Basically it's a direct drive system, with planetary gears on the driveshaft.

The drive shaft is the sun gear, the secondary clutch #17 is attached to just a single gear.

#33 is the hardware bolted to the tunnel where the chaincase used to be. It supports the shaft and is also the brake caliper.

No jackshaft, no chaincase, far less rotating parts mass and weight. Less gyroscoping parts means the sled is easier to flick too.

As you can see in the pic, the disk brake is on the mag end of the drive shaft just inside the belly pan.

During R&D they tried the disk inside the tunnel, but the brakes would ice up. Consumer version is fine.

 

Thank you. That was a very insightful answer with terms and such much beyond my education with this kinda of stuff. I appreciate the response.

 

General, "Normal" drive systems have the secondary clutch on the end of what's called the jackshaft, which runs from the left side of the sled to the right, where it enters the chaincase. There it has a gear, around which is a chain, which drops down to another gear at the end of the driveshaft, which runs across, back to the left side, through the track. Diamond Drive uses gears meshing together instead of the gear-to-chain-to-gear system. It eliminates a lot of the parts and saves quite a bit of weight.
Here's a blowup of a chaindrive, looking from the left front corner of the sled. The secondary clutch (#28) is on the right of the pic. The hidden part behind the number 15 is the chaincase, which is mounted on the right side of the sled.

 

Now im starting to get you. It has less weight which helps the speed, and less parts which makes the get up and go alot faster and alot less parts. Yep tomorrow at 2 im getting it. YEEEE HAAAAA.

 

Originally posted by TheGeneral@Aug 1 2004, 08:53 PM
faster and alot less parts.

46 parts shown for traditional drive plus chaincase innards, 51 for DD plus gear drive innards. Lighter and more efficient yes, but I'm not convinced there are a lesser number of parts.

 

If you would add the chaincase spread sheet parts in, I think there would be more parts in the calculation, not alot more, but more.

 

Again it's a direct drive system that weighs 11 pounds lighter than the old style. The reason for the weight savings is because there is no chaincase and jackshaft on the diamond drive. It's supposed to give the sled a lower center of gravity for better handling, and a wider clutch ratio. I can't wait to see the tests results to see if this new drive system is what they say it is.I'm getting an '05 F-cat so i can't wait to ride it. The diamond drive was a big selling point for me.