Maximum torque freewheel?

Does anybody have an idea what the maximum torque on a freewheel (something like an ACS) is? I have searched but have found nothing definite so far, and have also not recieved any replies from ACS unfortunately.

No idea, but what are you planning on doing with it?

You could do some maths - what's the weight of a person? What's the force on the pedals when someone is sprinting out of the saddle? Let's say a really powerful sprinter is capable of producing 200kg downward force on the pedals (for ease of mental arithmetic - although it seems to be a reasonable estimate - I have unfortunately lent my copy of Bicycling Science to someone so I can't check), with 170mm cranks gives 34kg/m at the crank. The lowest gear on most bikes is likely to be about 1:1, so if you're a powerful guy sprinting up a hill in a low gear, then I'd say your freewheel is taking roughly this amount of torque.

So we know a freewheel can take at least that much, if that's any help.

This is all pure speculation, of course.

Hey Lae, thanks for your reply. That's what I've calculated too approximately. My calculations show that the torque on the freewheel could vary between 100Nm and 600Nm, although around 300Nm will be the average, but 600Nm is definitely realistic in terms of achievable torque.

It will be used in a tug-of-war contest between vehicles we need to make, so it will probably see this torque only applied for a total of an hour at the most.

I would be more worried about the threads than the internals of the freewheel. Those torque figures are... rather high. I'd be interested to see the designs for the vehicles - feel free to PM me!

Yes, me too, but I'll be machining them out of 4130 if I can find the right sized tubing so it should be fine. The designs are quite raw still, but thanks for your help! Staying around the 300Nm should be possible ;)