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SuperATV’s Drop-In, Turbo-Style Transmission Is a Revolution

By Kavan Wright | Behind The Wheel on March 29, 2023
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Our complete, drop-in turbo-style transmission.
Photo by SuperATV

Unless you’ve upgraded to the brand-new 2024 model, your RZR XP 1000 has a weak transmission with a long history of crapping out when you push it too hard.

That’s frustrating, especially when the RZR Turbo transmission kicks so much ass. It’s the toughest transmission Polaris makes, but here’s the problem—it’s not on your RZR XP 1000.

That’s why we made a revolutionary drop-in, Turbo-style transmission for your Polaris RZR XP 1000. You get a complete tranny with geared reverse, tougher gears, a strengthened case, and more.

And you can install it on your 1K without ANY additional modification.

Let’s break it down.

What Is a Turbo-Style Transmission?

What do we mean by a “Turbo-style” transmission? The simplest answer is that our Turbo-style transmission has all the features that are standard on the Polaris RZR XP Turbo transmission.

The RZR XP Turbo transmission is WAY better than your RZR XP 1000 transmission. Here’s everything that’s better on a Turbo transmission:

  • Geared reverse
  • Stronger case
  • Stronger gears
  • Thicker pinion bearing retainer

Those simple changes make it way more reliable that the RZR 1K tranny. That’s why we replicated it (and made some big improvements) for our reverse gear transmission.

The First-Ever Complete, Drop-In Turbo-Style Transmission for the RZR XP 1000

So what makes our Turbo-style transmission so revolutionary for RZR 1K owners?

People have been taking actual RZR Turbo transmissions and retrofitting them to work on the 1K. To make it work, you have to fabricate your own mounts, make modifications to the CVT cover, and get a new prop shaft. It’s a real pain and insanely time-consuming.

Our Turbo-style transmission requires ZERO modification to install. When you order one from SuperATV, it’s ready to mount to your machine right out of the box. It comes with a custom mount, it’s designed to work with your stock clutch, and it’s compatible with your stock prop shaft.

It’s as drop-in as it gets.

Geared-Reverse Is a Game Changer

So what’s the deal with geared reverse? Why is that such a big deal?

Your stock transmission uses a chain to go in reverse… and it’s really weak. If you don’t baby it when you’re going backwards, you will break it. That’s why folks like us make heavy-duty reverse chains that use two reverse chains instead of one.

But the real golden tuna of reliability is geared reverse—get rid of the chains altogether and use a gear to drive another gear. Our geared reveres is 3X stronger than your stock reverse chain, which means it’s tough enough reverse out of anything without breaking.

You can say “sayonara” to the RZR 1K’s biggest gremlin when you’ve got geared reverse in your tranny.

Say “goodbye” to reverse chains and “hello” to geared reverse. Breaking a reverse gear is virtually impossible. That should give you the confidence your stock transmission never could. Photo by SuperATV

We Beefed Up the Pinion and Snorkel Gear Too

The reverse chain is the weakest point on your transmission, so when you make it 3X stronger, you’re gonna put a ton of stress on your pinion and snorkel gear.

Don’t worry—we thought about that too.

Our pinion and snorkel gears are made with 9310 alloy steel that’s perfect for gearing. Plus, these gears (and all the gears in our transmission) are hob cut, heat treated, then precision ground so they mesh perfectly. A perfect mesh lowers friction, reduces heat, and boosts overall longevity of the gears.

The front output shaft is stronger too—it’s made with industry-leading 300M steel, which is about as tough as it gets.

The Achilles Heel of Your Pinion and Snorkel Gear…

But the real problem with pinion and snorkel gears is their design.

The snorkel gear is a spiral bevel gear, which is a special kind of gear that’s incredibly tough—when you’re moving forward. When you move forward, the snorkel and pinion gear pull together and mesh perfectly. This design gives you more reliable meshing than standard gears.

But when you go in reverse, they push apart. That means worse meshing and an increased risk of chipping teeth which could grenade your transmission.

That’s where the pinion bearing retainer comes in.

6 mm Pinion Bearing Retainer

The pinion bearing retainer is designed to keep your pinion gear in place no matter what. Here’s how our retainer beats stock:

  • It’s 6 mm thick versus 4 mm on stock
  • It uses 6 mounting bolts versus 4 on stock
  • The ring is beefier all around

Our retainer ring is so tough that it keeps your pinion and snorkel gears meshing properly even when you’re in reverse. With robust internals like that, the only thing that can fail is the case.

We Made the Case Stronger Too

The case holds everything together. If it overheats or flexes, gears stop meshing and parts start exploding. And the most vulnerable part of the case is the front output area.

That’s why we made this area of the case (known as the snorkel tube) stronger than you can get even on a Turbo. It has thicker walls and more ribs and gussets too. Those ribs and gussets also help cool the case—a hot transmission is a flexible transmission, and a flexible transmission is a ticking time bomb.

Everything is rock solid so you can ride with confidence with big upgrades, heavy tires, and yes, even a lead foot in reverse.

This transmission case is built to last. Thicker walls and redesigned fins and gussets ensure that everything stays together even when you keep the throttle pinned. Photo by SuperATV

Choose Your Gear Reduction

It’s not all about making it tough as hell. We made it smart as hell too.

