrounding a power pole. All I could see was a vacant sled ghost-riding towards me with some flailing arms and legs behind it. No damage done but a couple of days later I received the call that Rollie suffered a heart attack upon returning home. I sent him a get well message with the comment I was hoping the Vmax would have made a strong impression on him but this was not what I was expecting. That same snowmobile now resides at the Bombardier Museum in Valcourt Quebec, one of only two Yamaha’s on display (the second being an 84 Phazer) to be recognized by Skidoo as benchmark sleds in the industry. Merci Pierre.
There are a lot of Vmax stories that come to my mind, Tim Bender in corner three at Valcourt on the factory F-III, hit the afterburners in one of the most dramatic race finishes I have ever seen… Rick Cannon from Roller-Rooster on his turbo charged Vmax4 on a quiet sunlit lake at 9000rpm, what a sound… the frost bite I received on my face, riding for the original US brochure and video photo-shoot in Alaska… Wally from Sudbury performing an insanely long water-skip through a rocky gorge in the eerie moonlight while we watched from the cliffs above… Waldy Pietrowski bank turning the big sled through a long, deep, uncut meadow in his perfect style for the film cameras of Curt Peterson and Snowmotion 1… Pulling the trigger on the new 800 up the Denali Hiway at first light and watching the speedo climb rapidly into triple digits… Man I hope it snows somewhere soon.
Thanks for the memories Vmax Forever.
:smiley-12