How involved does replacing / upgrading these things will be?  

also where can you buy them?  

do you decrease teeth up front and increase in the rear? some info would be appreciated.

has anyone done this for an '04 GS?

sorry for the retarded questions  :dunno:

Put a 15t on the front, alot quicker now, but lost some top end.
If you go 1 down in the front, it about equals going up about 3 in the rear, but then you would need to replace the chain.

Stock is 16/39

Quote from: chinox22xHow involved does replacing / upgrading these things will be?

I have never replaced the rear sprocket (and never intend to) so I can't speak from experience on that.  But replacing the front sprocket is a 15-minute job, and that's if you pause to clean out any gunk in the front sprocket area.  All you need is a 10mm wrench, an 8mm socket, and some way to remove a snap ring.

Quote from: chinox22xalso where can you buy them?

See my GS500 Chains & Sprockets page for potential sources.

ok, going down 1 on the front;  


can the stock chain be shortened in an easy way? or is it better to just buy a new chain?  what should i look for if i buy a new chain? size?

If you just go down one tooth in the front there is no need to replace your chain.  But to take out the extra bit of slack in the chain you will need to:

* Loosen the rear axle bolt

* Tighten the nuts on the very ends of the swingarm (by the SAME amount!).  Just go 1/4 or 1/2 turn at a time until the slack in the middle of the lower chain run is ~1 inch.

* Retighten the axle.[/list:u]

hey kerry,
on your list...those sprockets are only for 94-02...do you know if it will fit an 03?

thanks....

I was also going to add/ask...those part numbers do not come up for GS500 bikes at all.  They mostly say Yamaha.  Will they still fit the Suzuki?  I assume an 02 should still fit an 04 GS500F...same engine right?

Thanks,
Scott

Quote from: Froston your list...those sprockets are only for 94-02...do you know if it will fit an 03?

Yep.  I only listed what the catalogs said, but the 94-02 sprockets will fit all the way through '04 at least.

Im going to need a new chain and have a 47 tooth rear sprocket from my bandit wheel layin around, so how would that compare to a 15t front and stock rear?  I might have to change to the 47 because I bent my stocker somehow, I suppose it could be straightend back, would that work also?  Sorry bout the thread hi-jack.

Quote from: southjerzriderzthose part numbers do not come up for GS500 bikes at all.  They mostly say Yamaha.  Will they still fit the Suzuki?

Hmmm.  I can double-check if you like.  Which set of part numbers were you looking at - from which vendor?

Quote from: southjerzriderzI assume an 02 should still fit an 04 GS500F...same engine right?

Yes, same engine ... but the pre-'04 engine was the same, too.     The difference between the '89-'03 sprocket and the '94+ sprocket is not the shape of the hole that slides onto the countershaft.  It's the presence or absence of a "shoulder" that serves as a spacer.

Here's an old photo showing a stock '99 sprocket, a Sprocket Specialists unit, and a JT Sprockets one:



The Sprocket Specialists sprockets for the GS500 all look like the one in the middle.  This is what the '89-'93 stock sprocket looks like as well.  Several GStwin members have successfully used a Sprocket Specialists unit on their post-93 countershaft with no ill effects, but when I tried it I had some scary noises coming from down there when I least expected them.  Probably just a wheel alignment issue, but still....

Stocker is 49 on the rear, so that would be 2/3 the difference between the stock setup and a 15 tooth up front.

Quote from: sprint_9Im going to need a new chain and have a 47 tooth rear sprocket from my bandit wheel layin around, so how would that compare to a 15t front and stock rear?

The stock front has 16 teeth.  The stock rear has 39 teeth.  That's a ratio of 16/39 or 0.410.

If you drop a tooth on the front, the ratio drops to 15/39 or 0.385.

If instead you go up 3 teeth on the back you get a ratio of 16/42 or 0.381.  Roughly equivalent, right?

But if you dropped to 15 teeth in the front and went up to 47 in the rear, you'll get a ratio of 15/47 or 0.319.  That's QUITE a drop from stock.  I hope you like popping wheelies!  

Quote from: sprint_9I might have to change to the 47 because I bent my stocker somehow, I suppose it could be straightend back, would that work also?

Hmmm, I don't know.  Are you sure you can't afford the $28 for a brand new 39-tooth unit?

Hang on - what if you went up to 17 teeth in the front and went up to 47 in the rear?  That gives a ratio of 17/47 or 0.362, which is roughly equivalent to dropping to 14 teeth in the front with the stock rear (14/39 or 0.359).  Still a little "flighty" for me.  :dunno:

Besides, I'm not sure how big of a sprocket you can even FIT in the housing up front.  Anyone?

