Prototype setup built on a sportclassic DS1000 motor, he is intending to make a small run of these which will be very pricey.(suggested range of between 4000 and 5000 euros per kit) You also have to sacrifice one of the spark plugs on each head but he's working on that.
I`m lucky enough to have had a 900ss bevel some years ago and I absolutely loved it . I`ve also had belt drive 900ss`s and loved them too but I`m not sure about this conversion. Are there any benefits or is it just for show ?
If the factory produced a limited edition of bevel engined bikes on these lines, they would sell out in minutes.
Will someone please put a chain on it and be done with all that messing around with belts or silly expensive gear designs.... Jim
OK, try this. There is only a limited number of possible ways of getting drive from a crankshaft to an overhead camshaft in an engine: Chain with sprockets; shaft with bevel gears; train of spur gears; toothed belt; and conrods on eccentrics. All of these have been used by some manufacturer or other in the past 100 years. Each method has its advantages and drawbacks. Chains are the commonest; toothed belts are cheapest; spur gears and bevel shafts are expensive to manufacture but best for long life and accurate timing; conrods are smoothest and quietest. When Ducati started selling belties in 1979 it was the cheapness and ease of manufacture which was the attraction. The market is very different now, and surely as a manufacturer of high-end products Ducati could return to making (and charging for) bevels once again. As a "Unique Selling Proposition" bevels would nearly match desmo valve gear. IMHO
No belts to change at end of paranoia-inducing serviceable life/finding out that serviceable life was shorter than you'd expected/been led to believe/covered by warranty (erk!!), no risk of valve-bounce, no need for automatic or manual chain adjusters, stretching chains, and a few more.... anyone? Valve operation geared to crank revolutions, therefore always tied to each other irrespective of engine speed, rubber band stretch, snap, or fling.
One of the main drawbacks of the bevel system as used on Ducati twins 1971 to 1984, from the manufacturing perspective, was the need to carry out a complex shimming process to get the bevel gear meshing and clearances right. This had to be done by hand and was therefore very expensive. If you were designing a new bevel system today, you would make sure that all the clearances were screw-adjustable so the meshing could be set quickly and cheaply. Any engineering designer worth his salt should be able to contrive such a system.
Being a bit cynical, you could say that the belt change every two years is a nice earner for the dealer. If you switch to bevel gear drive the dealer loses a big slice of revenue!
There's more info here; Ducati bevel gear kit . - Ducati.ms - The Ultimate Ducati Forum Nice engineering job but cost prohibitive for most and I doubt the rear cylinder bevel would fit inside a SBK or Monster frame, so limited to SS and SC models?
I've always preferred gear driven cams. Love the little wurry noises and fact that once set, like the bevel gear set up, it's good for life. Even if it is a heavier option than the bands.
Well OK Steve, I take your point. But what I had in mind was a factory (hypothetically) trying to make tens of thousands of engines in 2014, and trying to sell them at a profit (unlike the Ducati factory in the 1970s, obviously). They have to be pretty simple to assemble without requiring too much skill or time on the production line, and especially without requiring trial assembly before final assembly. My point was that it would be perfectly possible to design a bevel engine to fit those requirements, but it could not be an exact replica of a 1970s bevel. Oddly enough, Kawasaki do actually make a bevel engine today, the W800.
