Clutch/Belt Performance and Inspection

[AXE]

I know there has been a lot of chaos with the clutch on the H2, so I thought I'd post my experience.

Overall, I haven't had much to complain about for the 600 miles I have on my car. That's about 300 in the sand dunes and 300 in the desert and around my neighborhood. For how I drive and the conditions I've driven 100'-4000' msl, the stock clutch has performed really well for me.

I am running stock tires in desert and 35 inch SS365 sand tires at the dunes.

I have not had significant belt wear, nor high CVT temps or breakage. I have ran 3 belts, two OEM and one G Boost Worlds Best Belt WBB0047-G. All three belts were "broken" in and stretched about 10-12 mm and lost 1 mm width.

I switched up the belts primarily to see the difference in running desert vs dunes. They were similar and I did not notice any difference in CVT temps.

I did not like the extra length of the WBB, as it required higher rpms to engage and it would "slap" some and I could see it made contact with the bottome of the CVT cover. I wouldn't run that anymore with stock clutching. I know others feel like it helped them.

Not sure how long a belt would last, but not sure i would go past 500 miles without inspecting it. The CVT was more dusty after the dunes runs, so probably most of the wear is when your on the throttle often.

 

[AXE]

So after my last dune trip a couple weeks ago, I decided to do my 5th inspection at about 600 miles. Probably a good thing I did, because in this inspection I found what I believe were some stress fractures and a missing chunk of the aluminum casting on the outer primary. I did not notice these 150 miles before this inspection.

Hopefully you can see what I'm talking about in the attached photos. I took it to my local dealer and had them take a quick look and document it in their system as this was just about the time of the stop sale notice hitting. Nothing they can do now, but confirmed the stress fractures looked similar to a couple others they had previously repaired.

One thing to note is that dime sized casting failure that is 1-2 mm deep. It also has a lot of scale flaking off in the area around it and that is the only place I see that occurring. On the last ride before we left the dunes, my son took a drive. He said he heard a rattling noise in the CVT for several seconds and thought the belt was coming apart. I think that piece of casting had come loose and took a few laps around the CVT before exiting the vent tube.

 

[Sand Shark]

Good catch! I went through multiple belts with my H2 over 775 miles in Glamis (I have broken two G-boost belts and 2 OEM belts and one clutch cover).

I have not seen any cracks in my primary. My issue is the secondary gets stupid hot compared to the primary. Did not matter if I had the clutch cover on or off.

I just hope Kawi comes up with a good fix for the clutching. I really do not want to buy aftermarket clutches.

 

[AXE]

Good catch! I went through multiple belts with my H2 over 775 miles in Glamis (I have broken two G-boost belts and 2 OEM belts and one clutch cover).

I have not seen any cracks in my primary. My issue is the secondary gets stupid hot compared to the primary. Did not matter if I had the clutch cover on or off.

I just hope Kawi comes up with a good fix for the clutching. I really do not want to buy aftermarket clutches.

Yes, I think there are several issues with the clutching and I've seen people post about various issues. I believe there may be multiple things at play including under-designed for rated HP, poor metallurgy/casting, imbalance, loose bolts, primary to secondary alignment, vibration, poor cooling. I guess we'll know soon.

Sounds to me like you may have had an alignment issue with the secondary and the cooling issue causing the belt to heat up.

I run fairly hard at the dunes at times, but I am not foot to the floor for 30 minutes straight either. What I noticed is that if i was running a cruising pace, I would always be in the middle of the CVT temp guage and coolant temps would be 186F. After a few hard pulls (like back to back runs up China Wall) I would see belt temps get into the early part of the red color (looked more of a maroon color) and coolant temps would be 195F.

The only time I seen CVT temps get intonthe red at about 3/4 of the guage was a couple back to back higher speed roll monsoon the highway. First one was to 80 mph and second was 90 mph. I've not repeated that since, but I think the belt speed and engine/coolant temps get really warm in the upper RPMs.

 

[Sand Shark]

Yes, I think there are several issues with the clutching and I've seen people post about various issues. I believe there may be multiple things at play including under-designed for rated HP, poor metallurgy/casting, imbalance, loose bolts, primary to secondary alignment, vibration, poor cooling. I guess we'll know soon.

Sounds to me like you may have had an alignment issue with the secondary and the cooling issue causing the belt to heat up.

