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[ESokoloff]

the belt can not GAIN any power, it does not produce power, only the engine does that.  the belt just transmits the power to the wheel, therefore it didn't gain it just lost less of the power the engine created.  You might say it preserved power, there is no GAIN, just less loss.

Aaron

Delta HP
Belt transmits 1 greater then chain thus is additive (net positive) over chain drive in transferring energy to rear wheel. 

You see things differently so let’s agree to disagree.

[Specter]

TRANSFERRNG,  not a gain, nothing was added, just maintained, just more efficiency, less loss.
agreed, lets just drop it, it's not worth the discussion.

Aaron

[smithy]

Hi All,

Just following up on this...I've managed to source a few items to begin "mocking up" a belt drive system for the Experia....bearing in mind I wish to keep the ability to go back to chain & sprockets if I need to. In the pic you can see a the general idea...I'm still not sure if I need to run a tensioner or not, I probably will on the lower belt run similar to a Buell...this belt drive is taken from a BMW F800GT & F650 "Scarver" and they have a similar setup, but no tensioner...albeit run on the right side of the bike.

I used an old "Vortex" 52t rear sprocket I had used previously and just machined the teeth off and essentially just bolted the BMW pulley to it with spacers to get the pulley in the correct orientation whilst missing the swingarm on the left inside of the swingarm...there's ~1.5mm clearance between the pulley and swingarm....which is handy. Time will tell if it's a viable setup...or just a pipedream.

Thoughts..??

Smithy.

[smithy]

Another pic from the rear.

The belt is a Continental CT1208...182 tooth, 11mm pitch, 2000mm long & 34mm wide, (~1 3/8"), and is the same belt as used on the BMW F800GT. I could'nt find a slightly narrower "off the shelf" belt with the same tooth count which would have been nice...but not to be. Clearance to the frame just above the swingarm pivot is minimal..

Smithy.

[Pard]

Beautiful work!  Did you mill that rear sprocket yourself?

Looking forward to the first ride impressions!

[Specter]

that looks sweet.
not sure if you'd need a tensioner, let alone where to put it.  just keep close eye on the belt, check it every week / few hundred miles etc make sure it's the same tension.  what you might want to do is get it where you  want it at, and mark that span, ie 24 mm of flex up and down, then when you check it, ok it's now 27 mm, give the rear adjuster a face or two adjustment to snug it up, and keep track that way.

id imagine unless you really romp the shit out of it, if it got too loose you should hear the tooth slippage before it starts actually tearing teeth off the belt, and know, time to adjust.   just to be safe, id keep a small breaker, a 38 mm?? is it for the rear and a 13mm for the adjustment bolts in the tank case just to have it handy in case you need to make adjustments mid trip.  the best way is a torque wrench obviously for re tightening rear axle but if you've been at it a while, you can 'feel' the 70 nm fairly accurate.

Aaron

[smithy]

Beautiful work!  Did you mill that rear sprocket yourself?

Looking forward to the first ride impressions!

The sprocket is just an old Vortex one I had used and worn out, I just milled the teeth off to the correct diameter so it fits inside the BMW pulley...seems to fit nicely...and can obviously take the torque, it had ~15,000km on it when removed/replaced.

I suspect the only difference between this and the old chain/sprocket setup will be the lack chain/sprocket noise...the belt should essentially be silent. I'm running a ratio as close to what I had as I could get given the pulley tooth counts available. The original ratio is 15/52 or 3.466.....I changed it to 16/52 which is 3.250, this has the speedo working very close to perfect, within 1kmh of actual.....the pulleys I'm now using are 28/80 which is only 2.857...but as mentioned....nothing else closer is available that will fit on the bike without clearance issues. 

Smithy.

[Specter]

how much sprocket noise was there?  I found that on the experia, most of the noise was the high regen causing it, and not so much chain noise.  if you idled it, it was pretty silent until you loaded it up, then the whirrr, was the motor being a generator.

aaron

[Grauteufel]

Whats going on here?

[Specter]

if that's a roller and you figure out a way to move it, that's your tensioner.

Aaron

[smithy]

Whats going on here?

That's the lower chain/frame slider, for want of a better word, it's a rubbery plastic thing (similar to the swingarm protector) which is screwed to the inside of the lower frame, fairly easy to remove...I have removed it now so there's no interference with the belt. I'll take some more detailed photos when I get a chance.

Smithy.

[smithy]

if that's a roller and you figure out a way to move it, that's your tensioner.

Aaron

No, not a roller unfortunately...although that would kill two birds with one stone.

I was thinking more along the lines of this in the pic below for a tensioner if required. I imagine I could quite easily make up a suitable bracket to fit it to the Experia. I just need to make sure the side stand would not interfere with it.

A tensioner like this, I suspect, would allow correct tension of the belt during all swingarm arc movement either side of neutral. I have found the arc of the swingarm is at it's longest with the weight of the bike sitting on the wheel....with rider the sag is ~30mm or so depending on rider weight...as the swingarm moves above/below "neutral", the belt loses tension.....a tensioner would then be ideal in this situation.

Smithy.

[smithy]

how much sprocket noise was there?  I found that on the experia, most of the noise was the high regen causing it, and not so much chain noise.  if you idled it, it was pretty silent until you loaded it up, then the whirrr, was the motor being a generator.

aaron

Not a great deal to be honest...I'm not too worried about the noise, it is what it is....I just hate the "chain spooge" and chain maintenance/lubing. A belt "should" outlast a chain/sprockets by a considerable amount unless abused.

Again...this is just an experiment to see if it can be done....so far so good..!

Smithy.

[Specter]

That's true on longevity maybe, but we have seen numerous times on the Zero, or is it the livewire, first time that belt gets torqued really hard, someone trying a dead climb up a curb or other goofiness, that belt will pop in a heartbeat.  A chain wont.  Im pretty sure if you dead force it, that experia can spin that tire pretty easy.  What is that kind of torque going to do on a belt?  or even coming off a train trellace hard.  granted im probably the only clown who jumps them at fast speeds but id bet that landing after going airborn will torque the hell out of a belt.  I can see shitty roads and whoop de whoops on construction roads causing grief too.

Aaron

[smithy]

That's true on longevity maybe, but we have seen numerous times on the Zero, or is it the livewire, first time that belt gets torqued really hard, someone trying a dead climb up a curb or other goofiness, that belt will pop in a heartbeat.  A chain wont.  Im pretty sure if you dead force it, that experia can spin that tire pretty easy.  What is that kind of torque going to do on a belt?  or even coming off a train trellace hard.  granted im probably the only clown who jumps them at fast speeds but id bet that landing after going airborn will torque the hell out of a belt.  I can see shitty roads and whoop de whoops on construction roads causing grief too.

Aaron

Yeah...a little common sense might be required....but the belt I'm using is considerably wider @34mm than the belt on say a Zero SRF witch is only 20mm and they seem to be ok unless they're abused. The tensile strength of modern belts these days is actually pretty amazing...considering they're nothing more than a glorified rubber band.

My next door neighbor has a 117ci Harley which has a considerable amount of torque and weighs in excess of 300kg, it only has a 1" drive belt....he's had the bike for nearly 3 years and it's still on the same belt...which baffles the imagination.

Smithy.