Otto Man

While removing the old stockers to put on truckinduc's nicely made manual ones, I could not believe how fuggin' stiff those springs are inside there. I had a hard time believing that the manual ones are only finger tight, but I held a stock one with both hands and tried pushing it into the concrete...and it wouldn't even budge! How does this not prematurely wear the chain and other componets? I kind of view it as the same way you tighten the drive chain. Too loose, skips teeth (duh) Too tight, and you are gonna wear your chain and sprockets out prematurely, not to mention getting a leak behind the countershaft sprocket. How does that little piece of metal that is on the end of the rod from the stock CCT not wear out from rubbing against the chain with so much tension after 20,30,40 thousand miles? Just thinking out loud here.

FYI, for the lurkers and searchers, the bike has ~20,000 miles on it, and replaced them for peace of mind and as a maintence deal. For the guys afraid to change your CCT's, just DO IT! It is NOT hard, just take your time and follow the steps posted here on the site. This little, cheap mod follows the stitch in time saves 9 theory. I did not want the possibility of my valves and my piston having a boxing match.

jbaxx

If they are like the Honda car tensioners, they are hydraulic, meaning they take up the slack as it occours (via spring), and maintains the pressure hydraulicly.

j shizzy wizzy

the tensioner doesn't actually touch the chain. It pushes on a chain guide.

HondaJim

Yep, and once it's off the end of the stroke you can push them in pretty easy.

thetophatflash

The stock tensioners are not hydraulic. I installed new manual (Trucker's) two weeks ago. Like the stock, they push against a tensioner that has a special material (not metal) on the friction surface that touches the cam chain. I took a good look at the deflection on the stock unit in place and the found that a true finger tight plus 1/2 turn seemed real close. They are tight, if anything, compared to stock at this setting. Idle speed was @ 125 rpm lower and the valve train noise at idle has dropped noticeably.

Truckinduc

OK. The stock ones are designed with a worm drive, aka, a very high pitch thread.

This makes the spring tension extend the plunger whenever it can, but makes it extremely difficult for the plunger to be pushed back in.

JamieDaugherty

The stock tensioners also have a ratcheting mechanism inside - that's why you couldn't compress it by hand. Take the little screw out of the end and, using a small flat screwdriver, you can turn the plunger back in. That's how you install it.

Personally, at 22,000 miles my original CCT's are just fine. Tons of track time and lots of flogging on the street - no issues. I'll stick with them... thanks.

yruyur

Yes

Yes

I found the pic I took when Lazn and I pulled apart a stocker for educational purposes. Look at all this over engineering.

hawxter996

alright! a man of reason.
no panic buying here.
i myself wouldnt be selling a part like this.
somebody gets it wrong and its all your fault.

no thanks.

nuhawk

I think there's respected members on both sides of this ball. All of us recognize that the valvetrain in a piston-driven engine is the hardest working part or assembly. When they fail it's not just an "Oh, ****!" It's catastrophic to the engine.

I don't play poker for a $100 on a $3-5000 ticket. The improvement in performance and noise with the APE's speaks for itself. I expect that Truck's piece is just as good as APE.

Calitoz paper on the change is the best. My .o2 Most fail and some don't.

JamieDaugherty

That's a first - what proof is there that manual CCT's improve performance? About the only thing I've ever heard about them is the annoyance of having to adjust them regularly. By regularly I mean once or twice a year.

RK1

Yeah. My guess is that most of the world's VTR1000fs still have OEM CCTs and continue to motor on without bent valves or scored pistons.

I didn't change mine out because I'm superstitious. My bike went from making no detectable chain noise- to a bit of a rattle on decel- to making noise most all the time and getting louder as well.

I installed the manuals at about 12k miles and the noise went away.

But for the noise, I never would have worried about it. If you've got the rattle I think it prudent to spend 100 bucks and an hour of your time to get rid of it.

Tweety

I never had a full out failure on my VTR... I did however blow up my F3's CCT's twice... The first time it started rattling like stones in a paint mixer seconds later the rear wheel locked... The second time I recognized the sound and shut it off and it cost me the new CCT's only...

Once the noise appeared on the VTR I swapped for new OEM's... about 5000 miles later it started again and this time the spring wasn't broken just stuck... it popped into place once I removed it...

After that I went with manual ones... I'm done with the OEM's... But to each his own...

SlowHAWK

Not trying to start a war on this topic... but I haven't heard of anyone on this board needing to adjust the manual tensioners 1-2 times a year.... I've had them in for 3 years, and not one issue... that I know as fact, because it's my bike, and I didn't "hear this or that from other members".

NOW... with that being said, I also agree I find it hard to believe of performance gains with the manual units..... and can't see why their would be other than some very, very marginal effect should you have them looser than the stock units and they take .0001% of friction off the cam chain.

