slybonesjesse
Sport Tourer
For those who followed my belly pan thread, I had an oil leak and was just trying to live with the leak, and leave the belly pan off. -- Mostly since it was the bevel drive gearcase gasket and I new it would be a project to get that replaced. When I finally got around to getting it done I chose to do the 7th gear mod and install a Factory Pro shift kit at the same time. The 7th gear unit comes from Steve not only updated with the new gears, but rebuilt as needed and with a new gasket. It also looked freshly painted and the works. A complete assy ready to go. Installation is a reasonably good size project in that there are plenty of steps. Not an very hard project, but time consuming as there is a lot to do. I was very nervious at first about trying to tackle this job. But now that its out of the way, I can say its not near as hard as I though. I was worried about the swingarm and driveshaft part. Turns out these are easy. Overall I would say that if you have removed the rear tire before, messed with rear shock before, then you can do all that is necessary in the back end. The swingarm and driveshaft are not any harder. If you can remove the plastic up front and adjust your own valves, then you can also do the water pump, clutch slave, bevel drive gearcase, etc. None of this is any harder. Only makes a bigger mess getting coolant all over the place. Initial ride reports would be broken into a few parts. On the back roads around the house and in town, I will definitely be using 3rd a lot more where I used 4th before. Before I used 3rd and 4th. Now you really have to go 45mph plus to want to use 4th. That I recall 3rd used to be pretty dang close to 1:1. If I was going 35mph 3500 rpms. 40mph, 4000rpms. Now 35mph yields a tick over 3000 and 40mph is more like 3600. Upshift to 4th at 40mph and the bike accelerates to 45mph. I couldnt seem to ride that slow in 4th. I guess I am just not used to it yet. On the freeway I cruised along at 70 and it seems like about 400rpm drop. Those gear charts show 4200RPM at 70 for a stock tire Connie, and with the wings tires I ran about 4100. Now it seems more like around 3700 range for 70. The lower RPMs on the freeway really do help reduce noise and buzz. For everything above 70mph this makes a nice difference. On the gearing charts 80mph is 4800 rpms with the stock rear tire. With the 7th gear unit and wing tires I was around 4250 range. This thing is now running 80mph at a tick more rpms than I used to go 70mph. This thing purrs down the freeway at 80. I found my self more than once merging into traffic going a little faster than I thought. The Connie accelerates down the freeway on-ramps quite nice, except now 5th is all most as fast as 6th was before. Even with the wing tires its not quite as fast. 4100 at 70 before in sixth. 4500 in 5th at 70 now ( versus like 4900 before ). I was used to a certain feel and sound of the engine, etc. Now that has to be relearned. Zipping down the on-ramp at that same sound and feel is now faster. In 6th freeway roll-ons dont seem as snappy as before. But you are also starting from lower rpms. While you dont gain rpms as fast, you are traveling faster for those revs. So it could be all equaling out. I have no measurements. Still its nothing that a shift to 5th wont fix. 5th on the freeway still pulls nicely, better than 6th gear used to, but your going almost as fast. Passing power is not a problem. I recall early adpoters of the 7th gear claiming the bike accelerates just as good and your going faster. And the critics saying that can't be so, that the gear ratio change has to slow down acceleration everthing else being equal. -- My opinion would be that while the critics may technically be correct, from a practical perspective I'll side with the group that says your just going faster. Feels good to me. 2003 Concours, 46K COG #6953 IBA 28004 http://mysite.verizon.net/slybones/Concours/connieMain.htm
