The CB1100 Community Forum

Been waiting for a kit. These free up alot of hp and mpg, anyone seen anything listed?

explain... what is a 520 conversion. link to something similar?


....ahh i think i understand now. you are referring to tires?

He means the chain. The theory is a smaller chain loses less power. I really wonder if the difference would be detectable on our bikes. A test on a Ninja 1000 showed less than 1.5 hp gained. That's about 1%. Does the CB really need that big chain? Probably not, but it sure looks cool.

And a 520 chain is not nearly as rugged, and would not last nearly as long.

hmmm. sounds like an interesting upgrade. time to wait and see what companies make this for the CB

We sold 520 conversions at our store for many years. It really helps on the race track. Weight saved and hp at full throttle and
helps a little but on the street it does very little .

For our bike, a 520 conversion would definitely not be considered an "upgrade". You can see how small that rear sprocket is, which means the chain needs to handle tremendous tension when that torquey 1140cc motor yanks on it. As stated above, a smaller chain is going to stretch quicker, and probably wear out stuff a lot quicker. In my opinion, it's totally not a worthwhile consideration. (Trust Honda on this one!)

And many of those kits come with aluminum sprockets, which wear out much faster than steel.