What's BEST? All About Motorcycle FINAL DRIVES: Chain, Belt, + Shaft.
Technical Editor Kevin Cameron and Editor-in-Chief Mark Hoyer talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the three types of final drive found on motorcycles. What's the final word on final drive? As usual, it's complicated, but there are distinct qualities to each type of drive that can give it an edge in performance, handling (yep), noise level, and maintenance.
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
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Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6CLI74xvMBFLDOC1tQaCOQ
Read more from Cycle World: https://www.cycleworld.com/
Buy Cycle World Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/cycleworld
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SportsTranscript
00:00Hello friends, welcome back to the cycle world podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer. I'm with Kevin Cameron technical editor
00:08Sorry about that. He's making all this stuff happen
00:12You know, he's driving the show riding the show we welcome all of you folks who
00:17Love balance as much as we do
00:21Today's podcast is talking about final drive chain belt or shaft. What's best as usual? It's complicated
00:30It's not good, I mean it's complicated but it's not complicated
00:34They're just our trade-offs as there is with anything before we get into all of that
00:40First off I want to give a shout out to the merch. I made this shirt. I scare motorcycles
00:44They don't scare me. You can get one in the link in the description
00:48You know, I like the shirt the staff was you know, they were sort of like yeah boss. That's that's great. Oh, yeah. Okay. Awesome
00:56It's fine. It's fine. I like my shirt
00:59So I get a t-shirt you get a regular cycle world shirt
01:01We got all kinds of different stuff down there hats and all that like this
01:06We really appreciate your comments particularly on YouTube, it's pretty lively
01:13It's just great to hear from everybody hear your ideas hear your comments we appreciate the support
01:19there were some really good stuff on the
01:21The great engines podcast. We did a podcast about what makes certain engines really
01:27Beautiful and fun and stand out, you know, really really run and
01:31We use the Norton commando as an emblem and then lo and behold
01:36a fellow named John Gregory
01:38commented and
01:40If you don't know who John Gregory is John Gregory who worked with TC Christensen and they did a top fuel
01:46Twin engine Norton drag bike called the hog slayer and at the time, you know circa 1970
01:52You know nitro Harleys all that stuff was really that was where kind of that's where it was at XL CH and all that
01:58yeah, XL CH and
02:00They they beat all those guys and they you know, they worked on the ports and everything
02:05This is hey enjoyed your comments on the Norton commando heads
02:08This is why TC Christensen on our top fuel Norton hog slayer beat all the Harley's Triumphs and Hondas in the 70s
02:14Basically the equivalent of combat engines that we made first
02:18And he talked about Atlas ports were terrible Mike Berliner had me bring heads to the show at Jack Williams and Norton UK
02:24Jack said this is what his designers had in mind probably anyway
02:30Comments are great. And it's one of the great things that I love about having worked at cycle world for so long
02:34Is that the readers man if you say something technical or you talk about something?
02:41You know esoteric or something in detail. There's somebody out there. You'll have some rad
02:48Spacecraft designer come in and say well actually the Young's modulus of titanium is whatever
02:53Yeah, and it's great to be held accountable. It's great to learn and have such a rich audience to help us out with that
03:02Has always been appreciated and to that point there was a guy
03:06This fellow named Houston came on and he said bull
03:10The speed of combustion is highly variable. This was in the same podcast talking about how how
03:16How long it takes to burn the charge is highly variable because it's pressure dependent and cylinder pressure is highly variable during
03:23Combustion take some propellant out of a cartridge and see how slowly it burns at atmospheric pressure compared to shooting the cartridge in a gun
03:33And not wrong, I mean the different difference between
03:39Propane
03:41Burning controllably on your barbecue or exploding is you leaving the lid down and putting that thing in a container with the right
03:48amount of air and oxygen and then suddenly you'll find out what
03:52What it is to explode. Yeah, so he's it's good
03:55And then he comes back and says more bull and this is something I talked about with Kevin maximum
03:59But this is this is not a way that Kevin would say this. I said it wrong
04:05It was roughly correct
04:07Maximum piston velocity is not at 90 degrees of crank angle
04:11But occurs when the long axis of the conrod is tangential to the circle swept by the center of the crank pin
04:17Which is actually a beautiful
04:20Technical way of saying it then he adds you guys need to sharpen up your game
04:24Fair fair game for sure. Why not? Yes, we do. We always do and Kevin pointed out that well
04:30You can also say that the connecting rod is 90 degrees to their crank pin crank arm
04:36Yeah, crank arm. Yeah, and so so anyway, we appreciate all of those
04:42The final thing was a guy called out Kevin's 27th how of squish
04:48and he said
04:5040 thou if you are feeling lucky and
04:53I think we might be talking about a difference between the two-stroke tuner squish and it may be a four
04:58I don't know. What do you think Kevin? Well, like I've heard the 27 from superbike people also
05:03Okay, so it's what they're a little short stroke engines and they
05:11Basically want to run the squish down not quite to the point where you start to see shiny areas on the piston
05:18well, you know like I
05:21Rebuilt the 58 triumph which had you know, original aluminum connecting rods. We left a little margin in there. Yes
05:29like chewing gum
05:31Yes, so anyway, we absolutely appreciate the support keep keep commenting
05:37We're reading the comments and we'll talk about some topics next week that you guys have asked for back to
05:44Final drive chain belt or shaft. What's best? Who knows? What do you think Kevin? What is best? Anyway, well best for whom? Yes
05:53What it comes down to is the old-style
05:57Chain drive is still with us because it's a compact drive. It's narrow
06:02it's quite strong and
06:05Now that chains are sealed with o-rings
06:08They don't put horrible black stuff on your t-shirt or your pants leg
06:14That 30 washings will not remove
06:17That was one of the reasons that so many people just thought chain drive was an atrocity
06:23Well, they could go to shaft drive BMW has always had shaft drive and
06:31Shaft drive is
06:33Extremely durable if you keep the oil up-to-date
06:37It'll run forever
06:39so
06:40It's ideal for long-distance touring bikes or for motorcycles owned by people who want to set it and forget it
06:48and then
06:50We have the the belt drive the cog belts that were first seen by the motor racing fraternity on
06:59driving
07:01671
07:02superchargers on top of big Chrysler motors and
07:05The sound of the belt was not discussed at that time. Why did you suppose that was?
