First timer chain & sprocket swap

I'll answer your question with a question: Do you want that protective grease all over your bike or on a rag?


Once the chain heats up, that stuff will melt like butter and fling everywhere. Wipe her down good to get all the factory grease off and apply a good aftermarket chain lube. I prefer Maxima Chain Wax. Follow the directions and it won't fling off (I usually let my chain set over night for it to set up good, or at least try to let the chain and bike all cool down to ambient air temperature for about an hour before riding it if possible.)


Other decent lubes include Bel-Ray and one named PJ something. Someone else can chime in on that one.


You can use gear oil if you want...but that's messy as hell. Exact same reason I'll never use an auto oiler as well. Forget that crap. I can clean and lube my chain like clockwork since it's easy and there's no excuse not to.

 

yes. what he said.
remove that factory crap and apply your own.
chain wax is the bomb-diggity
very low fling

 

I was interested in going up +2 in the rear when I replace the chain and sprockets this summer. In doing my research on the subject it is recommended to ad a speedo healer when you change the gearing. So your mileage and speed will be accurately displayed.

Did you add or have a speedo healer"?


BTW. Great pics. Thanks for taking the time to document your process and share.

 

what do you find the best to remove the factory grease? WD-40 on a rag?

 

I went +2 on the rear and I bought a speedo healer BUT have never installed it. The inaccuracy of the factory speedo error combined with the sprocket gearing error comes out at nearly 10% high. 80mph indicated is really 72mph. I verified it with my GPS and the gearing calculator on speedo healer's website. So if you don't want to spend $110 on the Speedo Healer it's fine. If you don't want to do the simple math in your head as your riding go ahead and buy one, they work great and are easy to install. I just feel that having a higher speedo reading tends to keep me out of trouble more often than not. :biggrin:

Kerosene. Wet a rag with some kerosene to clean off the chain and use a tooth brush for hard to reach areas. Be sure to not disturbed the o-rings. The last thing you want to do is get degreaser /solvent in there! Alot of people on here say it's ok or not ok to use WD-40. Some say it's kerosene with fragrance, others say it's too harsh of a solvent on the o-rings. I'll be safe and stick to the manufacturers recommendation of kerosene. You don't need much anyway. I've had 8 ounces of kerosene last me about 3 chain cleanings.


I believe the dealers sell some aftermarket aersol cleaners as well. Those work too. Just make sure you get one that is safe for "ALL O-rings". More specifically I believe they are of "Buna-N (Nitrile) O-Rings" type.

 

Hey great write up you've inspired me to do my own sprockets. I think I'm going to do -1/+2...has anyone used that setup?

 

The change in gearing will affect the accuracy of both your speedometer and odometer.

Without correcting back to stock error, you'll be racking up miles at a faster rate than you've actually traveled.

Correcting to an accurate speedometer will cause your odometer to read low.

Of course an inaccurate odometer will make for inaccurate mpg calculations.

 

Yes, the accuracy is affected. Yes, they rack up faster.


I lose you when you say that correcting the speedometer to be spot on causes your odometer to read low. This means that the manufacturer would account for speedo error in calculating the odometer reading...WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?

Why isn't the odometer reading directly correlated to speedometer reading?

 

For what it's worth, I replaced the chain & sprocket on the Hawk GT in 2005. I never bothered to remove the factory applied chain snot. 4 years & 3500 miles later, the original chain snot is still there, the chain is still lubed just fine. When I changed the VFR chain, all I did it spray some white lith/moly on the sprockets & left it at that. Yesterday, I put 180 miles on the VFR & 40 on the Hawk. Trust me, it will not fly off.

By all means, use whatever you want. For cleaning, nothing is going to beat kerosene. It is recommended by every chain maker that I can tell, DID, RK, EK, etc... Just make sure you clean it off completely. Reason for this is the kerosene will act as a solvent to any thing you apply. It will eat the moly/lith lube, stickers, paint, anything.

KC-10 FE out...
lane: :usa2:

 

I probably can't explain it very well, but here's a shot...

The odometer and speedometer share a common source. The speedometer is designed to be optimistic. The odometer is designed to read true.

A speedohealer sits between the source and the destination manipulating the signal for the desired effect. Because they are directly correlated, reducing one reduces the other.

HTH


EDIT:


To your point, the manufacturer purposefully designs the speedometer to read high. I don't think they account for speedometer error when calculating odomoter reading, they build in the speedometer error. Probably for liability reasons. Imagine the lawsuits if instead of being spot on, the speedometer read a little low. It's your fault I was speeding... It's your fault I got pulled over for speeding and found to be drunk/high/wanted...

 

Can anyone confirm this with hard evidence instead of hear say? I see the liability issue, but it doesn't make any sense to design around an error instead of correcting it.

 

It's on the speedohealer website under FAQ:

 

Good question I'd like to know the answer too! I changed gearing to -1/+2 on my '99 and just calibrated it Sunday against the GPS. Actual 70mph was indicated 85mph, give or take a couple mph, about 15% off. The GPS recorded 138 miles traveled, the trip meter recorded 150 miles, 8% off. I haven't put a speedo healer in yet but I don't see how you can correct both to be 'accurate'. It seems after you tune it the best you'll get is one or the other accurate, similar to the original programming. Or split the difference and get a slightly under optimistic speedo and over optimistic odo.

BTW, I've also decided to go back to stock teeth (17) on the front and leave the rear at -2, it just revs to high on the highway compared to what I'm used to.

Kerosene works great on that factory grease, I made the mistake of riding only a couple miles before cleaning it and it had flung everywhere.

WD40 is safe for orings, according to WD40 themselves, but it doesn't cut that mfg grease as well as kero.

edit: What Crazy said. :thumbsup:

Still makes you wonder why they program it like this?

 

This just seems like the biggest engineering bull crap I've ever seen. Bah! I'm not too concerned. I'm not selling my bike.

What happened to the good ol' days of running it off the front wheel and never having to worry about it?

 

Thank you for the write up and picks Dudealicious, I had plan the same set up. It will make it easier for me. :thumbsup:

 

Thanks Dudealicious!

I bought the same tool. Not every day a tool pays for itself the first time you use it! It worked great. I bought an RK racing chain and sprocket set on eBay with a 20K mile warranty. Just finished installing it. I love this site. Between this thread and the PDF version of the manual, it was a breeze!

And thanks to soundmaster31 for finding the tool!

 

Well.... Everything was covered nicely, but there's still one point I'd like to know.... When putting on the master link how do you know when to stop crimping the new pin?

 

In the directions with the tool I purchased, which were obviously not originally written in English, it said to tighten until the riveting pin part of the tool makes contact with the face of the master link. You can watch it from the side and can feel it hit a tight spot. I actually had to go back and double check the first side I had done, because I also was unsure where I should stop. But with closer examination, you can indeed tell when the face of the riveting pin contacts the side of the master link.

 

...as far as how far you need to rivet the pins...

They need to be a certain diameter without having any cracks or splitting along the edge. Something like 3.5 or 4.5 mm comes to mind. Check the manufacturers website. I think DID might have it posted.

 

There are specifications in the Maintenance section of the Honda Service Manual that specify what the diameter of the pin should become as you tighten down on the PIN.