Morse Hy-Vo Chain

QUB 250cc Road Race Motorcycle

I was looking for information on the history of Morse Hy-Vo chain and I found this picture of an old but very cool road racing motorcycle. It's cool because it's gnarly. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to make it fast and to hell with practicality or aesthetics. I found it on Yorkshire Ferret, who had this to say

It was in June 1967 that Gordon Blair, M Johnston and their associates at Queens University Belfast conceived a new type of inlet valve for a two-stroke engine. A 250cc water cooled twin cylinder engine with this rotary sleeve valve was designed and built from scratch and first road tested in 1969.
. . .
The engine was coupled to a 5 sped Albion gearbox via a Morse “Hy-Vo” chain and mounted in a frame made by Colin Seeley. The total weight of the machine was 265lbs.
. . .
There was a very steep rise in power from the engine from 9,000 RPM and a sudden cut-off at 11,250 RPM. Peak power was found to be 45 BHP, but it was expected that with some development 10% more would be achieved.

Back around the time that the blokes at Queen's College were putting this bike together, I was trying to resurrect a 250cc Suzuki Hustler, a two stroke machine that was supposed to be capable of 30 horsepower. Getting 42 horsepower from a 250cc engine would have been phenomenal.

I also found this excellent story by former chain man Ted Davis on the Vincent Owner's Club website.

I have more to say about the chain, but I wanted to get this up before I lost the links.