17 teeth sprocket. first impressions.

[marc]

OK, I've had my first impressions and my first 50Km with
my new 17 teeth sprocket.

I use to do lots of highway and fast cruising, and I hate to revv my
engine over 8K for extended times.

Besides of this, I'm experiencing problems with my engine, I have
a severe loss of power beyond 7000, that makes it useless to revv
over 8K to gain power, it is better for me to shift up a gear and
use that fantastic mid-range torque that my GS develops from 3K till 7K.

In this scenario I've installed a 17 teeth sprocket and the result is that
I've won 1000rpm... that means that when I was driving at 120KM/h
at 6000RPM, not I drive at the same speed, at 5000RPM.

I was afraid of the loss of acceleration, but I didn't notice any. Well,
in fact I've not done any quarter-mile race to test, but my own
butt-dyno says that the power is about the same.

Sixth gear was useless over 7K-8K with the 16 teeth sproket, and
still is with the 17 teeth, but I no longer need to rev the engine over
7K, since I reach 100MPH (160KMh) at 7500RPM.

I'm just very happy with my new sprocket.

[scratch]

Good! You should get better fuel economy, too!

[RVertigo]

So...  It didn't end up totally gutless?

Why don't more people do this?  You'd get better gas mileage and possible longer engine life right?

[werase643]

but only 4 people around here would actually benefit from the increased engine life....60-100k miles

[treybrad]

Sixth gear was useless over 7K-8K with the 16 teeth sproket, and
still is with the 17 teeth...

Hmm, what's the deal w/ that? Seems like I read something about our bikes not pulling over 7k in 6th once a month... Are you guys sitting straight up and dragging a parachute?    Just trying to figure out if that's normal or what the deal is... My bike will pull just fine in 6th from 4k all the way to 10k... Maybe something else is wrong that you need to look into.

trey

[marc]

I drive straight under 75-85MPH (120-140KMh).
I hide "under the counters" over that speed, but pegs in the GS500
are not located for sporty positions.

I test the lack of power easily:
I accelerate till 25 and engage 6th, then open gas and see where
the engine stops pulling.
3K to 6K: engine kicks my ass.
6K to 7K: does not pull hard (like other bikes when reaching red zone)
7K to 8K: lazy pull.
8K to 10K: will pull in 5th gear.

There's something wrong in my bike, spark plugs come out white, and
I have the fuel starvation problem. My engine is 39000Miles old and
oil consumption is hard.

On september I'll have time to mess with it.

[sprint_9]

7-8k is one of the hardest pulling ranges for the GS engine.  You must have some problems.

[thirdman]

7-8k is one of the hardest pulling ranges for the GS engine.  You must have some problems.

Yeah, my 2001 sings when I hit 7k and up.  I am dropping a few teeth up front so that I can run in the 7k+ range at legal speeds in 6th.