prop shaft

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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,665
    Red Panda wrote:
    yeehaamcgee wrote:
    However, all performance motorcycles still use chain drives.
    Not true though is it as I have given two rather obvious examples of hyper sports bikes that don't use chain drive.

    Chain drives are cheaper for motorbike manufacturers than shaft drives as they are cheaper to make and pass the onus onto the owner to maintain them. The problem being that they get dirty, hook sprocket teeth over and stretch. It's prudent to replace chain and sprocket kits at the same time on a motorbike isn't it. Not cheap in the long term at around 130 quid per kit.

    Shaft drive's can have torque problems on motorbikes that means they can handle weirdly when putting power down on bends...having said that they are cheaper to maintain.

    Harley's aren't really what I'd call a 'performance motorcycle', hence my example of a Buell 1125R which is a lightweight bike with 146bhp.
    I wouldn't say a chain drive is the same as a belt drive, albeit similar.
    Sorry, my wording was wrong, what I intended to put across was racing bikes, not performance bikes. Although, if you turned up at a meeting of the bikers I know with a BMW, they'd laugh at you :D

    The cost saving shouldn't mean anything in the world of professional race bikes though. Which makes me think that the tprque problems may well be significant.
    And What I meant by belt drive being effectively the same as a chain drive is that they are both functionally the same, except one's made of a rubber/kevlar (or whatever) belt, and the other is made of metal links.
    Fundamentally, they are the same. Like pipe, and tube, or string and rope.

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