Can Someone Explain To Me How The Drivetrain Of This Vehicle Works?
It’s called the rocket.. made by the same guy who made the McLaren F1..
what I want to know is how the drivetrain is setup.. and how you would control the hears.. are there 2 gear shifts? Also.. I am unclear how you would use them.. or is it exactly like a 10 speed bicycle? It seems like shifting through all those gears.. even with a sequential shifter would take a long time.. it seems like it would slow you down..
Also.. why does it have 5 reverse gears? I am just having trouble visualizing this setup..
Also.. how doe sit work mechanically? Cna anyone think of some example that might show how this works? Some other vehicle?http://www.weismann.net/rocket.html
The transaxle contains a hi-lo range to give the driver a close ratio 5 speed for in ripping around in town, or a close ratio 5 speed for flying down freeway. The transaxle also contains a reverse (actually 5) and a limited-slip differential.
This is not that dissimilar to a long haul truck but on a smaller scale. What the car appears to have is two gear boxes back to back. In the front box is 5 forward and one reverse and the rear box has 5 forward gears only. Hence the two gear levers.
You must remember that the car is only powered by a 1000cc motorbike engine so does not have a very high torque or horsepower. In order to be able to apply the maximum torque to the wheels multiple gear ratios are available to ensure that the engine is revving at the top of the torque curve.
For open road driving the wheel speed is higher therefore a different set of ratios would be required to maintain the engine RPM in the optimum torque range.
I think the ‘chain-driven’ part may be confusing. The chain drive, or drives, would be fixed, heavy chains like those used on early front-wheel drive cars like the Toronado. They wouldn’t shift sprockets like a bicycle does. I’m sure that the gearboxes are motorcycle or automobile-type units with genuine gears.