Why have cars moved to a timing chain

Question

The old Corollas in the 70s and 80s had timing chains. In the 90s, Honda, Toyota, and even Nissan started making belt-driven cranks instead of chains. Now they are back to timing chains. What happened?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Another reason we have gone back to chains is that cars have more complex valve gear than they used to- variable valve timing systems may be more suited to chains than belts sometimes. Often these systems operate off of oil pressure so it can be difficult to keep the oil and belt separate. Chains prefer to be in an oil bath, belts not so much.