Yamaha has come up with a mind-bending concept called PD. It stands for “Performance Damper” and before you conclude this is some kind of new type of suspension shock, think again.
Amazingly, this is a conventional shock that is bolted to the frame of a snowmobile, usually under the hood, and it is designed to get rid of harmonic vibration and miniscule chassis movements due to flexing as the sled is being ridden. Total movement of the shock is measured in microns, so it’s very difficult to monitor the shock’s action with the naked eye.
The technology is patented by Yamaha, and Toyota, under license, has been using it for a couple of years on certain car models with measurable results.
By damping certain movements within the chassis of a car, counter effects to suspension action, bumps from the road and directional changes can be controlled much better and the net result is often much improved handling. PD is already being tested on snowmobiles and the test results have been pretty impressive.
When we first learned about this tech we though it was a con. After researching it, however, we’ve discovered the science here is valid.
We’ll be riding it this winter and can’t wait to see if it makes a discernable difference on a snowmobile.
Check the video below to watch Yamaha’s Chris Reid explain how it works. Pretty cool.