07:12At any rate Harley decided to take the plunge and adopt
07:17Cog belt drive on their motorcycles and we can speculate that back when in the 80s when they were
07:25Chanting their mantra. We're killing the noise to keep the music. And of course the music was the patented or
07:35Copyrighted Harley Davidson sound certainly vigorously defended
07:41Defended. Yeah, just try making a Harley belt buckle and selling it
07:45So
07:47The the cog drive was a cog belt drive was first of all, it was unique second of all, it's
07:53reasonably quiet quieter than a chain and
07:59Durable enough at the time for
08:01Moderately powerful touring motorcycles. Yeah, they called it the rubber band. They had a video of Willie G
08:08There was this great big display circa 1980. I think it was the Sturgis. I want to say
08:14But there it was a great big display that played a video of Willie G
08:19espousing the benefits of the belt and and and you know millions of motorcycles later and
08:25Massive jumps in horsepower and torque. They're still quiet and they don't break they last a zillion years
08:31There's there's a lot going for them harder to change ratios and stuff. We can talk about that. I think
08:36for me
08:38The sound, you know killing the noise to keep the music is very important because there's a there's a
08:44whole
08:46You know, you get a hundred points of sound let's say to get through the sound test you got a pass
08:52and everything on the bike makes noise and it take it takes me back to a
08:57Buell engineer named Gary Valine back in the tube frame Buell days and
09:02you know, I mean imagine, you know, the the sports engine is such a
09:06Demure and quiet engine in the first place and then they're like cranking it up, you know, yeah like
09:13Compression and you know, they're just revving them higher, you know, the 1200s and the 984s later
09:18I mean, they just really worked super hard on Don Tilley
09:23Had such trouble
09:25With head gaskets in that 1320 motor that he built that he ended up with half-inch studs
09:34For them holding down each cylinder, so there was some serious pressure there were things inside that wanted out
09:42Yeah, and so, you know, you you've got all that going on and Gary was the guy charged with sort of driving
09:47How do we get it through sound and in my meeting with him? It was spectacular
09:51He showed me all these pictures of tube frame Buells with essentially what looked like modified shipping blankets
09:58Like you get him at you know, U-Haul pleated pleated blankets and they'd all been cut and they were draped. It looked like a
10:05You know like a mountain goat, you know
10:07just had like sides on it and they would what they would do is cover up components and
10:12They would like leave the top end or they would leave
10:16You know, they would leave the bottom and they'd leave the cam side
10:18Guess what? He got four cams with gears and all the stuff going on. Yeah, we're making noise making noise and
10:25It's loud and the chain. He's like you wouldn't believe how loud a chain is and
10:32You don't hear it because it you know, it's kind of mixed up
10:35It's kind of worry in the background and then you're sitting usually you're sitting on top of the intake and the intake trumpets are
10:41Shooting noise out the top and like an MV Augusta from mid, you know, like 2005
10:45Holy cow, the airbox was like in your helmet
10:49it was amazing all that sound but there was the chain and he said it's really hard with the chain and
10:54Welcome to belts, you know like belts just completely eliminate zero motorcycles zero electrics
11:00I've ridden every zero electric since the very early days
11:05They had chain drive and in an otherwise
11:09Interesting sir, interestingly serene and completely different riding experience from a combustion motorcycle
11:15Beautiful in its silence. The chain was there wrecking the whole thing just whizzing along
11:21You're like man, this thing is really loud. And as soon as they went to belts, you're just like perfect application
11:28perfect application, I mean
11:30And then if you want to have some insight into where this noise is coming from
11:37It it only looks like a chain wraps around the sprocket to form a circle
11:44Actually, it forms a polygon
11:47Because the chain individual chain links are straight so you wrap those around say you've got a 15 tooth front sprocket a
11:55Lot of little bikes used to have them like arty 350s and so on
12:01Well to get insight into the vibration of a chain and its potential for making noise
12:09imagine that the wheels on your car are steel and
12:1315 sided as
12:16You drive down the road every wheel is going to be buzzing
12:20Well when the when the chain rollers rushing towards a little slot that it's going to nestle down into it
12:30It hits it with an impact and
12:34There's also a rise and fall of the chain because
12:38as a
12:4115 sided
12:42Polygon rotates you see at any given point that the point is uppermost and then a flat is uppermost
12:48So there's this up and down. It's a bow stringing
12:52vibration and
12:55It's quite uncivilized
12:57Well, surely we could reduce that with a gigantic counter shaft sprocket. Well, if you get a 50 tooth front sprocket
13:05We'd be fine. I used to I used to use diamond chain back when they weren't all nervous about motorcycle liability and
13:13In their catalog, which was an industrial drive catalog, it said we recommend that you not use a sprocket
13:21with fewer than 20 teeth
13:24and I think that
13:26probably Harley Davidson used diamond chain at one time and
13:30They read that recommendation and their front sprockets are big
13:34Which reduces the amount of vibration the reduces the amount of noise. It doesn't make it go away though
13:41Yeah, well my 1972 XS 650 Yamaha has a diamond chain from back in the day on and it's still it's in beautiful condition
13:49It wasn't wasn't ridden that much and it does not have a 20 tooth front sprocket
13:54But it does have a diamond chain what a what a chain drive does do though is it makes changing drive ratios?