Bottom line... there ARE people whom have had there stock CCT's break... there ARE people who have screwed up the install on the manual CCT's and messed things up. So both have down sides.... In the end, it's a personal preference thing... just like almost every other swap/mod someone makes on their bike.

Honestly... If you feel confident with the stock Honda CCT, great for you, and if you feel like changing them for manual CCT's for piece of mind, great for you as well... I don't see why this has to be a topic that get's everyone riled up all the time.

J.

superbikemike

I have 18000 miles on my 98. I cannot or don't have the confidence to do the work myself. I would like to change them either new stockers or manuals but I don't have a shop I can trust. Is it a gamble to take it to a Honda dealer? They are so small around here and Superhawks so rare that I doubt they did it before. I've had mine since 9000 miles and still sounds fine to me. Opinions?

JamieDaugherty

I've always wondered if the failure has something to do with external factors. These might include - type of oil used, oil weight, type of riding, amount of idle time, amount of high-rpm time, etc, etc, etc. I just have a hard time believing that a Honda part would go bad in 5000 miles or less on one bike but last indefinitely on another. I'm not offering these as a cause or anything, it's really more of a question.

thetophatflash

Maybe too much engine braking?

Tweety

Well... I cant really explain it either... The first pair lasted a lot longer than that, about 30k miles or so... Both where subjected to lots of canyon riding, track etc... 5k miles is what I do in a season, so for a set to last that little really pissed me off, hence the switch from OEM's...

The F3 however was wrung out like mad at any opportunity... Also not maintained that very well as I was young, dumb an rather poor at the time... So bombing that engine wasn't really surprising...It was more a question of the engine going or me going into a ditch, and when...

RK1

Jaime;

It's not that manuals improve performance per se, but if you go from on the verge of failure OEMs to properly adjusted manuals, you've got a bit less slop-lash between your throttle hand and rear contact patch.

You might want to chalk it up to one of those "my bike runs better when I wash and wax it" things but fwiw I believe I could tell the difference.

Adjusting the manuals? Two wrenches and 30 seconds of time. Haven't had to do it yet. If and when I do it will be no more annoying than having to zip my fly after I take a ****.

SlowHAWK

I agree... it is kinda wierd some can go forever, and others blow out. My project 'hawk has 44K on it with the stock CCT's still in it. I'd think there probably are some possible external factors to some degree... But there very well could be manufacturing issues...

Since the part that fails is a spring.... it could be a batch thing where "X" amount of crappy parts are made at some plant with inferior material substituted for the specified material for some unknown reason (cost, availability, etc.) and these springs just wind up going bad over time. It could also be in the forming process itself, where some are wound/bent with a bit more or less radius in some of the bends and this could lead to a weak point over time...

Realistically, there are probably a bunch of reasons they could fail just like any other part that wears or degrades to some degree over time.

J.

Otto Man

That's exactly it. I never know where my bike will be taken. A short run, or a 5-600 mile one way trip. Not at the track when you can just pull off to the side, and trailer it home. It would be 100% different if it was noted that they consistantly went out at like say 40,000 miles. Then you'd have an idea. But the unknown? No way, not gonna risk it.

So, I am going to risk my CCTs failing (Murphys Law clearly states they will only break if you are far from home) because I was too damn lazy to change them out? Not happening here, I can tell you that much!

Adjusting them is easier than popping off the seat.

Hawkrider

I don't think this has been answered yet...

The "automatic" feature of the stock CCT only adjusts the tensioner tighter, not looser. Once it reaches a certain tension it's not designed to go back to it's previous position. It will, due to engine vibration, retract slightly.

The spring material becomes brittle or fatigued somehow after many heat cycles. This is what causes the spring to break. The engine vibration will cause the threaded part to retract to the point that the chain is all loose and sloppy, at which point you will skip a tooth or more.

There is no ratcheting mechanism in this CCT.

gboezio

The Kawasaki design is superior in this aspect, if you want to retract the CCT, you need to pull it out, press the release and put it back on. Even if the spring break, there's no going back, eventually the engine will become noisier as the chain stretch but you have a couple years to react, I wonder if it's possible to fit a Kawi unit ??

Hawkrider

I'm not so sure if a ratcheting mechanism is the answer. The reason I think that is because as the engine heats and cools the tension on the chain will change due to expansion and contraction. I'm not 100% sure but I'm pretty confident it gets looser as the motor heats up due to the long length of the chain. So, when the motor is hot the adjuster compensates by moving out. Now when the motor cools it puts undue stress on all parts involved, causing increased wear, especially during and after cold startup. The vibration-induced retraction of the tensioner on the VTR prevents this.

This is purely theory on my part, and is in no case written anywhere I've seen.

dshakes