FNR speed ideas

Ok, I am considering running an FNR without a vari-drive pulley.

Has anyone else done so?

What have you done for speed?


Here are my ideas. Has anyone had any experience with these or other ideas?

1. Homemade clutch. Two pulleys. Used, to keep it from just jumping immediately into gear. Also used to "creep" it at lower speeds, if necessary.

2. Larger pulley on the engine, and smaller one on the trans.


I don't need racer speeds. But I want to be able to drive across the yard at a faster rate than a stumbling walk...

If i remember right, the imput to output ratio is 26:1. Ive seem people go 10"-2" and get 25mph. You only have one speed if you so this, so its either, creepy slow, or kinda fast, but you will probably pop wheelies, and it wont ever creep.

always thought about putting a cvt on a engine then a right angle gearbox on a fnr have a nice gokart or something

I have an MTD machine with FnR and variable pulley. The one where you have a FnR shifter and a pedal that makes you go fast or slow.

If you remove the variable pulleys, then maybe you could put double pulleys in. You would need two belts; essentially a two-speed. A multiple pulley setup from a drill press example.

I did this on my riding mower that I use to plow my driveway. I blew the original 3 speed and swaped it with one of those F/N/R gearbox, put a 4 inch pulley on it and kept the original engine pulley, it's about 1 to 1 I'd say. It does OK plowing, plenty of torque in midrange but starting off is always a little jerky. Does about 10mph or so.

Thing I don't like is reverse is the same ratio as forward. So if you go 10mph forward you'll 10mph backwards.

rarbaugh07 wrote:

Thing I don't like is reverse is the same ratio as forward. So if you go 10mph forward you'll 10mph backwards.

Yah, Your right, but comes in handy when plowing the snow.

I started to internally re-gear one using sprocket and chain. Didn't have the right size sprocket handy though...

TheBeal wrote:

I started to internally re-gear one using sprocket and chain. Didn't have the right size sprocket handy though...

That's a good idea. 4 or 3 to one ratio would be real handy with a torque converter on the input, would make it real quick off the line and get alot of speed too. I'll have to remember this one.