14:03Easy makes it casual
14:06Because you
14:07At the front you if there's a cover over the primary sprocket you pull the cover three fasteners maximum
14:15chip the
14:16tab washer and
14:18With your impact wrench and the correct sized sprocket, which is probably $30 nowadays
14:25We you and you can pull this the sprocket off
14:30Loosen the chain adjusters put a bigger sprocket on slide the wheel forward whatever you want. You can change gear ratios quite
14:38Rapidly, or you pull the rear wheel out like I saw Arturo Magni do at
14:45Mosport when they had the Canadian Grand Prix in
14:491967 he had the mechanics remove the rear wheel and he
14:55beckoned
14:57Imperiously to a young man who brought a blanket and he pointed
15:01At the ground. I want the blanket here. The blanket was provided then the wheel was put on the blanket
15:10Then he reached up and somebody put the giant circlet pliers in his hand
15:16To be the MV Augusta crew chief
15:20He was playing it for all it was worth but he wasn't gonna have some
15:25Recent hire put the circlip in backwards but
15:30racers changed gear ratios constantly so they
15:34Yeah, could we just stop very very quickly and do a do a sidebar on?
15:39What mean what does it mean to put in the circlet backwards because if you pay attention
15:44There's a difference. Yeah
15:47Let people know because this is one of those. This is one of those nuggets that
15:52Has your shit fall off on the front straight
15:55At Mosport if the circlip potentially is in the wrong direction. What does that mean?
16:00well circlips are formed by punching them out of sheet steel and
16:05When you when you punch it form anything you've got a rounded edge and you have a sharp edge and they want the sharp
16:14edge
16:15on the load-bearing side and
16:18I
16:19learned a lot of this stuff when I
16:23Worked a job in which we had an advisor who came in on Wednesdays
16:28And he said I want you to do this this and this and when you're done
16:33I'll be there next week
16:36So I would get these things done in an hour. So and then I would read
16:41industrial catalogs and
16:43There's all kinds of wonderful stuff in a ball-bearing catalog in a in a chain and sprocket
16:49catalog and a circlip or a fastener catalog and I drank all that stuff in because I
16:55was curious and
16:58So you'll find all that stuff in there and of course
17:02I've seen so many people put o-rings in place with gasket goo on them
17:08I'm just laughing because I am laughing because if we want to know what what made Kevin Cameron
17:16Kevin Cameron finds it interesting to read ball-bearing catalogs and so do I by the way?
17:21I just haven't used it as well as you but that's the difference. Is that natural curiosity folks?
17:26You got to keep piling it in and that's how you that's how you learn the difference between the sharp edge
17:33Of a circlip and the rounded edge of a circlip and which way to put it in you want to put it in the sharp
17:38Edge because it's good, you know sharp edge on the load-bearing side, so it doesn't fly out
17:43Yep. All right
17:44So you were talking about how easy it is to change gear ratio and how you can do whatever you want
17:48But I think also on the racing front
17:51There's a wider implication to that that we should talk about
17:57Chain pull. Oh, yes. Well now we're we're getting into what this subject
18:03is
18:04interaction of final drive and rear suspension
18:08And it happens with everything. It's not just chain. It's going to be chain
18:11It's going to be also belt and it's going to be shaft which has its own wacky consequences. So yes
18:17It's very easy
18:19For the tension in the top run the driving run of the chain to be thousands of pounds in lower years
18:26So that being so you've got this large force there
18:32Okay, set that aside for a moment
18:34normally when any vehicle that is driven by
18:39Wheels
18:41Accelerates it squats at the rear somewhat and lifts at the front and the ultimate expression
18:48Of this is the wheelie
18:50And the reason for this is that the driving force is applied at pavement level
18:56and
18:57the
18:59Mass of the vehicle and the rider in the fuel
19:03Acts as though it is concentrated at the center of mass of that cluster of three, which is about two feet off the ground
19:11So a lever of two feet
19:14times the driving force which can be
19:17hundreds of feet
19:20Hundreds or even a thousand more than a thousand pounds you have a large torque tending
19:28to
19:29Lift the front and settle the rear
19:32Okay
19:34In the 1980s when a lot of really powerful motorcycles were going super bike racing
19:41uh
19:43People began to notice that under certain circumstances
19:47Their bikes would mysteriously
19:50Head for the outside as they accelerated off corners
19:54well, they began to look into it and they saw that it was sort of like when the back of the motorcycle would
20:01Squat down when the rider turned the throttle
20:06so
20:07Then they put some bright folks on this and they saw that
20:12The various forces in play the driving force at the bottom of the tire
20:17The chain tension and so forth could add up
20:21either
20:22to
20:24Neutrality neither squat nor lift
