1957 MV 125 GP bialbero gear driven cams
3 Likes
Pretty amazing to look at, though there must be significant mechanical losses as a result of all those gears?
Reminds me of my first bike, a Honda VFR 400 NC24, with gear driven cams. Had a wonderful little cog-whirring noise to it.
One of the reasons I loved my vfr 750 too!
Mechanical losses: yes.
Mechanical reliability: much higher.
Trip down memory lane for me:
Going off on a tangent here. Sorry:
You know if you rest your ear against the top of the tank while the bike is running you can hear all the mechanical noise much more clearly. The exhaust drowns it out normally but you can hear a lot more that way.
Back in the day gear driven camshafts was the way, although to be fair they were either side valve or push rod engines. The idea behind over head camshafts was to eliminate push rod failure. There has always been reliability vs performance issues around driving camshafts. Another alternative was shaft driven camshafts but I think these are all out of production now.
If engine chatter, rattles and whirls float your boat then a mechanics stethoscope is your best friend and cheap as chips off eBay to boot.