Timing Chain
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Ye, my first car had timing chain. It was not trendy at that time as everybody was raving about timing belts, how nice and quiet they were.......tile they discovered many engine failures at 60k due to belts breaking! So we are lucky Nissan does sucha good job with their VQ engines. Almost industractible. Just change oil at the right intervals and that's it....
Yep, many foreign cars produced in the 80's and 90's had timing belts, and a lot still do. I think it was more of an engineering laziness thing than a fad.
I almost always cracked up when one would lose their belt at speed—it’d bend the crap out of their valves a lot of times.
I remember one of my workers begging me once to help them replace the timing belt on their escort because he didn’t have the money to pay the shop.
Escorts have a huge problem in their design with the timing belt:
The water pump was aluminum and was one of the things the belt turned. Being that the timing belt is put under a lot of torque, the stresses were applied to the shaft of the water pump. When the water pump body around the shaft of the water pump decided it had enough and started to wear, the impellor blades of the pump would come in contact with the housing and seize the pump, this would in turn snap the belt. Really a very bad idea.
We got the belt changed, but I shook my head at the engineering.
I wonder: do we have double roller timing chains or single?
The only problem with timing chains is their stretch. And, GM at one time decided to put nylon on the teeth of the timing gear to quiet the drive---bad idea with oil present. Many a timing chain and gear set were replaced due to that. I guess Nissan learned how to put sufficient hardness in the sprockets and chain rollers/axles to keep the stretch to a minimum and the wear to the leading edges of teeth down.
I almost always cracked up when one would lose their belt at speed—it’d bend the crap out of their valves a lot of times.
I remember one of my workers begging me once to help them replace the timing belt on their escort because he didn’t have the money to pay the shop.
Escorts have a huge problem in their design with the timing belt:
The water pump was aluminum and was one of the things the belt turned. Being that the timing belt is put under a lot of torque, the stresses were applied to the shaft of the water pump. When the water pump body around the shaft of the water pump decided it had enough and started to wear, the impellor blades of the pump would come in contact with the housing and seize the pump, this would in turn snap the belt. Really a very bad idea.
We got the belt changed, but I shook my head at the engineering.
I wonder: do we have double roller timing chains or single?
The only problem with timing chains is their stretch. And, GM at one time decided to put nylon on the teeth of the timing gear to quiet the drive---bad idea with oil present. Many a timing chain and gear set were replaced due to that. I guess Nissan learned how to put sufficient hardness in the sprockets and chain rollers/axles to keep the stretch to a minimum and the wear to the leading edges of teeth down.
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8,368 Posts
Whatever Nissan uses, they call it "silent drive timing chain" - supposedly as quiet as a belt. In my subjective experience, its quiet, but not as quiet as a Toyota engines (such as the 3L V6 in a highlander or Camry) that use a timing belt.mgthe3 said:Yep, many foreign cars produced in the 80's and 90's had timing belts, and a lot still do. I think it was more of an engineering laziness thing than a fad.
I almost always cracked up when one would lose their belt at speed—it’d bend the crap out of their valves a lot of times.
I remember one of my workers begging me once to help them replace the timing belt on their escort because he didn’t have the money to pay the shop.
Escorts have a huge problem in their design with the timing belt:
The water pump was aluminum and was one of the things the belt turned. Being that the timing belt is put under a lot of torque, the stresses were applied to the shaft of the water pump. When the water pump body around the shaft of the water pump decided it had enough and started to wear, the impellor blades of the pump would come in contact with the housing and seize the pump, this would in turn snap the belt. Really a very bad idea.
We got the belt changed, but I shook my head at the engineering.
I wonder: do we have double roller timing chains or single?
The only problem with timing chains is their stretch. And, GM at one time decided to put nylon on the teeth of the timing gear to quiet the drive---bad idea with oil present. Many a timing chain and gear set were replaced due to that. I guess Nissan learned how to put sufficient hardness in the sprockets and chain rollers/axles to keep the stretch to a minimum and the wear to the leading edges of teeth down.
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12,512 Posts
This is from the Altima site:
Silent Timing Chain
Unlike timing belts (which need regular replacement), a timing chain has no standard maintenance *. And Altima's timing chain goes a step further: it's nearly silent - producing 90% less noise than a traditional roller chain.
*Under normal driving conditions with regular fluid and filter changes. See owner's manual for details.
Hmmmm... 90% less noise is a big claim. I am curious to know what makes the VQ timing chains so unique.
-njjoe
Silent Timing Chain
Unlike timing belts (which need regular replacement), a timing chain has no standard maintenance *. And Altima's timing chain goes a step further: it's nearly silent - producing 90% less noise than a traditional roller chain.
*Under normal driving conditions with regular fluid and filter changes. See owner's manual for details.
Hmmmm... 90% less noise is a big claim. I am curious to know what makes the VQ timing chains so unique.
-njjoe
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