Cam Gear vs Cam Chain
Cruiser
Joined: Mar 2007
Posts: 211
Likes: 1
From: Southern California
RE: Cam Gear vs Cam Chain
What sold me was when a buddy broke his cam chain in the middle of nowheresville. Another buddy had to ride back to his house for the truck. Nope.... don't need the hassle. Also, better performance with gears. Just wondering why HD didn't do it in the first place?
Outstanding HDF Member
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 2,415
Likes: 197
RE: Cam Gear vs Cam Chain
Whether you use a chain or gear to drive your cams makes no difference in horspower or torque. If you are driving the SAME grind cam with either system the outcome will be nearly identical. The longivity and piece of mind from loosing the SPRING tensioned cam tensioners and the flat drive plate "silent" chain is a whole different story. If the gear driven cam setup is installed properly, it will likely outlast the engine, while the chain driven system may require some maintainence. The fly in the ointment so to speak is crankshaft runout has to be less than .003 and the gear backlash must bewithin spec or life of the geartrain will be short, and noisy at best. The new roller chain setup is almost as bulletproof as a gear setup and a BUNCH more forgiving when it comes to installation at about the same price in the pre 07 engines.When I "doctor" my own bike the new 07-08 roller chain will be what I use. I'm sure others will have a different opinion.
Outstanding HDF Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 3,437
Likes: 15
RE: Cam Gear vs Cam Chain
On another site, Blackhills Ken from Blackhills custom cycles did a back to back dyno with gear drives vs chain drives same bike same dyno same day and interestingly enough the chain drives producedslightly better numbers. He figured the bike was happier with slightly retarded timing due to the introducedcam chain slop. No way you could feel the seat of the pants difference between two identical cam grinds unless your chains were so worn that the bike barely ran,probably take about 300,000 or more to get to that point LOL.
Road Master
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 1,162
Likes: 1
From: Just South of Detroit, MI
RE: Cam Gear vs Cam Chain
ORIGINAL: ironspirit_3
What sold me was when a buddy broke his cam chain in the middle of nowheresville. Another buddy had to ride back to his house for the truck. Nope.... don't need the hassle. Also, better performance with gears. Just wondering why HD didn't do it in the first place?
What sold me was when a buddy broke his cam chain in the middle of nowheresville. Another buddy had to ride back to his house for the truck. Nope.... don't need the hassle. Also, better performance with gears. Just wondering why HD didn't do it in the first place?
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
