Transfer Case Chain

[Little Bandit]

Hi there,

New to DTS, and am in the beginning phase of designing a 2-seater on/off road trail buggy.  I cannot decide between going with a small 3cyl Firefly motor and running a 600cc MC engine with a honda tranny gearbox.  I probably would want to upgrade to an R1 at some point.

One of the things that I am very hesitant about is the chain needed to couple the MC engine to the Honda tranny.  I hear nothing but horror stories about chains, and I want this thing to be dead nuts reliable, which is leading me more toward the firefly motor.

What are everyones thoughts on running a silent chain from one of the larger transfer cases?  I have done some searching but have not been able to find much information on them, specifically comparing them to Ramsey silent chains.  I know the NP 203 is full time with a chain, and handle V8's.  Is there any reason why this would not work?  I would prefer to have it in an enclosure, probably without any method of tensioning.  Ideally I would just hack up the Transfer Case itself and mount it in the buggy so I would not have to machine anything.

Thanks in advance

[Little Bandit]

I should note that I was thinking of a silent chain as I want to keep the wheelbase of the buggy to a minimum.

[fabr]

I use Ramsey RPV chain. They work well but MUST be run in oil bath.

[Nutz4sand]

The T-cases weight and size are your biggest enemies.

 If you do research on Suzuki Samurais you will find a few things.

 1. The T-case in them is independant or divorced. Its an nice little compact unit just connected to three shafts.

2. The Sammys T-case can take a LOT of abuse. Guys been running some big motors thru them with surprising life.

  3. They are about the lightest thing your gonna find in this case. Tiny to for what they are.

 Problems? You need to have a motor you can run a dwarf car adaptor off of. Or fab your own power take off from the motor.  I need to do a lil research myself to see if you can get a Dwarf car adaptor for a Hayabusa as the clutch slave cylinders right there. Older motors run in dwarf cars usually had the clutch slave cylinder or lever forward of this more I beleive. As mentioned I need to check this myself.

 Look at a good few buggies rear ends. With the space of a T-case coming in you cannot mount the arms in close the center UNLESS they are really far apart (above and below the T-case) really wide (outside of it). Not a problem if short to midtravel is Ok. But for long travel working around this issue will be a MUST. 

I STILL beleive that chains will have no issues lasting a complete season if spaced out from the motor and LARGE sprockets front and rear are used. True it will speed up the chain some but the chain will survive this way far far longer I think. I feel feeding a Honda tranny with large sprockets is the best way to go given whats out there.

[Little Bandit]

The Samurai Transfer case was the first one that I looked at, for the same reasons you posted.  My first thought was to install it as-is, and once it was proven to eliminate some of the internals to save some weight.

I realized two things which made me change want to consider other options.

1.  Basically you now have a MC engine, then Transfer case, then car gearbox.  It doesn't really seem like the most elegant solution.

2.  The Transfercase and engine will be really quite wide at that point.  Right now, I want to run trailing arms in the rear to keep the width to a minimum, and it won't really be possible with this set-up.

I honestly haven't looked at a Transfer case chain that much yet.  I am just interested in what their relative strength is to compared to a Silent Chain at this point to see if it is worthwhile going down that road.  If they are strong enough, I think it could be done and keep the width of the car to a minimum, my target is 56" between the outside of the tires.  I wouldn't be that concerned about making a custom enclosure for it, including the bearing mounts, but would prefer to use junkyard parts.  I am hesitant to make something using the Samurai internals, since it is a gear unit and you would have to align 3 shafts.

I STILL beleive that chains will have no issues lasting a complete season if spaced out from the motor and LARGE sprockets front and rear are used. True it will speed up the chain some but the chain will survive this way far far longer I think. I feel feeding a Honda tranny with large sprockets is the best way to go given whats out there.

Once this is done, I could see myself doing 200kms of logging roads in one day.  Do you think they can handle that?  I probably would put on a couple thousand kilometers in one year, much of it will be road driven.

What is the smallest wheelbase that you think you can achieve with this set-up?  Even if you have only 12" between sprocket centres, I still think it will stretch out to roughly 88-90".

[Nutz4sand]

One would have to get all the measurements and line everything up to see what the smallest they could get it.

If you really looking for narrow a few guys on here and MBN (minibuggy.net) have turned the motor itself sideways and then fed the power into a car IRS diff.

I run sand only so length and width are my friends. Woods running is fun but I aint a fan of mud. (I LIKE to watch others run in it so I am sorta a fan of it but hate playing in it!)

[Nutz4sand]

http://www.minibuggy.net/forum/pilot-odyssey-forum/5844-800-rotax-subaru-diff-into-pilot.html

Might give you some ideas??

[dsrace]

The T-cases weight and size are your biggest enemies.

 If you do research on Suzuki Samurais you will find a few things.

 1. The T-case in them is independant or divorced. Its an nice little compact unit just connected to three shafts.

2. The Sammys T-case can take a LOT of abuse. Guys been running some big motors thru them with surprising life.

  3. They are about the lightest thing your gonna find in this case. Tiny to for what they are.

 Problems? You need to have a motor you can run a dwarf car adaptor off of.
there are a few local guys running the busa in there dwarf cars so I know the adaptor is available.



Or fab your own power take off from the motor.  I need to do a lil research myself to see if you can get a Dwarf car adaptor for a Hayabusa as the clutch slave cylinders right there. Older motors run in dwarf cars usually had the clutch slave cylinder or lever forward of this more I beleive. As mentioned I need to check this myself.

 Look at a good few buggies rear ends. With the space of a T-case coming in you cannot mount the arms in close the center UNLESS they are really far apart (above and below the T-case) really wide (outside of it). Not a problem if short to midtravel is Ok. But for long travel working around this issue will be a MUST. 

I STILL beleive that chains will have no issues lasting a complete season if spaced out from the motor and LARGE sprockets front and rear are used. True it will speed up the chain some but the chain will survive this way far far longer I think. I feel feeding a Honda tranny with large sprockets is the best way to go given whats out there.