I don’t either. There’s got to be a ton of friction loss from the the ring and pinion. And since it’s a ring and pinion, you’ve got to run a much heavier lubricant, which can’t be good for what I’m assuming are plain bearings on the con rods.
“And since it’s a ring and pinion, you’ve got to run a much heavier lubricant”
I think that can be optimized to some degree, both in terms of the lubricant, the gear materials, and the mechanical interface design. Most ring and pinions do operate at relatively low rpm and this will be pushing it.