Phreakish
Well-Known Member
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/looking-into-a-617hp-brazilian-nextel-cup-motor/
A modern, well engineered, high-strung small block which needs maximum power and durability uses a gear drive, especially to survive heavy engine braking. Strange. Maybe someone should tell him that they're 80 yr old chrysler is better designed.
There's also no modern manual transmissions using a chain or belt instead of gears... wonder if the designers know how much torque they're wasting? 4 chains must surely be better than 4 gears, right? Maybe we should be driving our rear ends with chains too - get rid of all those nasty gears robbing our torque.
Gear noise is a result of pressure angle. With proper design, a near-silent performance can be had with the proper pressure angle. Larger pressure angles are cheaper to produce/manufacture. Wonder why crap gear drives are loud? Proper pressure angles also allow the designer to avoid undercut gear teeth (which wear fast, are hard to cut, and are weaker).
Gears are near 100% efficient at transferring power when lubricated properly. Excess oil gets 'pumped' by the gears which takes power and causes heat. But addressing that is pretty trivial. Proper design gets around oil film issues.
The real troublesome part is proper gear alignment. A simple cost-effective method to adjust the idler is tough, and hitting perfect tolerances for a gear drive is a challenge but can be done by any competent machinist. Arriving at the proper setup can also be a challenge and requires highly accurate measurement of the engine block. Not hard if you know what you're doing though.
It's only when factory tolerances and field serviceability are taken into account that chains and belts begin to even make sense. We run them because they're cheap. They work well *enough*, but even at their best they're a compromise to deal with tolerance stacks and serviceability - and they do that part of the job better than gears.
The real question the OP needs answered is where on the quality spectrum does the Milodon system land? I'd be inquiring with Milodon about the pressure angle, and if it falls between 10 and 20 degrees it should be good to go - if it's noisy, then it's setup wrong if that's where the angle is set. The next question would be how hard is it to setup, and what is involved and what the typical failures are.
A modern, well engineered, high-strung small block which needs maximum power and durability uses a gear drive, especially to survive heavy engine braking. Strange. Maybe someone should tell him that they're 80 yr old chrysler is better designed.
There's also no modern manual transmissions using a chain or belt instead of gears... wonder if the designers know how much torque they're wasting? 4 chains must surely be better than 4 gears, right? Maybe we should be driving our rear ends with chains too - get rid of all those nasty gears robbing our torque.
Gear noise is a result of pressure angle. With proper design, a near-silent performance can be had with the proper pressure angle. Larger pressure angles are cheaper to produce/manufacture. Wonder why crap gear drives are loud? Proper pressure angles also allow the designer to avoid undercut gear teeth (which wear fast, are hard to cut, and are weaker).
Gears are near 100% efficient at transferring power when lubricated properly. Excess oil gets 'pumped' by the gears which takes power and causes heat. But addressing that is pretty trivial. Proper design gets around oil film issues.
The real troublesome part is proper gear alignment. A simple cost-effective method to adjust the idler is tough, and hitting perfect tolerances for a gear drive is a challenge but can be done by any competent machinist. Arriving at the proper setup can also be a challenge and requires highly accurate measurement of the engine block. Not hard if you know what you're doing though.
It's only when factory tolerances and field serviceability are taken into account that chains and belts begin to even make sense. We run them because they're cheap. They work well *enough*, but even at their best they're a compromise to deal with tolerance stacks and serviceability - and they do that part of the job better than gears.
The real question the OP needs answered is where on the quality spectrum does the Milodon system land? I'd be inquiring with Milodon about the pressure angle, and if it falls between 10 and 20 degrees it should be good to go - if it's noisy, then it's setup wrong if that's where the angle is set. The next question would be how hard is it to setup, and what is involved and what the typical failures are.