its really the polaris primary in general. on the RZR 800, sportsmans, rangers, ect, you are doing good to get 1500 miles out of any of them without them being absolutely shot. the RZR 900 will last somewhere in the 1000 mile range before they really start to show signs of significant wear and need rebuilding/replacing. the 900 primary IS rebuildable. polaris sells the parts to rebuild the primary clutch with new pins and rollers and bushings ect. you can rebuild it once before the slides in the tower just start to wear out. the RZR 1000 however is subjected to a more pronounced engine harmonics. the engine itself is what beats the clutch apart. we have toyed with tons of race motors from all the different builders while working on customers machines and sort'a been able to kinda figure out when and where and how long the primary will last on the engines depending on the RPM you spin it. its purely because of the engine harmonics as to how long the clutch will last. we have a high winding 900 RZR with a big bore and nitrous meant for racing. when he had it tuned for 8800RPM the clutch lasted a whole year 8 races without a single problem. this last year we turned it up to 9300RPM because of a different ecu tune and the engine is worlds more powerful, but the clutch is absolute garbage after each race. the engine harmonics chews the rollers and weights up.
the same thing goes for the 1000. its longer stroke crank makes it have an even stronger harmonic distortion thru the clutch. a typical XP1000 that is 100% stock that runs 8100-8400RPM will typcically last around 1000 miles at best before the rollers in the spyder start wearing out. Straightline will sell you a set of pins and rollers to rebuild the clutch BUT they arent the same. they sell you the pins and rollers from an XP900 which has a different size roller. you can install it but the weights hit the inside of the spyder and chew the weights up. nobody makes a rebuild kit for the XP1000 primary. TEAM wont sell the parts, Polaris wont sell the parts, its just a big racket to make you buy new primary clutches i suppose. when you go get a reflash and turn the RPM up, the 100% stock XP1000 engine will make tons more power the more you rev it. the stock engine makes peak power around 8650 and pulls like a dream! its almost 8whp going from 8100RPM up to 8600RPM. the problem is at 8600-8700RPM the engine harmonics are intense. you can feel the vibrations from the engine thru the frame and into your seat. its a vibrating buzz but gosh that engine loves to rev. when you get up around the 8600RPM range your primary is subjected to tons more abuse and thats when you start seeing a significant decrease in longevity. the clutch typically wont last but around 500 miles. the bushings and pins just wear out much faster due to the engine firing. each pulse forces the clutch around in the counterclockwise rotation. when the pistons hit the bottom of the stroke the crank takes almost a backwards spin. this makes the weights wiggle side to side which is whats chewing the rollers in the spyder up. when we took one super bad 145whp race engine and spun it to 9200 like the builder told us to early last year, it chewed up the first primary clutch in about 80-100 miles, i completely rebuilt it and put it back on and it lasted another 100 miles. i went to a different brand primary clutch and wore it out before it finished one day ride. we had to bring the RPM back down to get the thing to stop eating clutch rollers and weights. i have used and tried every primary clutch on the market. the cheapest route i have found is to just get a stock primary from polaris. you can get them for around $470 brand new. it costs about the same as a complete rebuild on the STM. its easier for the average joe to replace a stock primary than to have to send an STM in and have rebuilt once or twice a year.
i am surprised to hear that Cognito is getting 2000+ miles out of their clutch considering they are running around 8800RPM. by my calculations and all my testing, that should get them about 300-400, maybe 500 miles at max out of a primary before its shot. listening to the vids of them running, they are running a solid weight, probably the 26-61 by the sounds of it bogging out of some of the corners. but when they stretch it out over 100 yards or so its up around 8800RPM. i would be amazed to see a primary live 2000+ miles at that RPM. i honestly dont know how it is possible.
