Variator Fan Mod
 

I've been reading up on how the CVT gets real hot, to the point of burning the belt. I have the cover off the cvt and was looking at the fan portion. If any of you are familiar with vw air cooled engines, they use a generator driven fan enclosed in a doghouse to cool the entire engine as well as the oil cooler. The vw fan is similar in design to the variator fan but has one difference, the curved fins are enclosed on both sides by a metal plate. The center of the exterior plate is open to pull in cool air and then expel it out the fins to the various ducts attached to the dog house.

I think a aluminum plate welded to the vanes of the variator fan would produce increased airflow at minimal expense. Most of the so called performance fans seem to have shorter fins than the stock unit. Just an idea!

ckau has a pic somewhere with the Howhit cover opened up with some mesh and the filter changed to a scotchbrite pad. Personally never had an overheating problem or wore out a belt. IMO to weld on the variator top might warp it. I think keeping the rollers/sliders checked on for wear & replacement as soon as you suspect it is most of the battle, watching the variator & clutch with the CVT cover off to verify alignment was done with every engine before I used them (all were used).

Stay away from the so called "performance fans! That's just BS hype and have been known to fry a cvt!
Remove the stock filter from inside the inlet rubber fitting . These are also junk and clog almost instantly. Connect a section of hose to the rubber inlet and route it up high to keep trash out. Some flexible hose off a shop vac works perfect. I recycle my old Uni filters for the loose end. Inside the cover you will see restrictive baffled castings on the inlet and outlet sides. Removing some of this casting enhances air flow. The howett cvt covers have a removable center cap over the clutch. I cut the center out of this cap, fashioned a wire basket to hold loose filter material. The filter material is the stuff found inside ridge vent baffles used on residential roofs. stiff enough to hold in place, loose enough for air flow. tight enough to keep junk out and impervious to the elements. I got Zero issues with excessive heat.

Both my son and I run the performance fans but we removed the filter and turned down boot and replaced it with a piece of scotch bright pad. CVT rund a consistent 155 deg. after running the dog doo doo out of it and never had an overheating problem or belt breakage. Any stock variator I've checked runs about 180deg.