Benefits of the twisted tooth?

Hi,

Got an old pair of Campag wheels which are going on a rebuild bike. They came (from eBay) with a 6-speed freewheel attached. The teeth are the old-fashioned 'squared' sort i.e. they are rectangular in cross-section.

The bike will likely end up using friction shifters. I've read a bit about the benefits of using freewheels designed for indexed systems - Hyperglide etc. - with friction shifters. Apparently they are much smoother in shifting.

My question is: should I change out the freewheel for an indexed, twisty-tooth style one? They're pretty cheap and I would like the shifting to be as smooth as possible.

2nd question: how much does the brand of freewheel matter? If I get a 6-speed or 7-speed Sunrace (e.g. http://www.sjscycles.co.uk/sunrace-7-sp ... prod22242/) would I have to get matching Sunrace from chainrings and chain?

Thanks.

I've never noticed a difference in shifting performance.

All chains and sprockets use the same pitch now, so a sunrace freewheel can work with a SRAM chain and Shimano chainrings etc. That is, assuming they're compatible widths.

Be warned though, those Sunrace freewheels are HEAVY. The build quality is fine, but they aren't lightweight by any stretch of the imagination.

The old teeth were longer as this engaged the chain better and so they lasted - at the expense of clunkier shifts. Shimano's marketing department successfully convinced us that light shifts were the be-all and end-all, which incidentally meant components that had shorter lives and had to be replaced more often.

Pay your money and take your pick. As you will be shifting with friction levers anyway I imagine, the shift speed improvement is minimal.