Honda Introduces New Infinitely Variable Transmission for Motorcycles

Green Car Congress ^ | 10-4-07

[blackie]

Ever the politician. >;-}

[tacticalogic]

Gas engine golf carts use the Milner Transmission. Extremely simple design and works!

Wonder how it would work on a tractor pto.

[JoeSixPack1]

Not sure. The concave pulleys move together and apart as the torque requirement changes pushing the belt to a larger or smaller drive diameter on the pulley thus changing the drive ratio.

Usually a pto has 3 modes, engaged or disengaged and hummin’ along. :-)

[tacticalogic]

Usually a pto has 3 modes, engaged or disengaged and hummin’ along. :-)

Which is fine as long as you want to do it at 540 rpm. :)

[eraser2005]

The pulley contraption is generally called a CVT, for Continuously Variable Transmission.

Several vehicles use this sort of transmission, including, but not limited to:

Ford Five Hundred
Ford Freestyle
Ford Escape Hybrid
Ford Focus C-MAX
Mercury Montego
Mercury Mariner Hybrid
Toyota Prius
Toyota Camry Hybrid
Toyota Highlander Hybrid
Nissan Altima
Nissan Maxima
Nissan Murano
Nissan Sentra
Honda Civic
Honda Insight

This motorcycle system is fluid-based, rather than belt, but the term Infinitely Variable is a bit of a misnomer. There are upper and lower bounds on the transmission ratio, just like a belt-driven one.... just different bounds....

[org.whodat]

Thanks, I knew it was several, but I had no Ideal it was that many, I remember the commercial last year where the were showing the woman put on lipstick and saying no shift shock. I never bothered to look up the trans but I knew it had to be a CVT trans. Built one are two racing automatics, myself. Read a good deal about how they worked back when I had a power mechanics course. LOL