Quote from: Kerry

Quote from: southjerzriderzthose part numbers do not come up for GS500 bikes at all.  They mostly say Yamaha.  Will they still fit the Suzuki?

Hmmm.  I can double-check if you like.  Which set of part numbers were you looking at - from which vendor?

The ones that I looked up were for the Dennis Kirk site for the 15-tooth from JT Sprockets (80-985-15) - came up as Kawasaki and Parts Unlimited (8-411-15 ) - came up as Kawasaki and a 'Lemans' manufacturer and lastly Sunstar (80-067-15 ) came up as Kawasaki...the Yamaha ones were the 14-tooth.

Well, just to confuse the issue more, if you have a 1994 model year bike, you might want to check the manufacture date of your bike. Mine is a 1994, but was manufactured in 1993. I ordered a sprocket for a 94+ and it was the wrong one. My advice would be take off the cover and look and see if your sprocket has a "shoulder" on it with your own eyes if you have a 1994. If it has a shoulder, get a 94+, if not (like mine) then get a 89-93 sprocket. Just my $.02, hope it'll help someone from making the same mistake I did..

trey

I'm glad you spoke up!  As I have gathered data from the catalogs over the past 2 or 3 years I have found conflicting model year ranges from various sprocket vendors.  The conflicts always hovered around the '93-'94 period.  I thought I had settled the question once and for all when I culled the following info from BikeBandit:

FRONT SPROCKET
==============
1989   490551-001
...
1993   490551-001


1994   490543-001
...
2002   490543-001[/list:u]but your counterexample sends the message loud and clear:  IF YOU HAVE A '93 OR '04 -- ESPECIALLY A '94 -- DO A VISUAL CHECK BEFORE YOU BUY A REPLACEMENT FRONT SPROCKET!

Well just to stir the pot a little   ,I checked again on the Sprocket Specialist sprockets  and they show a different front sprocket for the 04 models.  They show the same front sprocket w/o the shoulder for all years from 89-03. Any ideas what might be different on the 04 front sprocket?

http://motorcyclesprockets.com/html/suzuki7.shtml

JT shows the sprocket JTF516.16 with shoulder for 94-04 models and sprocket JTF565.16 w/o shoulder for 89-93 models.

http://www.jtsprockets.com/

Both SS and JT show the same rear sprocket for all years.

I'm one who uses the Sprocket Specialists front sprocket w/o shoulder on my 97 GS500E that came with a sprocket with shoulder.  Bought bike new spring of 99 and put on new front sprocket and chain each spring 00, 01, 02, and 03.  No problems with the shoulderless sprocket and the splined shaft looked like new last time I changed sprocket.  Bike now has 79,000+ miles on it.

I've never changed a rear sprocket since I've never had one wear enough to require it.  This includes a CB750 I put 80k miles on and a CM400 I put 98k miles on as well as the 97 GS with 79k+ on it so far.

Quote from: southjerzriderzThe ones that I looked up were for the Dennis Kirk site for the 15-tooth from JT Sprockets (80-985-15) - came up as Kawasaki and Parts Unlimited (8-411-15 ) - came up as Kawasaki and a 'Lemans' manufacturer and lastly Sunstar (80-067-15 ) came up as Kawasaki...the Yamaha ones were the 14-tooth.

Sorry ... I didn't notice your post while I was at work (where my printed Dennis Kirk catalog is  :x ).  If you do a Make / Model / Year search for your GS500 on the Metric Bikes section of the Dennis Kirk site, you will see some of the parts that came up as Kawasaki when you searched by part number.

Not all of the parts that I listed show up that way though.  I'll bet I got the rest from the printed catalog, but I won't be able to know for sure until tomorrow....

Thanks for the reply Kerry.  I suppose nothing else I could try the big sprocket on the back and see how I like it.  Im in need of a new chain so I can just buy a long one and go from there, if I dont like the feel I can always shorten it to suite another sprocket.  How would I go about calculating the number of links needed for a 16t front and 47t rear?

Quote from: sprint_9How would I go about calculating the number of links needed for a 16t front and 47t rear?

The stock chain has 110 links.  Personally, I would add 8 for the extra teeth and then 2 or 3 more for good measure.  They may not be necessary, but better safe than sorry!

Thanks again for the info.  I have sent an email to customer service at Sprocket Specialists to confirm.  I don't think there is such a thing as a 2004 GS500E in the US...so they may have just misprinted.

Scott