That’s why we let you choose your gear reduction when you check out. Your options are:

  • Stock gear reduction
  • 12.5% gear reduction
  • 25% gear reduction
  • 37.5% gear reduction (for some models)

Getting a built-in gear reduction saves you the trouble of tearing down the transmission on your own. It saves you a bucket of money and a boatload of time.

Plus, all that extra torque is the perfect pair for those massive tires we know you’re eyeing.

We Thought of Everything

When you make a whole new transmission with features that were never meant to go on the machine you built it for, you end up with new problems.

Instead of compromising, we engineered those problems into submission—you get to have your cake and eat it too.

Fixing the Gear Ratios

You can’t make everything bigger and stronger and add a whole new gear into the case without deviating from stock gear ratios.

We spent a lot of time solving this problem in the best possible way with the best possible trade-offs.

For example, here’s how the stock gear ratios compare for one specific RZR XP 1000 transmission model:

 HighLow
Stock10.73:118.77:1
SATV10.67:120.25:1

You couldn’t fit a hair between the high gear ratios, and the low is just a smidge lower. Every OEM part number will compare differently, but they all compare similarly to this example.

What you get with our transmission is a low gear that’s geared slightly down. You might not notice it, but you get more torque and acceleration in low gear. The lower low gear allowed us to make high gear almost identical to stock. It’s so close that you won’t be able to tell the difference, so you get the same top speed you expect on your RZR XP 1000.

All these beefed up parts throw off the gear ratio, but only a little bit thanks to careful engineering. If you notice any change at all, it’ll only be an improvement. Photo by SuperATV

Fixing the Speedometer

We had to set up our speed sensor differently since the gear ratio isn’t exactly the same as stock. And if you pick a custom gear reduction, the difference would be even greater. These different gear ratios can make your speedometer read inaccurately which is very annoying. That’s why we came up with a clever way to fix it.

On a standard transmission, the speed sensor determines your speed by detecting the spinning teeth on the final drive gear. The number of teeth that pass by the sensor in a period of time tells your machine how fast you’re going and it sends that info to your instrument cluster.

But our gear ratio is a bit different, so if we set up the speed sensor the same way it would read wrong.

To fix it, we created a new kind of gear that has dummy teeth just for the speed sensor. It basically turns it into a reluctor gear on top of being the final drive gear. No matter what gear reduction you choose, your speedometer will be accurate. Patent pending, of course.

We designed a patent-pending final drive gear to give you accurate speed readings even though the gear ratio isn’t the same as stock. Photo by SuperATV

A Revolution for Your RZR… and More Machines Soon

Every part of this transmission has been upgraded to make it the best drop-in transmission you can get, period. That’s because it’s the only drop-in Turbo-style transmission that takes all the bells and whistles from the Turbo—like geared reverse and a beefed-up pinion bearing retainer—and makes it dead simple to install on a RZR 1K.

But we’re not stopping with the 1K. We’ll be bringing our geared reverse transmission to more vehicles down the line.

We’ll be giving hundreds of thousands of Polaris owners the opportunity to make their transmissions the toughest on the market. And with the confidence that comes from an unbeatable transmission comes bigger upgrades and harder rides than ever before.

If that’s not revolutionary, we don’t know what is.

Get it now.

Photo by SuperATV
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8 Comments

  1. Avatar for Jeremy RobertsJeremy Roberts says:
    July 21, 2023 at 3:29 pm

    Hi I emailed a while back, I’m wanting this gear to gear reverse turbo style transmission for my 2021 Polaris general xp, is it available yet?

    Reply
    • Sara Wines says:
      July 24, 2023 at 2:54 pm

      Hi Jeremy! We don’t have them yet, but they are in the works. The team is hard at work ensuring they’re up to our rigorous performance and quality standards.

      Reply
  2. Avatar for Marry BrownMarry Brown says:
    January 14, 2025 at 10:52 pm

    I’m looking to purchase a tranny for my rzr 1000 turbo 2018 model

    Reply
    • Madison Drumm says:
      January 23, 2025 at 10:24 am

      Hey Marry!
      Give us a call and a sales rep can assist you! 812.574.7777

      Reply
  3. Avatar for Joseph JayJoseph Jay says:
    September 9, 2025 at 9:08 pm

    Looking for a price on a transmission for a 2021 xp turbo.

    Reply
    • Madison Drumm says:
      September 15, 2025 at 9:06 am

      Hey Joseph,
      Thanks for reaching out! Unfortunately, we don’t offer a transmission for your rig.

      Reply
  4. Avatar for Daniel BruleyDaniel Bruley says:
    January 10, 2026 at 5:56 pm

    Hi I have a 19 XP4 Turbo S and it siezed a bearing on the passenger side and blew a hole in the case. I checked the part number list and there isn’t a number to choose from that matches my gearbox. (1333490)
    Do you guys offer replacements for my car?

    Reply
    • Madison Drumm says:
      January 12, 2026 at 8:25 am

      Hey Daniel,
      Unfortunately, the numbers have to match up. If the numbers don’t match up to yours, we don’t have one compatible.

      Reply

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