Mechanical efficiency of chain drive vs roller drive

[Deleted Member 4613]

Sometime back, I built a friction drive with a Subaru 32 cc engine, and then rack mounted it with a chain. The chain drive definitely had more power, I'd say about 10-15%. However, the FD is still very attractive due to its simplicity and ease of installation. I'm looking forward to an FD drive with the new Honda GX50.

 

[CrazyDan]

I'm waiting for builds to be done with the new gx50. I'm tempted to buy one, but wanna hear feedback on it first.

 

[darwin]

FD is a fair weather friend, more for a hobby than to rely on due to weather. In any wet weather the performance degrades a lot due to slipping. Fla or CA it might work to depend on but not in rainy or snowy areas. To me it's a hobby and I can wait for dry days to ride. In good weather and dialed in right it's a flawless system. Simplistic, cheap and a blast to ride. I want that GX50cc too some day.

 

[rawly old]

FD is a fair weather friend,

Ya got that right. where I live in the rain forest, FD is kinda useless 6 mo. a year. I enjoyed my FD kit. It was inexpensive,
easy to install, but mighty impractical in my climate.. I now have 2 gassers withe GEBE kits,& 40cc Tanakas.
2 ebikes, a Juiced CCS commuter & an NCM moscow,(German in spite of the name). The NCM Is conquering
my range anxiety. If you pedal in the appropriate gear it uses very little juice & will climb anything. The CCS is
more powerful, faster, but not so versatile.
I modified the GEBE with a larger pulley gear, not to go faster, but so I can mush it along 14 mph @ 3200 rpm.
The Tanakas can do 11,000 but are too well made to abuse that way. You wouldn't believe how far I can go
on a liter of gas.

 

[darwin]

Hey Rawly, long time no see. I had a Juiced CCX and it was a beauty. You can't beat the price for what you get, 52v 19ah batt. The downside for me was the ability to only go 37mi, 16mi one way before the batt hit it's recommended bottom in order to save on batt longevity. That was too short of a distance for me to be satisfied. I need a 100mi range before I buy another. To buy an extra battery for 1400$ was just too much for me to accept. Hell the bike plus an extra batt we're talking a brand new Kawi Z400 price range or a new Kymco 150 Like.

 

[rawly old]

Hey Rawly, long time no see. I had a Juiced CCX and it was a beauty.

The only time I ever go 37 mph is going down Egg & I Road, white knuckles locked on the brakes. I could easily
hit 50 with no power at all, but I've long since filled my quota of broken bones. That hill is like a Olympic ski jump...really.
What;s remarkable is that the NCM will climb it & cost 1/2 what I paid for the 1st run 52v, 650w, 21Ah CCS.
They've since discontinued the 21 ah. Mine's still good after nearly 7000 mi. Tora & I had a kinda falling out
after the sour laced spokes destroyed the spoke bores on the motor**. Replaced it with a 1000w wheel from
Calibike, $250 for the complete kit sans batt, & cutoff levers. All I had to do was plug in the wheel to the exisring
set up.
** this was corrected on later models.