I run fairly hard at the dunes at times, but I am not foot to the floor for 30 minutes straight either. What I noticed is that if i was running a cruising pace, I would always be in the middle of the CVT temp guage and coolant temps would be 186F. After a few hard pulls (like back to back runs up China Wall) I would see belt temps get into the early part of the red color (looked more of a maroon color) and coolant temps would be 195F.

The only time I seen CVT temps get intonthe red at about 3/4 of the guage was a couple back to back higher speed roll monsoon the highway. First one was to 80 mph and second was 90 mph. I've not repeated that since, but I think the belt speed and engine/coolant temps get really warm in the upper RPMs.

On runs from Wash 13/15 through small dunes and then onto the big dunes behind Olds and onto the drags the CVT gauge would get into that maroon color. The secondary was stupid hot and the belt was hot, the primary was warm to the touch. When we duned from Wash 15 to Disco Ball and then down to Duners Diner the CVT temps were in the middle and I found cruising down the sand highway to Duners Diner (speeds between 50-75mph) the CVT temps said below the middle and the belt and secondary were not hot to the touch.

When I first got my H2 I did runs up Olds and Brawley slide and the CVT temp gauge was in the middle. It was always the longer runs in the big dunes that got the temps up.

I am pretty sure the clutch alignment is off, but I think my issue is more belt slippage and lack of cooling on the secondary. The belts blew with the cover on and with the cover off. That secondary is a weird design and it flings grease from inside the helix. I took my secondary off last Glamis trip and cleaned it up the best I could removing the excess grease. That grease gets flung around once it heats up.

 

[Nikal]

Saw a post and video showing the stock primary clutch on a balance bar. The stock H2 clutch was over 11 grams out of balance. They said it’s the worse they have seen, and the quality of the clutch from a visual & design standpoint is some of the worse they have seen too.

It would be interesting to see 3-4 sets of H2 clutches to see how far off bal they are and what’s the most, the less and the average weight tested.

 

[Sand Shark]

Saw a post and video showing the stock primary clutch on a balance bar. The stock H2 clutch was over 11 grams out of balance. They said it’s the worse they have seen, and the quality of the clutch from a visual & design standpoint is some of the worse they have seen too.

It would be interesting to see 3-4 sets of H2 clutches to see how far off bal they are and what’s the most, the less and the average weight tested.

I saw that video as well. There must of been something that changed in the manufacturing of the primary as that is the same one that is used on the Ridge and I have not seen anyone say the Ridge was exploding clutches.

 

[AXE]

Saw a post and video showing the stock primary clutch on a balance bar. The stock H2 clutch was over 11 grams out of balance. They said it’s the worse they have seen, and the quality of the clutch from a visual & design standpoint is some of the worse they have seen too.

It would be interesting to see 3-4 sets of H2 clutches to see how far off bal they are and what’s the most, the less and the average weight tested.

Yep, seen a few complain of balance and uneven casting.

In my early inspections, mine looked really good and seemed to spin up fine when I had my head down there. I don't think I'll be sticking my head down there now with missing chunks........LOL.

 

[Nikal]

I saw that video as well. There must of been something that changed in the manufacturing of the primary as that is the same one that is used on the Ridge and I have not seen anyone say the Ridge was exploding clutches.

I don’t think it’s the exact same as the Ridge. I remember watching the media demo ride videos where they took them through Kawasaki Irvine center the day before to teach them about the details of the H2. The Kawi engineer made reference to the clutch being improved with the use of the roller bearing between the sheaves for the belt to ride on when in neutral. I remember thinking, that’s not revolutionary, every UTV has that primary bearing. Is this really new for Kawasaki? Also from the very beginning I think Cornell Customs had mentioned the H2 primary clutch was just a revised Ridge clutch and they already made a overdrive primarily clutch plate for the Ridge and some other fixes for the Ridge clutch.

I was never under the impression it was an all new designed clutch. I figured it was a collaboration from the Ridge which uses the 4 cylinder engine and the secondary clutch was modified from the KRX. Look at a KRX secondary, they look the same.

 

[AXE]

When I first looked at the clutch, I thought it looked like a 1982 Ski Doo TNT 440 snowmobile clutch........seems like they are 4 decades off the pace.....LOL......come on Kawasaki give us the goods!