Engineering students place second in eco-friendly snowmobile contest

The challenge: reduce a snowmobile’s emissions and noise while maintaining or improving its performance.

A team of UB engineering students, by all accounts, did just that.

Competing in the Clean Snowmobile Challenge March 3-8 in Michigan, the UB team took home top honors in two categories — Best Lab Emissions and Best In-Service Emissions — as well as second place overall among 14 universities and colleges.

The UB team, members of the university’s Society of Automotive Engineers student chapter, took a 2011 stock snowmobile and made a handful of modifications to improve its handling and performance.

For example, the team installed a turbo-charged diesel engine which, along with other adjustments, reduced the amount of environment-damaging emissions that the sled produces. It also helped reduce the sled’s noise and improve its fuel economy from 12 mpg to 28 mpg.

The fuel-efficiency boost came in handy because a component of the competition was a 100-mile ride in Michigan’s chilly Upper Peninsula. The contest was held at Michigan Technological University in Houghton.

For more information about the competition, visit Michigan Tech’s website.