Christian Baril

At 90,000 miles I was getting timing chain noise which sounded like the old "cards in the spokes:" noise. I replaced my TCT with the Ballade Sports TCT. Now at 130,000 I am starting to hear what I think is the chain noise again when the engine is restarted after it is already hot. I only hear the noise at idle. I have been reading the other TCT threads and it seems like there is an issue with the Ballade Sports TCT causing more problems than it solves over time. What should I do? can you measure the chain play and see if there is a problem? Am I going to have to replace the chain, drive gear, TCT, etc? Thank you.

xxyion

From what ive seen and read, the Ballade Sports TCT also requires a timing gear which helps adjust the chain tension to the TCT overtime to account for wear and stretch.Engineering Explained installed one when he did the Ballade Sports TCT. The other option is that you have to manually readjust it every year or so to account for wear but that sounds like a pain.

As for the rest of your questions i will leave that to someone more mechanically inclined.

sillyboybmxer

I'm very confused about the needing of ballades timing gear as well becaise they made their tct years before that gear they introduced. Marketing to sell more products maybe???

xxyion

Its possible they made the TCT, then realized people didnt want to adjust the TCT year after year (who knew?!) and decided to release the gear to people wouldn't need to anymore and they could make some money off of it. I was originally going to get the Ballade sports one but I'm glad I did a Billman instead. While I trust Ballade Sports as a company. When you have some complaints on their product, vs another which has literally zero complaints about, hard to justify spending more money on something that has a higher chance of failure, even if that chance is just 5%.

outeiroj

ive had my ballade in for 4 years now and when inline pro built my engine last year they told me the ballade was a good choice and they said i didn't need to worry about replacing it. that being said its definitely possible, parts fail all the time

xxyion

I dont think people have had issues with the TCT failiong. But what ive heard and read, is that the TCT doesnt account for wear and stretch of the Chain itself and so it must be manually adjusted every now and then. Hence why you have the option for the timing gear, or you can buy Billmans TCT which adjusts for the wear and stretch.

yamahaSHO

Ballades TCT works like a TCT. There is no manual adjustment.

RogueMotorsports

We have sold and installed dozens of ballade tct with no issues. You sure your oil level is correct? If not your tct will make nosie

xxyion

I think this is where the confusion lies. Everything ive heard bad about the Ballade Sports TCT is that it has to be manually adjusted to account for the stretch in the chain as time goes on. This is information I've read on this forum and the main reason I went with Billmans TCT.

yamahaSHO

You want to link the threads/posts you've read on the forum? I haven't seen this before and I've had mine for years. It is built in the same way as a regular TCT, it's entire function is to dynamically keep the chain tensioned. Otherwise, you wouldn't need such an elaborate piece.