skinthespin

The chain meshing with the gear wheels is not where the noise comes from, its all the associated resonances such as cam chest panting that makes them noisey. Cant argue that Honda engines rock though! PS, the V8 will happen, just need to get Nikki off my case with messing about with cars, ie when Jays old enough to hold a socket he can help me............

Come on Jon you know me better than that, nothing motivates me more than someone telling me it cant be done! (it will be close though)

If you can imagine an area it catches there--lol I need to add a bit of camber, get lower profile tyres, roll the arches a bit more and fettle (ie hit with a lump hammer) the inner arch by the footwell, then I might be able to get more than 1/4 turn of lock!

heres the saab..... was a bit awkward on my own---lol, I was worried that the spanners holding the cams in position would slip too, that wouldve been a pain--lol. I know Jon btw, he directed me this way, I'm a design engineer at Triumph on the chassis side of things (did my degree in auto engineering) but have had plenty involvement with engine development too, oh, an im technical writer for a magazine called mr2only too, so like messing with the old mr2 and doing things like this.... So no doubt that will completely ruin my handling so will be on here asking stuff!

Cheers chaps, Its true some belts cost an arm and a leg and need an engine removal, but a manufacturer isnt 'too' bothered about that, its 4 years or so away and not on the mind of any new vehicle purchaser, it much more important to save £100 on the cost of a new car (to them that is) and if your the sort of person to do that many miles in a new car in the first couple of years you will just pay the cash. agreed I much prefer chains, Saab quote dme £800 and a day and a half labour to change mine on my 9-5, in the end I split the chain, attahced the new one to the old one, wound the engine round until the old chain was out then took the old chain off, job done, £34 all in! Simon

Hi guys, There are pros and cons to both, as always, you have got the most important one as in cost, not only is the belt itself cheaper than a chain but so are the sprockets, you need a hydraulic tensioner on a chain, and you need to lubricate it and have prbably 4 rubbing strips all of which adds up, on top of that there is the noise. perhaps not as obvious as you might think but the chain tends to set up resonances in covers and case that need addressing, for example on some engines there is a bolt holding the cam chain chest tight to stop it 'panting' and making a racket. You tend not to get this any of with belts. In terms of what to use, belt or chain, you have to weigh up the application, for high revving engines such as bike engines and big power engines the instantaneous stretch in a belt would be prohibitive, lots of cars use chains, such as Saabs, BMW's (all M-engines) etc, I prefer chains as they do stretch over time and once they go further than the tensioner will cope with they rattle a bit and give you some warning to get it fixed, a belt doesnt stretch with time (very much at all) and once fatigued will just break, not good. So in all chains are dearer but better, belts are cheap and good enough for most 'normal' cars