Paul, ten years ago I was toying with the idea of putting the 215 Cu
in Aluminum rover V8 engine in a Tailwind. At that time, a very
good engineer/machinist friend and I decided upon a HiVo chain drive
as the easiest and cheapest to build. The devil is certainly in the
details and unfortunately I don't remember much. I do recall that
the chain was enclosed and ran in an oil bath. There is a wide
variety of ratios available. The whole things was extremely compact
and I believe off set from the crank center line about 3 inches
though I might be wrong in this. Have you already looked into this
type of drive and rejected it? or is this something that deserves
more investigation? Jerry

Yep Very heavy.
Here are some picts. Opss can't find them will get back to you.

-- Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

Jerry,
The reason that HiVo drives are heavy is the sprockets. The link chain
functions much like a gear on its contact face. That is why it needs a
oil bath or spray bar. The drive will handle a lot of power, but the
sprockets must be steel, and therefore heavy. It will handle power in a
compact space compared to a belt which must be considerably wider but
the sprockets do limit it.
Bill Jepson

There is another very subtle factor going on here. The larger
the volume of the gear set used and this applies to belts, spur
gears as well as chains is the heavier the castings containing them
are. The wall thickness of most castings are .25 to .375. It is a
rare foundry that can cast something thinner than that. The casting
for that Geshwinder chain PSRU are very heavy indeed.

Contrast that with the volume of the housing needed to enclose
this Ford A4OD six pinion planet set.

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

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