05-09-2015, 02:18 AM
(05-08-2015, 11:53 PM)mustakoira_imp Wrote: I think I'm going to buy these and do this based on what I have read here. I too am often looking for the nonexistent 6th gear.
Chip, did you go with aluminum or steel?
Must,
Both the front and rear 7th Gear Designs sprockets are steel. The rear has beautifully machined slotted lightening holes so it's about 1/3 lighter than the stock rear. It really is a piece of art. I intentionally did my test rides 2 up to determine if 1st gear would be too high. I weigh 200 and Renea weighs 120 so I had 320 lbs on the bike and I started with a lot of stop & go riding. It only took a couple minutes to get use to launching from a stop with the new gears. Still the old gearing has a slight advantage there. Once underway there is a huge advantage in every gear. The CB1100 has a very wide torque/horsepower spread and the new sprockets have me in each gear longer. Even 2 up the CB pulls the 10.5% taller gearing effortlessly and the maddening high rpm, I gotta shift up, feeling at highway speeds is gone. Now the bike feels like it's in top gear and it feels right.
In 5th gear with the new sprockets your speed is almost exactly double the tach indication. 3000 rpm = 60 mph, 4000 rpm = 80 mph. I cruised on the highway at 65, 70, 75, 80, and 85 mph last night and it's so much better (calmer with less vibration) and more comfortable at every speed. But again the biggest benefit is that I wasn't constantly pulling in the clutch and trying to shift up to a higher gear that wasn't there because the engine is spinning way too fast and it felt wrong. Now it feels like it should feel going down the road.
A Honda design goal for this bike was "a relaxed ride". Perhaps in Japan with a maximum speed limit of 62 mph the stock gearing provided that but it never felt that way to me. Even at 60 I was always trying to shift up to calm things down. But at US speeds the stock gearing felt more frantic than relaxed. Honda acknowledged this when they added a 6th gear in 2014 and slowed top gear rpm down 20%.
In any event, this is one of the best mods IMO yet and it's a massive improvement on 2013 CB1100's. All the best.
Chip