In his early 1950s design note book for the AJS 7R and E95 motors Mr Jack Williams wrote that a drip fed primary chain was around 90% efficient especially at high chain speeds and with incorrect lubrication it was lower still. Thus assuming a good G50 was producing 40 HP at the crank thats a 4 HP loss in the primary chain which equals the heat output of three 1000 watt electric fire elements...which explained my burnt finger when using it, with brain disengaged, to check primary chain tension on a friends G50 after a couple of 90 plus mph practice laps of the Isle of Man in the late 60s.
Ever seen the Renold recommended chain speeds to use with various lubrication systems or even the chain speeds and power we should be putting through them IF we were to use chain as it was designed to be employed? If we did employ our chains correctly we wiould not move very fast and our chain life would be around 15,000 hours or at 40 mph 600,000 miles......which is a good indication of just how incorrectly we employ chain.
When Rotary Norton were still in existance there were a few rotary Nortons with 80,000 plus miles still on their original Renold GP secondary chain and sprockets, with, acording to a friend somewhat involved with the servicing side, still lots of adjustment left......but the chain did run within a proper oil bath chain case with proper oil bath lubrication and not oil mist as employed on Norton Dominators / Commandos and such items covering secondary chains do NOT give the race bike look do they!
I trust everyone is aware that even when having their chain go swimming in hot chain grease that Renold recommend it should be done every 1000 miles and at lower mileage in bad weather!! Dont believe?? Go read a little Renold motor cycle chain leaflet! In my young days it never happened but we usually had o freshly greased rear chain at the ready and simply pulled the freshly greased one on with the old one as we pulled it off...so much easier and less messy!!
I asume the same applies to chain......Once asked a Gentleman / Senior Engineer in the belt industry for an indication of how incorrect belt tension effects belt life. As usual he started his reply with...'Oh I can do better than that because we did testing on this very subject decades ago........ I can probably dig out the test results for you to study if you want but basically a correctly tensioned belt will have a life 3 to 4 times greater than that of an incorrectly tensioned belt'. The other day I asked him how modern belt construction materials had effected the torque carrying capacity of the teeth....the reply based on testing was very interesting.....for someone like me that is!!
Next time your belt or chain fails or has to be replaced prematurely ask yourself if you had it tensioned correctly.