It has holes but it does not mean its lighter.... by much....
This gear is only a trivial 5 grams lighter than the previous gear.
Both gears function exactly the same, there is no difference in performance or strength.
I made the change simply to reduce the amount of heat that was being generated by the final CNC cutting process. As the demand increased the machine shop could only produce so many main gears due to the design of the old main gear. The change will allow me to better keep up with the demand.
Thanks,
Matt