How many teeth are on the rear driver on the variator?
I crammed my head in the engine compartment and used a laser pointer. Best bet I can come up with is 11 or 12, probably 11. 11 on the little end and 30 on the big end gets me about 2.73 to one. According to this per Lyndon:
The Big Sprockets in the engine compartment came in 36, 38, and 42 tooth combinations. The Small chain sprockets on the Variator came in 11, 12, and 15 tooth combinations. Standard oin a Snow Trac is 12's and 38's. Standard on a Trac Master or Snow Master is 11's & 42's. The difference is roughly 3:1 versus 4:1. This also directly correlates to why Snow Trac's usually have 3 times the miles as hours, and the "Masters" have closer to a 2 times per hour ratio. The machine I tried with the high ratio was lacking in torque at the high end. Just too much track. I had to drop back to lower ratios. It was a Trac Master with at 1776 CC, roughly 90 HP engine. In all one can get 9 possible combinations out of the 3 & 3 gear offering. It is also possible to get a variety of different gearing out of the Transaxels. ST4's were normally shipped with VW Bus Transaxels which have lower gearing than Bug Transaxels. Top speed according to the factory literature in a "Master" is 13.5 MPH, 22 in a Snow Trac. I was able to get over 25 on my 1963 Snow Trac that had the original 36/40 HP 1192 CC engine, on an ice covered road, and a good 30+ MPH out of a Snow Trac with a 1600, 53 HP Motor.
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That setup puts me in the ST gearing range. I was running it at about 2200, but read some folks run 3000+ RPM. If she will cruise comfortably at 15 MPH, in decent snow conditions, I'll be more than happy.