How much of a difference does down-gearing make?

Hi everyone

Not sure if this should be here or in the Talk & Issues but...

I haven't ridden my SV for a while I've been fixing it up and in the meantime I've been riding around when I can on my Dad's bike which is a 400cc Honda CB-1.

It's the first bike I've ridden with an IL4 engine and once I'd learnt to ride it properly by keeping the revs up it was a revelation - at 7k rpm plus it would just take off and even for a 45hp bike it seems to accelerate a lot harder than my SV does. I also found it easier to control and I could ride smoother and blip downshifts with no problem whereas I would be kangarooing about on the SV. It's such a difference I'm now seriously considering selling the SV on and theres a ZXR400 for sale locally...

Now there could be a number of reasons for this, the main one being that I am crap at riding V-Twin motorbikes, but I also know that the faired SV is geared pretty highly and fitting a 46 or even a 47 tooth sprocket would boost the acceleration of the bike.

So just wondering if doing this down-gearing would make a sizeable difference to the performance, enough to give the bike a new spring in its step and thus prevent the hassle and heartache and headache and expense of swapping to another bike?

Cheers all...

[yorkie_chris]

A big difference, I had 47 or 48 on mine and all was good, got the stock one on now which is 45 and it's naff.

Does increase supping on the motorway a bit though.

[dizzyblonde]

is that nakid though Chris...thought the 'S' had 44 on rear?

[yorkie_chris]

Yes S is 44 rear... which I imagine is even worse.

With the downgeared bike it was very easy to keep the revs right up where they need to be, 7-10k, all day. With stock gearing it's hard work and it's slowed me down an awful lot.

[TSM]

15/45-46 is fine on an S, you dont realy get much more acceleration as you will just run out of revs sooner and have to upshift,

ive had 15/45 and i does not make me slow, just keep it down one gear, mabey my 5+ deg ignition advance also helps my bike accelerate faster

[yorkie_chris]

Indeed, it is entirely my problem and not the bikes!

[STRAMASHER]

I have had the naked gearing (45 tooth) on for a couple of C&S sets.

My SV is mostly a commuter and the slightly lower gearing punts it away from the lights quicker. Only downsides for me are, it does my head in cruising at anything above 60mph, a right revvy racket. Horrible on m/ways. If you are "on it" , up and down the revs and gearbox, its great.

The 400 il4's always feel fast cos of the noise and revs and "powerband" (S.F.A. then a wee dod!). My SV slaughters my ol'400 Bandit everywhere apart from ...........looks! (At least until my missus spanked it and herself up on it)

Think you will get a shock when you jump back on your SV at the amount of instant punt anywhere it has.

How low are you trying to rev it to get it kangarooing? Im pretty sure I could take mine down to about 3000rpm before it got rough at all... Id suggest keeping the revs above 3.5K rpm and you will have no issues.

Sorry I've worded it badly...I'm not kangarooing going slowly it's more when changing gear, especially when downshifting and blipping the throttle. On the CB1 shifting and blipping seems to be second nature, maybe because of the lack of torque low down.

With the down-gearing I'm not really looking for all-out acceleration, it's just trying to get more of that "rush" or "surge" you get with the IL4 which made the CB such a laugh to ride. That kick that tries to pull your arms out of their sockets if you see what I mean. Even getting up to speed on 30mph roads were a giggle on the CB. LOL I'm crap at explaining things, heh heh.

I'm sure I've read on here somewhere that there's a way to adjust the throttle pot settings on a curvy to get a smoother response?

Cheers for your help guys, now to rack my brains until a decision is made...

ive got to admit a zxr 400 i had one and it went and sounded awesum but one day i was doin 60 and it blew up on the spot so that was it for my zxr i bought sv but the zxr is a very nippy bike nice riding postion aswell ..if you want reliabilty go for sv.. but if you want a fast and lovable bike get the zxr