20:28Or squat which made you head for the outside by taking weight off the front tire
20:34Uh
20:35or outright lift
20:37so I used to see the
20:39tz750 yamaha road race bikes
20:43Lift when the rider would make this first to second upshift
20:48Off of the old turn nine at laguna seca
20:52And I thought well, that's that's interesting
20:56and
20:58The next step in this mystery was
21:01That riders became upset about this because it became something that they didn't understand and which on certain circuits with certain gearing
21:09Could be a problem
21:11So when they got the motorcycle so that it didn't
21:14Squat and did not head for the outside which none of us likes
21:20road racers make the the sign of
21:22of squat and push like this they go
21:28Crossing arms folks listening on spotify
21:32Crossing arms folding the front crossing crossing. Yes, not a good feeling when they found that they had a setup that
21:40That really worked
21:42The riders would say don't don't change anything on this bike. Well
21:48Yeah, but we've got to change the sprockets who are going to
21:51Such and such a circuit next weekend. Don't don't even bother don't even bother so
21:58To get around this at that level of knowledge about what was happening
22:03The superbike people began to make alternate primary ratios for the engine
22:09And they came in little fitted case, you know, just those little gears and big gears
22:14and uh
22:15There's a rule against it in world superbike now because of course if people are getting away with something
22:21There ought to be a rule against it. Well, I I when you say that I think about how that might influence the engagement of the clutch
22:28Sure because if you're spinning the clutch faster or slower it's gonna it's gonna change surely it'll change
22:34But everybody was focused on this one thing and just as at the end of the 70s
22:39Kenny was focused on turning and he kept
22:43steepening the steering head angle until uh
22:46graham crosby said
22:48After riding kenny's bike. He said it's like
22:51Riding a push bike with the front end turned around backwards
22:55So people there's fashion
22:58And it became very fashionable to worry about this. Uh late 80s early 90s
23:04Okay, finally oleen's
23:07Gets on the case
23:08They solve the the arithmetic and they come out with a four-page paper on how to set up the back end of your bike
23:16So that you don't squat and push
23:19And
23:21also along comes uh
23:24The compu track people and their whole
23:28approach to motorcycle setup
23:31Begins with setting up the squat
23:34versus anti-squat
23:37relationship in the back of the bike
23:39What they found was that if you could raise or lower
23:43the swing arm pivot
23:47That you could vary
23:49the uh
23:50Degree of lift force that the chain produced and the way it produces the lift force is
23:56If you put a plane through the swing arm
24:00That passes through the center of the pivot and the center of the axle
24:03That's the swing that I call that the central plane the angle between that and the tension run of the chain
24:11Generates a tangent force tending to push the swing arm down at the back
24:17Well
24:18If you get it, right
24:20When you gas it up off a turn
24:22Your bike neither lifts nor squats
24:26And the rider is happy and stops
24:29bitching about it
24:31And of course that's always very important. Well, that's this really if you you boil it down
24:36That's the goal or that's the job of the tuner get your rider to stop bitching about it
24:42Rider quiet. Yes quiet rider is a happy rider. Yeah
24:46and so
24:47Uh in order to make it legal
24:50to do this in super bike racing and in
24:54Super sport classes the manufacturers began to offer
24:58Variable height swing arm pivots and the way they did that was they put a little rectangular box in the frame on either side
25:05And there was a plate that fitted into that that carried
25:09The swing arm pivot and the plate would be located. You could buy these plates
25:15that
25:16Probably they had them in one millimeter increments and you'd have a stack of these little things and you'd you'd put in the ones that
25:23uh
25:24That gave the quietest rider
25:26It reminds me of uh going to a supercross. I want to say probably circa
25:33You know 2000 something like that
25:36uh where a rider I
25:39I don't remember who it was, but a rider showed up
25:42and uh
25:43his
25:44His gear compliment you could see the countershaft and and the final drive sprocket and suddenly his countershaft was
25:51Extremely large a veritable saw blade. Yes, and and it would do the same thing
25:57You you if you changed where the chain was if you didn't have adjustable ride height
26:01you might be able to have an influence on that by
26:05Keeping the same or similar ratios
26:07but increasing or decreasing the size of the countershaft and then in turn also the final drive and you could
26:12Change the chain pull it also
26:15I wonder, you know, I wonder about other
26:18other possibilities or were they just messing
26:21With the heads of other teams because like you just show up
26:24And you put your giant sprockets on like everybody else is like, what do we we got to try?
