Hahahahahahahahahahahaha - aka Impressions of a 14T sprocket

[Danny500]

I'm glad you dug this up... I'm thinking this may be the next thing I do... or go up 4 teeth on the rear.

[joshr08]

i still havent ran mine but i have 14/45 on my bike.

[ineedanap]

wow, I thought my 15/43 was fun, 14/45 should be even funner!!!!!

[joshr08]

plus the 160 rear tire 

[kml.krk]

when I purchased 15T I also purchased 14T. I never had balls thou to try 14T out... I think I'm just not ready to do F to E conversion     (15T is great though!!)

[darb85]

the one i have went on a 2001.  does this have the sholder or not?  i cant remeber the cut off.

Thanks

[sticks]

funny i found this just thread now, i was working on my bike right now and had a question about the gearing. see, i was led to believe that the stock gearing was 16/39, but i was just in there and happened to count the teeth on my front cog, and counted 15.  i am by no means the first owner of this bike, (and the P/O was quite a squid,) but the markings on the cog are the same as on the (i assume...) stock cog in the wiki: http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k248/galahs/gs500f/gs500_old_front_jtr823.jpg  so i assumed that it was stock.

what gives?


red arrow points to part number (JTF565-15)

[oramac]

That cog is not stock.  Must've been replaced already...lucky you!  The GS's do come with 16t front sprockets.

[bill14224]

Yeah, 16/39 is the stock gearing.  I guess it's all about what you want out of the bike, but I think you guys have it backwards.  I went to 17/39 and I love it. (you have to get a longer chain, 110 links isn't enough)  The bike is more long-legged now.  Better on the expressway.  More comfortable, and it'll still pull over 9 grand in 5th, reaching 111 on my '94 E model.  If you want to do wheelies I understand, but otherwise I think you're forgetting if you want to rev it up you can always stay in a lower gear.  Hell, you have six of them!  I upped the gearing because on the expressway at 70 it wanted another gear, so I gave it one!

[joshr08]

I dont run highway so not worried about that.  I dont run it out to see top speed but what i do do (haha i said do do) is ride around town alot and ride it to work and just cruise around on it.  I made my off the line doggy 500 more playful for me.

[galahs]

Yeah, 16/39 is the stock gearing.  I guess it's all about what you want out of the bike, but I think you guys have it backwards.  I went to 17/39 and I love it. (you have to get a longer chain, 110 links isn't enough)  The bike is more long-legged now.  Better on the expressway.  More comfortable, and it'll still pull over 9 grand in 5th, reaching 111 on my '94 E model.  If you want to do wheelies I understand, but otherwise I think you're forgetting if you want to rev it up you can always stay in a lower gear.  Hell, you have six of them!  I upped the gearing because on the expressway at 70 it wanted another gear, so I gave it one!

I agree. If your just commuting or doing long hauls, going 17 up front is the way to go!

[bill14224]

I left something out.  With a 17T you can still accelerate in 6th, and pulling away from a stop is still easy, so it's not over-geared.  6th gear is now actually an overdrive gear, unlike the stock gearing.  If I wanna pull 5 digit rpm's, I can use the first 5 gears!     I look at it this way.  I have 6 gears and I want the last one to be overdrive.  Without an overdrive, why have 6 gears at all?

[Bluehaze]

This mod is actually for the lazy people who don't want to go down 2 gears just to pass a car..  we  just want to twist our throttle and zip away. 

[redhenracing2]

So my question is how many teeth do I need to go up in the rear to have the equivalent of down one tooth in the front.

according to the guys on the stuntlife forums, many of which backed this up, going down one in the front is equal to goin up six in the rear. i cant say for myself, mine are stock. thats just what ive been told.

[kml.krk]

quote from WIKI: "For reference - 80mph indicated in top gear is ~6000RPM. Stock gearing is 16/39. Going down a tooth in the front is equal to going up 3 in the rear. "

cheers
KML

[the mole]

To be absolutely precise, going down one on the front is equivalent to going up 39/16 on the rear, which is 2 7/16 (or about 2 1/2).

[tt_four]

I can't remember what the front cog is anymore, I'll have to check when i get home, but I've got a giant rear 47t chainring on the rear, half because we wanted it to have more pull, and half because it's purple and Heather thought it was pretty. Either way it definitely made it more fun to ride, and Heather wasn't really comfortable with the 100+mph speeds anyway. It tops out around 95mph with 47t.

