Kathy, I took a look at that cool video and have a couple of remarks, and a question or two.
When decelerating, using the engine to slow the machine, the bottom span of the primary chain is under tension, forcing the tensioner shoe to the bottom of its travel. As the chain and adjuster shoe wear, the slack at the top of the chain will increase, eventually allowing the chain to make contact with the primary housing when braking with the engine. Can you comment about the recommended interval and procedure for servicing the unit in order to prevent the eventual contact between the chain and primary housing?
The attached screen print from the video was taken during a brief period when there was some visible “chain snatch” along the lower span of the chain. Also visible is the high frequency vertical movement of the tensioner shoe as it follows the chain, cycling rapidly through its range of travel.
The shoe’s movement does not appear to be dampened in any way, allowing it to build inertia before it bottoms off its stop. My sense is that this action may result in the eventual breakage of the shoe. Kathy, have you folks had any experience with broken tensioner shoes, and if so, can you comment on some of the possible causes?
The video is cool, but I’d like to see the same shot at a higher frame rate with the engine just running at idle. The ability to slow the action down, coupled with the extreme chain snatch at idle would make for an interesting frame-by-frame video experience. Actually it would be fun to watch this video at any frame rate with the engine just running at idle. Can you folks post a video like that?
Hello djkak, thanks for your interest and questions. Hopefully we can address these issue without writing a book. LOL If need be, you can always give us a call directly for further explaination. 951-371-0030
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"When decelerating, using the engine to slow the machine, the bottom span of the primary chain is under tension, forcing the tensioner shoe to the bottom of its travel. As the chain and adjuster shoe wear, the slack at the top of the chain will increase, eventually allowing the chain to make contact with the primary housing when braking with the engine. Can you comment about the recommended interval and procedure for servicing the unit in order to prevent the eventual contact between the chain and primary housing?"
When you use your engine as a brake, yes our product will have more stress on it due to the tension and pull being on the bottom of the primary chain system, however this will only cause the M6 to bottom out for that instance it's needed. In which case, it would be and act just as a rigid mount tensioner does. After that pulse is over, it goes right back to normal operations. We've had this system since 1989 and people have been engine braking since even before then. The only "wear" on the shoe will be the 3 groves it will make while it "seats" itself. this is usually done with in a few 100 miles. After that happens the rollers on the chain will simply glide over our shoe.
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The shoe’s movement does not appear to be dampened in any way, allowing it to build inertia before it bottoms off its stop. My sense is that this action may result in the eventual breakage of the shoe. Kathy, have you folks had any experience with broken tensioner shoes, and if so, can you comment on some of the possible causes?
You are correct, there is quite a bit of quick shoe movement in our video, but please keep in mind... this is a open and dry primary, just used for this video. We DO NOT recommend running your primary system without fluid. On a normal install, closed and with fluid, there is a lot less movement of our shoe and it's a lot quieter than an open primary as well. Our whole system is in a bath of fluid at all times, this causes less friction on the chain/shoe contact as well as dampening on the shoe/guideplate contact. This is also eliminate a lot of the excessive chain movement you pointed out in the video. The second part of your comment was related to shoes breaking, we have had a few instances where we have reported cracked or broken shoes and with further investigation discussion with the customer, it seems 95% of the time there was too much slack in the measurement of the spring compression area causeing the shoes to "slap" around and eventually breaking. The other 5% was from our sponsored drag bikes that have our M6 installed with EXTREME HP and great 1/4 mile times. Either way, we fully stand behind our product and a new shoe was shipped out the same day.
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The video is cool, but I’d like to see the same shot at a higher frame rate with the engine just running at idle. The ability to slow the action down, coupled with the extreme chain snatch at idle would make for an interesting frame-by-frame video experience. Actually it would be fun to watch this video at any frame rate with the engine just running at idle. Can you folks post a video like that?
We are currently working on additional videos of out product, installed and installing. You can see us on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HaydensM6Thanks again for your comments and please let us know if we can help any further.
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