26:28What are they doing? We got to try that
26:32well, I think the the the thing is that must be borne in mind here is that this
26:38chain pull effect
26:40And the degree of squat or anti-squat is strongly dependent on engine power
26:45so
26:46It was became important with the 500 two strokes
26:50it became
26:51Important when thousand cc street bikes making 150 horsepower
26:59Entered production and so
27:02Uh people who are riding a 250 a 350
27:06a lower middle weight
27:08um or a motorcycle that
27:11Doesn't have a tremendous power to weight ratio. They don't have to worry about this. I don't I don't think there's too many
27:18um
27:19Old air force officers who go touring with the wife on the back of a large
27:25Touring motorcycle rig who are going to moan and groan about
27:31squat and anti-squat
27:33But if they do they can go see the compu track man and uh
27:38Get fixed right up
27:39Well imagine, you know the days
27:41I mean, it's always complicated in a race setting to get your bike to work as perfectly as possible or as you've always said
27:48100 doesn't make the grid, you know, you have to work as hard as you can in the time you have allowed
27:53and
27:54You got to show up you got to get on the grid 100 doesn't make the grid but you want to try and I think
27:59I think back to 500 two stroke days
28:01286 pounds
28:03And 200 something horsepower
28:06Delivered in a relatively narrow
28:09band and um without much in the way of electronic intervention and uh
28:15What a what a razor's edge. Yes
28:20There were a few who were comfortable there
28:26Very interesting so, um, you know chains require
28:30a certain degree of slack
28:32When you're adjusting your chain, you can think about you can read your book
28:36You can read your manual and it'll say depending on the bike. It might say
28:41220 millimeters 25 millimeters one inch 1.2 inches
28:45Of slack and you need that slack in the chain and you also because of the relationship on many bikes
28:52of the swing arm pivot
28:54To the counter shaft because they're not concentric usually there have been a few experiments with concentric
29:01They never will cease
29:03People are so pleased when they realize why?
29:07With this simple invention we can have constant chain tension
29:11And never have to worry about it again
29:14And then of course if it's a large powerful motorcycle used in a sporting manner
29:18They will discover what was discovered in the late 80s and early 90s
29:23It won't turn yeah
29:27And so that relationship
29:29Uh, you know, I think back to some mv augustas in the mid 2000s
29:34Where you would look at your bike parked on the side stand and there would be a tremendous arc in the chain
29:42You think well, gee, I wonder if that chain's loose and you'd go over
29:45and you'd say and hit it and it would flop around quite a bit and then
29:50You think that through and like well
29:52That's that all the free sag is gone
29:54Basically because it's up on the side stand and I kind of bounce off of it and if you sit on the motorcycle
29:59It changes the relationship between the axle and the counter shaft and then the tension's in a really nice area
30:05So that that actually changes through the stroke your chain tension varies slightly sometimes. Yeah
30:12And you you know follow the manufacturer's recommendation, but
30:16When you do that
30:17Flop the chain up and down and get a feel for it because then you can set chain tension
30:23Just by doing that. You don't need to get your you don't necessarily need to get your dial indicator out
30:28Just set your chain tension. But what about you don't want to end up with uh,
30:34a preload
30:35on the chain so that it so that it's tight as a bowstring that's
30:40Don't want
30:41No murder on your engine cases murder on your chain
30:44You know, you're going to be pulling on the shaft the counter shaft you'll be pulling on the axle you're going to get
30:50unwanted input
30:52into the movement of your suspension now, there's another point here and that is that uh,
30:57We should point out that you have to lift a chain a lot more to make it slip on the sprocket
31:04Then you would have to lift
31:05a uh
31:07Cog belt reading my mind kevin
31:11That was exactly
31:13Okay, that was exactly what I was going to ask you about so what this means is that although it is possible
31:22For a chain to jump on a sprocket and rich schlachter's
31:27Chain did just that in the
31:30In the what was it 1980?
31:33daytona 200
31:34He was pulling away from those
31:37undeserving others when
31:39It bad things began to happen and he very
31:44uh in a responsible fashion, he rescued the best finish he could come up with without
31:50Uh using all that throttle and finish third
31:54but uh
31:56In order to keep a belt system
31:59from
32:00Lifting up enough to slip on a sprocket
32:04There has to be often an idler to make sure that the whole thing is kept
32:10uh
32:11Down in its in its little
32:14Grooves on the sprockets so that slippage is impossible
32:18And it actually requires some tension to hold it in to the little wells where the cogs meet the belt
32:26Yep
32:27So that's another thing. You know, we do we haven't mentioned the effect of uh
32:34Pinion climb
32:35on rear suspension in the case of shaft driven motorcycles
32:39and
32:4082 I went to the elephant rally in germany and
32:44there was a bmw guy there riding and he
32:49Rolled the throttle on and off
32:51um
32:52Probably a dash five motorcycle and the rear end would
32:57Rise up and squat. It was it was comical. So, um
33:03Motor subject motorcycles are a serious matter. They're not comedy and to conserve this
33:10What para lever?
33:12Yes, and uh
33:15Also john whitner the late john whitner
33:18um to prevent his
33:21battle of the twins moto guzzi from
33:24Battle of the twins moto guzzi from this ridiculous performance
33:30Pivoted the gear case
33:34On bearings and reacted its torque to the chassis
33:40Not to the swing arm
33:42so
33:43By varying the height of where he attached it on the chassis. He could create
33:48uh any squat anti-squat arrangement that he liked
33:52and
33:53Para lever is bmw's name for that kind of a of a setup
33:58And it it works perfectly. Well, it's civilized. Yeah, it works great
34:03It makes it makes me think of oudo geetle and the superbike the bmw superbike in the late 70s
34:09Like how in how on earth did anybody race that?
