I went 15/44 and bought a longer open chain and pressed it together with it run around all the pulleys and held taut to about the minimum tension length on the swingarm and marked accordingly.... I went 520 conversion though....if you look on ebay you can get a hardened ft steel sprocket, RK 520 chain, and rear alum. sprocket your choice of teeth for like 130 or so....was the best deal for me. Though the back sprocket only lasts a couple k miles til its worn out.

Ive got a hair-drastic more gear than you but very close, and yeah its a huge step up! All my friends that I let get on my bike, which is very few...I tell em, SMOOTH throttle...and don't even try first. Ever.

Next thing I see my friend doing power-on wheelies down the road on my bike. lol

 

That's what I've heard, and what I plan to do this winter...

 

That seems like a lot to me. I think 16/44 is more reasonable.

 

My 2cents on gearing. I was taught years ago to use the tallest counteshaft sproket I could fit and change the rear gearing to suit. The rule of thumb being 3T on the rear equalled one on the front. Unless your goal is to rev the engine quicker or do wheelies easier in 3rd gear, there is no need to lower the front sprocket. If you want to improve driveabity out of corners leave the front alone and raise the rear 2-3T. I would also say that switching to 520 chain and sprockets on this bike with this kind of torque doesn't really make much sense unless you want to burn up sprockets again too much torque.

 

How many teeth can you go up in the back without needing a longer chain?

 

I think what he means by the standard set or whatever....is the 520 and sprocket sets that are all over ebay for this bike, all come standard as 15-43 with a 520 xring, and then you get options to fug with the rear teeth, chain color, etc....think the front tooth count is locked in but not sure.

 

After riding a bit I would have to agree, the step down in the front sproket made the bike way too low, it was like I lost 6th gear all together. I'll be changing the front back to the stock sprocket size as soon as I can. . .That will leave me with 2 teeth up in the back, so it will still be slightly lower than stock.

 

I run a 15/43 and 15/45 with the same lenth chain and have enough room for a 47. I set up the chain to be at full lenth with the 43 on and as I put the bigger sprokets on the wheel just moves closer on the swingarm. 5.25 notches out with the 45 and 3 on the 43 if you look at the nothces on the chain ajuster on the swing arm. it works for my track set up. btw imo. a 45 sproket sucks on the street I wouldn't recommend it if your ever going to get on the freeway

 

Most Honda's have always been slightly under geared for as long as I've been riding them and that goes back to the late 60's..just the fact that top gear is under 1 to 1 making a slight overdrive attests to that. My experience is that 2 or 3 up in the rear is about the optimum for good tractability on the street and surprisingly very often on the track. Even if you change the primary gearing or make major changes to the power output or more importantly how high you can rev it the basic rule still applies.

 

It depends.

If you have an old chain and sprockets then you should be chainging/replacing the entire set up.

If you have a relatively new set up then it might not be necessary. If you only put 200 kms on the set up, and didn't ride the crap out of it, and don't like it and want to change it then you can probably get away with only changing a sprockets and leaving the existing chain.


Again, it depends. How much room is available with the current set up? You can't always go by what works on someone else's bike because of wear in various parts of the drivetrain and suspension.

 

Depends on who you talk to. The standard, I find, depends on riders' standards.

What I mean is ..... here's a few examples;

If I talk to a more mellow rider then I usually hear either -1 in the front OR +2 in the back. If I talk to a more agressive rider then I hear "dude, you SO totally gotta go -1 and +2. It ROCKS!". If I talk to a racer then before I can finish what i'm asking I get "what bike and what track?".

I think the biggest reason that the -1/+2 swap is so typical is because there's lots of riders out there that want their gutless I4 600 to run like a 1000. That and the magazine articles that show what you can drop in a 1/4 mile run are also fuel for the fire.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not knocking it, as gear changes can, and do, change a bike and also continue to provide the best bang for the buck. I just think that most people succumb to marketing hype way too easily and wind up doing something they later regret ..... for little to no reason at all. I hate to point a finger, but ..... thegreep is changing back, with good reason. (that didn't take long lol)

 

I just put the 15/43 520 conversion on mine and I love it. I'm not crazy about the 520 chain cause of the wear factor but the ratio rips. Last Sunday I hit balance point in 5th off a small crest and 4th gear standups are effortless. Another problem is I have no idea how fast I am going. Where and how much is a speedo healer?

 

Hey HotBrakes -

Where did you get your kit. I've been on the web, including eBay (and I've searched the forums) but can only find stock.

 

I think Slim summed it up perfectly!! I also think Hotbrakes is the classic example of why most riders opt for the lower ratio..so they can do 4th gear wheelies!!

 

Lotus Land...I ordered mine off eBay for about $160 shipped. If you search "superhawk" you should find it listed a couple of times. Sumofallparts is the store I got it from.

 

As an update to this thread, called up sum of all parts over the winter and they were happy to sell me the 16 tooth front sprocket. This did in fact put the bike where I want it to be gearing wise. So, Now total I'm down 2 in the back w/520 chain. It pulls better than stock, but not crazy like it was.