Yes, certainly the drawing committee is the authority for redesigns. But even so, they are obviously not interested in real improvements. And it puzzles me how ignorant they can be not to see the problems - for decades. I could add lots of examples of BMW type ESAs in Japanese shaft drive engines, not one of them in olde British designs as there is no progressive damping in them. There is no benefit of having both halves of ESA cams in same shapes, you only lose space for the progressive shapes you´d like to achieve. And you don´t have cheaper machining from this as one side of BMW type is very simple CNC milling the male radii, 3 each, the corresponding side with the funny valleys is a bit more complicated to do but not more difficult than the old shape, same complication to machine. Only the logic to get perfectly matching faces is no rocket science once you follow my thinking, inspired by the BMW parts. I had complete success in machining the first alu test ESA for checking my thinking, milled on my manual mill with DRO and dividing head plus digital readout on that for having fractions of degrees for safe angle positions. So it should be easy enough for younger staff to do same on modern machinery in 15 minutes for a pair of ESA halves. Well, not my business, Maughams more likely to see into this possibly . . .
Roy, what do you see as root of the broken sprocket teeth and split rollers of middle chain run ? Fretting at the face tells me that there is micro motion between parts from shocks onto them. It cannot be the tremendous power of the alternator or Miller dynamo with hardly a quarter hp. So only cause might be the mass of the rotor trying to resist uneven speeds in the triplex chain - from the ESA bashing effects ??
Laverda 750 and 1000 plus Commandos got their triplex chains as well, same type. I have not come across tales of exploded primaries in these, at least no wrecked chain rollers from the dynamos in these.
Vic