34:12you know, I mean of all the of all the complications of having the cylinder sticking out wide and needing cornering clearance to
34:20Squeezing that engine so much horsepower out of the engine you talk about that
34:23You you've recounted the story of of a strobe running on the engine on a dyno to freeze its motion and watching the
34:31Engine cases breathe like of all the challenges and then by the way
34:35we have a shaft drive on a racing motorcycle like
34:39I just
34:40Mad respect to reg predmore and team oudo for for knocking that one out
34:45And of course the thing about racing is that it is very ad hoc
34:50It justice this is why a former and highly respected
34:55racing chief at american honda
34:57gary mathers
34:59said
35:00uh
35:02What do you do when the sky is darkening
35:07The hay is mature
35:10And the baler is broken
35:13Who do you get do you get an engineer or do you get a farmer?
35:18And he said the answer is you get a farmer because the farmer
35:22Deeply feels the need to get dry hay in the barn. So his animals can eat. He's highly motivated
35:30engineer practical
35:33He may try things that he would be told by official sources are impossible and won't work and many of them don't work
35:42But when you're desperate you try something it's called grasping at straws
35:48and
35:50uh that business of of uh
35:55Udo went to the machinists and said
35:58We want to put the cylinders on the motorcycle not
36:02Straight across from each other, but we want them like this
36:06Extremely not not a 180 degree v-twin, but just a little bit a very wide angle
36:12Get a little more clearance there
36:14And that was done
36:17so these are
36:19practical solutions
36:21worked out by practical
36:23uh
36:25Workers and
36:28This is the way science often works
36:31People don't sit there
36:33Deeply cogitating about
36:36What is time?
36:37instead
36:39People come up with something that works
36:42And have no idea why
36:44And the science guys come in afterwards
36:47and work out how
36:49how the relationships work and that's
36:51Olin's little booklet, which is now a much sought after item
36:56because i've been told by olin's people that uh, they still get people coming to the
37:02truck
37:03asking for
37:04an absolutely
37:06Incredibly stiff spring which is cataloged, but nobody carries it
37:11Why do you want this spring?
37:13uh
37:15well
37:17Our bike squatting at the back
37:20And we don't know what to do about it
37:22and
37:23Ducati ran went back in their days when their swing arm was 19 inches long. They ran these stiff springs
37:30and
37:31Uh, it was just a it was a cost of doing business
37:35Yeah, but now it's well understood
37:38at least by those who
37:39uh can read
37:41and uh
37:43It's no longer a problem most of the time
37:47Yeah, just reading. Um, that was that was a nice little quip you had there, but in all actual fact
37:55What you describe someone comes to the truck asking for a stiff spring
37:58It's all so much that not everything but so much has already been done and it's already been written down and it's already been discovered
38:06And it's in dusty old books aerodynamics
38:10Aerodynamics high speed internal combustion engine like the same mistakes keep getting made over and over again only because
38:17the old guy who knew it retired or
38:19you know, they they gave this project to somebody who didn't have direct experience with the previous failures and
38:27and it's this
38:28Constant cycle and I think you know, I think the center of mass moves along
38:32But there's still guys up here in the front and there's still guys here in the back
38:37Outliers. Yeah outliers still get it getting it weirdly wrong
38:41Also, uh in a world that changes as fast as ours does I mean, I remember a day when there were no
38:48Smartphones, can you imagine that?
38:50Imagine yes in in such a fast changing world. It is understandable that people would think
38:56If it wasn't invented in the last five years
38:59It's unimportant
39:01Well in the sheer volume of information coming out. Yeah all every day everything that's being committed
39:07To to the cloud everything that's being committed to the cloud and here we are doing a podcast and I think
39:14The worst thing about the internet is the signal to noise ratio if you want to go find actual information
39:20Out there in space. It's such a great tool like it. How could you live without it?
39:25How could you live without how to's on youtube and all the other things
39:29except
39:30There's such a volume in mass now and you're relying on you know, the fabled algorithm to serve you
39:37The thing that you're actually looking for and it's uh, it's a real challenge. But yeah, of course, I mean it's uh,
39:44It's it's hard to find the truth. That's why you keep working at it and take your own notes. That's why I have
39:51I among many others have found it useful
39:55to think of what sentences are likely to be in the
40:00Document i'm looking for. Well, I don't know the title
40:04I don't know the author but I know it must exist
40:07And so I construct these sentences and I enter them and quite often I get a useful hit
40:15Well, certainly if you say what causes a heart attack you're going to get one sort of once
40:20one set of results, but if you say
40:24Causes and resolutions of myocardial infarction
40:28You're going to get a completely different set of information. Yes
40:32Much different results and you would apply that as your vocabulary and understanding of chain drives and shaft drives and belts and cogs and everything
40:40Uh expanded you could use the language that might get you the results you're looking for
40:46It reminds me as many things as you say, uh
40:49You live long enough and everything reminds you of something else
40:52um are
40:54If you're lucky
40:57It reminds me of our conversation yesterday about uh, the the what did I say the uh
41:03The journey away from helplessness that that's really what we're talking about in trying to figure
41:07Yeah, and trying to figure out everything
41:11You know, I bought a racked
41:13I totaled my yamaha rd400 as many 16 year olds did I high-sided it and just mashed it up
41:20And that was the end and my parents said that's what motorcycles are water under the bridge son
41:25and to that I say
41:27Look at me now
41:28Um, but also I had to go out and buy a car. That was it
41:31And so I I found a triumph tr6. It was completely destroyed, you know, I had no idea
41:36That it was so bad off. It was kind of shiny and uh, but it you know
41:40it was burning oil and the clutch wasn't working right and the brakes were
41:44were not good and I I didn't know how to solve that and I felt helpless and
41:50That really that car kind of started the journey i'd been interested in things but I had real motivation
