Never before has so little power been made from so much displacement! (Page 38 of 57)

Shouldn't there be some steel alloy that has considerable strength and wear properties versus titanium? Ti is only superior to steel in its strength to weight ratio.

(been following this thread for a while, decided to sign up to the forums because this whole system is a very interesting design problem)

If someone has metal analysis equipment at their disposal. i'm willing to send off the lower sprocket so we can see just how much strength we're talking here.

it's an alloy so none of us really know what the strength truly is.

the failure rate does seem high, but when you look at it, it seems that everyone complains about the electric motor going out and nothing else.  the layout of the unit would make it pretty trivial to replace the electric motor with a belt and a pulley on the main shaft. this would not allow locking the clutch when the engine is stopped, but this isn't a problem in my particular application.

I must say though, when i got the unit i thought the clutches would be of a bigger diameter. i may end up right back at the NP246 route. the only thing that would make that path better is if i could put the clutch at the other end of the transfer case. but it's fairly fixed if i want to use the planetaries as part of my overall ratio.

you know, that's a very good point. i think that's probably the nail in that idea's coffin.

... except most converters have higher stall than this engine has redline I think it might be a bit difficult to use a car torque converter on an engine that idles at 1000rpm and redlines at 2000. Something out of a 7-liter diesel, maybe...

My position = rubber dampened sprocket and MAYBE a mulit-row chain like in TH400.

As another alternative solution, a strong planetary driving a chain driving a solid rear axle diff, with the gearing provided by using another high-rpm motor running against the sun gear. I have an 600cc engine with a ton of miles and a dead 2nd gear that I'm willing to donate. It'll take a bit of calculation, but in the end you'll have a smooth powertrain and some extra hp.

Can you just smooth out the power using a big flywheel, maybe something with about the same moment of inertia of the prop that was originally on the motor?

you would not say that when you saw how heavy it actually needs to be to match it. i doubt a 300-400lb flywheel would pass tech.

yup, they are definitely in the plan.

i'm not giving up on multi-disk clutches. just on the haldex solution. I'm working on finding an NP246 for a reasonable price so i can inspect it and determine feasibility. trust me, it'll be more than lemony enough for your taste

The problem with guibos is that once they fail, you're SOL and will need a tow. A motorcycle-style dampener will let you know when there's trouble (via increased vibration and clunkety noise), but won't fail outright unless you insist on hammering the poor broken thing for several minutes non-stop.

I'm still a fan of a set up like the motorcycle belt primary drive set up, provided you can find different length belts for them.

I would think the belt would give you a little dampening of the power pulses.  I know from following the thread you could make most of the parts in that fancy set up pictured, and just have to buy the belt and pulleys.

i've looked at these offerings. i'd be in for about $2500 before any fabrication and i'd still have major side-load concerns

unfortunately too long to package in the car. otherwise a great idea.

i know exactly what you're talking about. i don't know what multiple countershafts has to do with ballance shafts but it doesn't matter.

Yes, i'm quite certain that a properly designed balance shaft would help things out significantly. unfortunately i have no frekin' clue what a properly designed balance shaft should look like.

there's quite a bit to them:

for what it's worth, my motor did get the navy's recommended balance modification on the crank. so it's probably as good as it's going to get without me getting a 2nd and maybe a 3rd engineering degree.