Personally, I think I'm done with the highway for a while now, so I'd much rather have a bike that topped out much lower just so I had more pull everywhere under 40-50mph.

[O.C.D.]

I have read this and many threads looking for some help with this stuff.  So far I am still confused on some things.

I have a 15T up front and want to go up in the rear.  If I go to a 40, 41, or 42 in the rear, will I lose even more highway speed then?  Will I gain that much more low end though?  I see these guys with 15/45's and I am thinking that they must be pulling wheelies from idle, lol.

If I went to a 40 that would negate the front going down one I would think as far as links.  I think of the power as evening out though but I am sure I am wrong.  I race RC's as well and when I lower the pinion (front sprocket) and increase the spur (rear sprocket) I get better torque for less top end.  SO I am betting that will happen to the GS as well.

Well, if I did go to 41 I would need a 112 link chain.  So then I am looking into another realm of things I don't know about - o-ring, x-ring, roller, etc...  I have so much to learn but I need to by asking questions.

Is Vortex the only brand that makes most of these rear sprockets?  I cannot find anything in the 40/41 other than Vortex.

Jon

[Chanse]

http://www.lockhartphillipsusa.com/LPUSA_Catalog.htm

Warning the links on this page are huge-mongus, be warned that if you have a slow connection you will be there for hours. the catalog links are like 70 mb. I am currently checkin out other options there are several bikes including other makes that have the exact same part numbers many of them for the 520 conversions, that will swap over. So I hope to compile a list of parts that other bikes will swap over, might have to start a new thread with this. but Lockhart has several different manufacturers for sprokets. AFAM is the only one withthe 18 tooth front though. for those who were wondering.

[tt_four]

I have a 15T up front and want to go up in the rear.  If I go to a 40, 41, or 42 in the rear, will I lose even more highway speed then?  Will I gain that much more low end though?  I see these guys with 15/45's and I am thinking that they must be pulling wheelies from idle, lol.

Going smaller in the front = going bigger in the rear, only not in even amounts. Adjusting the size of the front has a bigger effect.

Smaller front/bigger rear means your bike will feel stronger, but the top speed will be lower, and your RPMs will be higher when you're cruising at 70mph on the highway in 6th gear

Larger front/smaller rear means your bike will not feel as strong, but the top speed will be higher, but your RPMs will be lower and more comfortable cruising at 70mph on the highway in 6th gear.

The only non-certainty here is the change in top speed, which I'll try to explain, but it'll probably be long and confusing. Pure math says the higher your gear ratio, the faster your bike will be, so technically you could gear your bike like a hayabusa, and your back wheel should be able to reach the same speeds as a hayabusa. The only problem is that once you're on the highway and are fighting 100mph+ winds, your engine isn't just spinning a wheel, it's spinning a wheel and pushing you through that wind resistance. On the center stand you *may* be able to make that rear wheel spin at 200mph with the right gear ratio, but if you put your weight and the highway winds against that bike, your probably going to top out at 75mph because the bike just doesn't have the torque to pull through it, and even though the redline is over 10krpm, your engine is only strong enough to get to 7k rpm in that kind of gear. The point being that most bikes are geared tall enough that in 6th gear they won't even reach the redline, so if you put on a smaller gear, you get a little more power, and actually might gain a few mph on the top speed because your bike is now able to rev higher. As you keep making the gearing smaller it'll eventually just keep lowering the top speed at the highest rpm.

examples:
My triumph used to top out at 138mph stock, but couldn't even hit the redline because the wind was too much for the gear. I made the rear chainring 3 teeth bigger, and the engine was now able to pull the bike all the way up to the redline and would top out at 145mph, so in that case, a smaller gear=more pull AND a higher top speed , with the only downside being that my RPMs were higher and less comfortable at cruising speeds.

Heather's GS on the other hand, used to have a top speed of somewhere around 115mph, but we went crazy with the gearing, and jumped from the 39t to a 47t, so while this bike also has more pull, the top speed dropped down to about 95, and we lost the comfortable cruising rpms.

Hope that helps, and I hope that was actually your question, before I took up that much of the discussion space.