41:56I had no money. I couldn't go down to raise auto electric and get it fixed
42:00I had to fix it myself for the least amount of money
42:04And I had to use the car I had to get places
42:08And uh, you talk about motivation there you go and uh the journey away from helplessness and that uh
42:14we have a lot of great tools and uh, dusty old books are still useful internet's very useful and
42:20we hope
42:22In some way this is also useful. I want to
42:25um
42:27tip my hat to the dirt track people because they came up with
42:31A working understanding of the squad anti-squat business long before the road race people did
42:38and of course the dirt track people are
42:42Not working with something that is
42:45Factory sacred
42:48There were all these people who had tz250 yamahas. I said don't touch anything. It's the way yamaha designed it
42:56But kelker others you could you could say oh kel could you
43:02Do your thing with this motorcycle and he'd go into his shop shorten the headers on the pipes 20 millimeters
43:1025,000 off the head
43:13And widen the exhaust port a millimeter on each side and maybe if it was a 77
43:21Raise the exhaust port
43:23And
43:25Instead of 10 000 rpm
43:28In top gear, it would be 12 000 rpm
43:32and
43:34that was the wonderful thing about two strokes was that you didn't need a norton cam grinder and
43:40all kinds of
43:42scratch
43:43To make the thing faster, but there are all these people that wouldn't wouldn't touch anything whereas dirt trackers
43:51Are all natural experimentalists and they came up with this and they also came up with
43:56uh extended suspension travel
44:00Before road races road race began to get into extended travel 74 75 in that period
44:07so
44:08um, those are a group of valuable experimentalists who who come up with a lot of really useful stuff for all of
44:16Motorcycling. Well, I mean dirt track really also
44:19Was at the forefront of where to put the engine
44:23Yeah, were they not, you know, they really they
44:26They worked hard to move it forward. That's what that's what made the xr750 so nice is a 45 degree v
44:33You could mash that thing up against the front wheel. Yep, and it wasn't some big bulky thing getting in the way
44:39I mean there were a lot of there were a lot of really interesting
44:42things going on with the xr, you know size of the flywheels the inertia of the flywheels and
44:48I mean, you know really smart folks
44:51Used all that experience to build
44:54This thing this engine that dominated dirt track for so long
44:58but
45:00final drive so
45:05Where we ended up chains are noisy, but highly useful we can get around the sound
45:10We love o-ring. I love o-ring chains because I don't have to use that heavy-duty black stuff
45:15But a shout out unsponsored shout out
45:18honda's non-o-ring chain lube the honda pro oils
45:22Is spectacularly durable and sticky and so is pj1
45:26One they're the black stuff the really gooey black stuff. I run as a nod to the past
45:31I run rattled chain on my british my british bike. It's also the right width so it doesn't drag on the
45:37Cases or things like that because the 530s are too wide
45:41So they use the british chain and that's the chain lube that makes it the velocette the entire length of the velocette rally with
45:47With some uh, some lubrication left new chains, you know, you have the o-ring
45:51You kind of want to cushion the outside and and keep it from resting but buttering your chain on a regular basis
45:57Keep it clean folks, you know clean your chain. Just clean it and put that you can put that waxy stuff on that's cool
46:03The dirt doesn't stick to it
46:04Use the clear stuff if that, you know
46:07If you have like nice gold plating on the side and you know
46:09Want to you want your did to look spectacular it parked with the light glinting off of it
46:15um, because as you will learn if you get
46:18original chain
46:20dirt on
46:22Any clothing 30 washings?
46:24Doesn't touch it. It's still there
46:27I don't know. I mean it this is actually
46:30You know reading the old haynes manuals or or even no, it's not even haynes manuals
46:36It's original manuals or the red book for velocettes all that really old stuff. They would tell you to
46:42To put a pan on a hot plate
46:45and to melt grease
46:47And put your chain in it submerge. Yeah submerge it and let it cool and then
46:53Pull the goo out and like scrape off the extra grease
46:57And that's how you got your lubricant back in the day inside
47:02Your chain and what is grease except oil with some soap in it that lets it hold together. Yeah
47:09Gives it some salinity. Yeah
47:11Yeah
47:13So thank goodness doesn't run out of ball bearings, for example. Yeah wheel bearings for example. Yeah
47:19I'm, just glad I don't have to put grease on a hot plate
47:22I got o-rings or x-rings or or whatever holding that stuff inside the chain belts have a great and wide application
47:30They're quiet
47:31They're spectacular on electric motorcycles. They make perfect sense there. They're great on harleys
47:37They're getting better. They're becoming stronger per per inch of width
47:43And they are an entirely respectable form of motorcycle final drive. It's not some harley peculiarity
47:52Something to think about if you're if you're interested in design or if you're just curious it's it's worth looking into
47:59Yeah, you did a really good story
48:01We talked to some gates engineers about final drive and they have their their latest motorcycle belt drives
48:07And one of the things they were able to do was reduce the diameter of the countershaft. They're able to do a tighter wrap
48:14without harming the
48:15Structure in the belt and so they're making the they're making the packaging better because if you notice
48:21A lot of electrics have a giant cog belt in the back
48:25for the ratios that work on electric bikes and they're able to now they're able to
48:30Moderate that and make something that's a little more visually normal looking for us. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just what you're used to
48:36Uh, it's it really is we're very easily
48:40I don't know. I think we're still wild animals in that
48:43Uh, you know, there is there is a strong persisting
48:48Attitude and I have some sympathy for it which says familiar is safe
48:54I know what a motorcycle should look like. Yes
48:58and when you come with something that is
49:02out there
49:03the initial reaction is quite often negative
49:08and
49:09Uh, I remember there was a french a french team that were building
49:14some
49:15uh alternative front end
49:18and
49:19Kenny roberts went to see those guys as he is curious
49:23Uh, he also knows a lot. He has had such experiences in his life. Anyway, he went to see those guys
49:31And he said what is this?
