Here is another drawback to a chain drive.
If you lower the engine so the chain drive thrust line to come out in
the right place you lose a lot of valuable volume in the
cowl for  the cooling system. In the planetary case you
have room under the engine for the water rad.

What is shown here is a four inch lower pulley and a 12 inch upper
pulley for a 3:1 reduction ratio necessary to get the
most amount of power out of an RX8 engine.

Paul Lamar
 
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