A standard drive chain in an oil bath will outlast our cam chain.  Why does it have to be silent chain?

I think I MAY have a worn chain in Mass.  WIll find out in a month when I go for a visit.  no sprocket, though.

If you guys are interested in a total gear/chain system rebuild, Ramsey in Charlotte is willing to do that.   So is Borg Warner Morse (they'd love to convert you to their expensive HY-VO proprietary chain).  

But both guys would need a worn chain and a used gear of each kind (crank and cam) to work with along with an accurate measurement of center to center distance of the shafts the gears go on.  

I can't do anything without the parts and my window of opportunity with Borg Warner Morse (who does make the chain size we need that fits our existing gears) closes on the 19th of this month.  

I've gotten 2 "you are not our distributor customer" e-mails from the Japanese and a "our chain is not suitable for your use" from the Chinese, so my well is running pretty much dry on this project.

KennyG is willing to give up brand new good parts, but I'm not willing to take them (that's wasteful).   Some of you guys are sitting on worn parts that you have no real plans to use that you could give up for the cause.   Some of you folks who are parting out engines have the items we need, as do a few of the long term parts collectors among us.

Me, personally, I am not interested in replacing my gearing until I have worn out a couple of chains and my gearing is technically "worn out".  I am still 4,000 miles from opening my unit the first time to put the wooden block behind the right hand side chain guide and I am probably 25,000 miles away from my tensioner adaptor and 45,000 miles away from my first chain change.  That's like five to seven years out, easy.  

List price on a chain from Suzuki is $85 now, by then it will be well over $100.

I have also come across some mention of a new style hard polymer belt-style cam system that is seeking acceptance to run inside the engine (exposed to the oil bath).   Construction is somewhat like our hard plastic drive belt system except the plastic is tougher/meaner and much more temperature resistant.  If they pull that off that is something I'd check into in five years when my time comes.

Today is the 12th.  It takes 5 days to ship stuff anywhere.  If somebody want to direct ship some parts to Borg Warner Morse for them to cut up to analyze our early wear out issues please send me a PM and I'll provide you the address to ship the stuff to.  

Please understand the parts are likely not coming back and that all we may get after all the activity flurry dies down is another "can't help you after all, sorry" e-mail.

That's the way she sits, boys .... not much joy in Mudville on this one.  I think I have just about done struck out ....

Oldfeller

If we are going for a replacement chain instead of a total gear system rebuild that is all that Borg Warner Morse needs to see -- PM is sent to Lancer as of 7:00 AM Friday July 13th along with my thanks.

I hate giving up on something, stubborn I guess.

Oldfeller

two thoughts:

1.  I think we are all freaking out and rushing a bit.  We need to take our tiem and do this right, and not use up all our chances with vendors...  this is not an immediate problem in the sense that we know a few tricks to get some more life out of the system before complete failure... so unless you've already done the tab mod and are near failure again, I think we can wait to get this right (i.e. failure near, push of with tab mod instead of getting new suzuki chain... WAIT!).  We'll get this right!

2. Probably more expensive, but possibly very worthwhile: we could look into a new but pre existing  cam sprocket & cam drive gear, and a mathcing chain.  If nothing exists to fit, this may be find gears that will work with a chain, and bore/drill/lathe/mill them out to fit.

maybe this should be in the drinking & thinking thread (though of it last night   )

Lancer, PM sent again backed up with email.  Sorry, I was in a hurry this morning and must not have done it correctly.

Vroom, I think you may get an option out of Borg Warner Morse to change gear sets over to their Hy-VO product type which is similar to silent chain but slightly better.  We may also get an option out of them to get just a chain with some of their improved features but it would fit on our existing gear set.  This would be another good option as it would cost less.

Please remember, the center distance of the shafts was picked along with the diameter of the gear sets to hit the 1/4"  pitch rate of the existing chain.  You just can't willy nilly say you are going to plunk in a 3/8" chain pitch unless you can get a set of gears at a 2:1 construction ratio that happens to go the same center distance as our scoot's two shafts and it also happens to add up to a whole number of 3/8" pitches -- hey, it isn't all that easy to sub in a different pitch chain.

Considering that some options are always better than no options, we will work with what we get out of the guys and run with it as far as it will go.  If the end result doesn't suit, well you can always go back to them later armed with a little bit better knowledge and a different talking head.

Right now I'd be happy to get the issues identified with the current chain/gear set and their exact expert read on what the full spec is for the current chain.

We may get more than that.  Perhaps.  Who knows until we try.

Oldfeller

SO WHAT DOES THE CRYO THING DO FOR THE CHAIN?

Hot rodders are paying out big bucks to cryo cranks & blocks. Been going on for years. If it was just an Urban Legend, the cat would be out of the bag by now. Google cryogenic engine part treatment & look around.

here's one
http://www.nwcryo.com/motorsports.html

I am gonna drop the $$ on my next chain. I will check to see if they can do anything with the plastic guides while they are at it.