49:33What's the purpose of it? What are you trying to accomplish here? And he said?
49:36Oh, well, we you see we are trying to avoid the chatter
49:42the chatter
49:44And he said oh, that's great. Now you got you know, you got rid of chatter and now you got hop
49:51So
49:53His attitude toward it was a very practical one, which is come and see me when it works
49:59Yeah
50:00And that is why
50:03motorcycle racing
50:05Is not a futuristic contest of
50:09um
50:11wacky
50:12multi-link
50:14ball jointed
50:16contraptions
50:17Because they've all been tried
50:20In racing and they failed
50:23To show an advantage. This doesn't mean that that this will always be the case
50:28someone may come up with an
50:30An exception to this that is really golden
50:34And i'm hoping i'll see it
50:36Yes
50:37Um, I don't want to dismiss things basically that doesn't look like a motorcycle
50:43But there is that attitude
50:45and so
50:47manufacturers have to
50:49uh
50:51Pay attention to that and not come up with something that is too
50:56Funny looking
50:57Yeah, funny looking. Well, I mean imagine
51:00How hard would it be to do an enclosed chain and how long would that last if you put oil in an enclosed compartment?
51:07and you did a chain final drive that was
51:10Enclosed like that. It would last a spectacularly long period of time sure would yeah, maybe not as long as uh,
51:17You know a shaft final drive, but darn near close
51:21But don't you dare?
51:23Put an enclave enclosed chain on my
51:27You know t700 or whatever, you don't like your tenor right like don't even uh, no and so that's just you know, hey
51:34with sound
51:35uh
51:36People like the sound of shifting through the gears
51:40Yeah, and it's part of what they feel a motorcycle is
51:45so when
51:46manufacturers honda for example
51:49Come out with something that allows the engine to stay at its maximum horsepower speed or its maximum torque speed
51:57while the vehicle accelerates
51:59That's what that's why we have a multi-speed gearbox in the first place
52:04The oldest motorcycles had one speed which was 24 miles per hour
52:11You got the thing going by by paddling along
52:15and then uh dropping a
52:17A compression release and chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck chuck. I'm moving
52:25and
52:27then when they got a little more power from the engine so that
52:30the difference between
52:32Minimum speed and maximum speed became larger. They needed two speeds indian won the tt in 1911
52:40with the two speed
52:42And it had a dog ring shifter
52:45Latest thing kawasaki had a dog ring shifter on some model
52:49I think at any rate then three speeds four speeds five speeds now here we are with six speeds
52:55That's all so we can keep the engine
52:57Closer to its best performance. Well belts. Yeah belts on on utvs
53:02We have a title called utvdriver.com and they test utvs and the mass
53:07I mean they are using gear ratios and transmissions and paddle shift and stuff, but the bulk of utvs and uh,
53:14Atvs are a belt drive with you know sheaves and yeah, it's just an automatic snowmobile drive snowmobile drive
53:21It's absolutely it is a snowmobile drive
53:24it's what they came from and they they
53:26you know you get it to swing out the weights swing out and you tune that with weights to
53:31basically operate at the torque peak rpm typically
53:36and um
53:37Nobody cares over there
53:38We talk about it because zach bowman the editor-in-chief is is also a mad car and motorcycle enthusiast and
53:44We like the way things sound when they shift but having experienced, you know, tons of utvs over the years now
53:52I'm, pretty happy with the belt drive. It's incredibly duro durable
53:56It's incredibly flexible. It's essentially completely automatic and it works great
54:01And yeah, it makes a sound that sounds like a utv doing its thing
54:06It sounds perfectly fine to me, but you have to be true. You've got to train yourself out of it. Yeah you do
54:12You or
54:13Some people will hear that sound the engine accelerates and holds at a constant level
54:18Say, why does it go into a sickly moan like that and just stay there?
54:22Yeah, that can't be any good
54:25You know, I mean I will always I will always take a 64 e-type coupe shifting through the gears or a ferrari 250 gto
54:33V12 ripping through the I mean, yes, I like flames coming out the tailpipe, but I can also
54:39Respect what else is going on elsewhere?
54:42So I think we've uh, we've reached the finality of final drive. I did suggest to the producer, uh,
54:49indicated
54:50Here in the last few minutes of this podcast that we do one that just calls kevin and mark bs about stuff for 45 minutes
54:58We may in fact do that we will have peter egan on soon
55:02um
55:03And we appreciate again like comment and subscribe get down there and uh, tell us what's on your mind
55:09Uh, and we appreciate all the support and thanks for listening you bet