Now that others have been posting issues, ill toss in my opinion. Take it for what it is.
I have been running the Mikado belt now ever since the 10th flight on my E7. No matter how much lube I sprayed on, or how tight I ran the stock belt, I would have belt slap/ringing, and worse tooth contact inside the boom.
What I have found is that the stock rubber/fiberglass belt just stretches too much as the load on the tail changes. As the belt loosens up on the non drive side, the slack created there becomes pretty dangerous as belt snapping becomes possible.
The polyurethane/Kevlar belt Mikado uses, is far less susceptible to stretching under the same loads. I'm sure this is why Mikado chose to use them when the 600SE was being tested. There are obviously more money, but are custom made for that application. Bando does not offer that size of belt to the public it seems, but made them by order for Mikado.
One more change I have made is I am running the rear tensioner as more of an idler pulley like a mikado tail. Setting my belt tension where I want it without the pulley there at first , then installing the pulley. Obviously making modification to the tail case to have the pulley ride higher.
This does 2 things. First it keeps the belt riding where it should as the tail shaft gear is lacking flared sides to keep the belt in place. Second it creates more gap between the belt in the center of the boom where the belt passes itself. Which will help with the teeth grabbing each other under load. If the boom was larger in diameter (25-30mm) I doubt this would be an issue.
Since doing these mods I have about 40 flights or so on the E7 and all seems to be working well. I can post pics and more details if others are interested.
