Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ESokoloff]

……I'm using 55hz as tension requirement.
………

I'm still toying with the idea of using a Gates "Carbon Drive" Moto X9 belt and suitable pulleys, but this may be a long way off as I can't even get Gates Australia to reply to my emails.
……

Out of curiosity, have you checked the belt tension via a Krikit?
When I was commuting & putting about 14k miles/year I checked/adjusted the belt every month.
On my 2016 DSR I have the skinny belt so keep it @ the high limit of tension. 
2017 on the wider belt is used & has a much wider tension range.
I recommend avoiding tension above the mid range to minimize strain on the bearings.


Try Motion Industries for Gates products

https://www.motion.com.au/

If you want to test the belt to potential failure point, try hopping off street/sidewalk curbs & landing with a fist full of throttle.
Also throw in several passes on a bumpy street (working the suspension) again under heavy throttle. 

Or just continue what your doing (riding sensible) & see how long it will last.

[smithy]

Yeah, I’ve tried to contact gates a number of times, I even used my work email to have a bit more swing, but got zero responses as well.

I'm getting the same as you...no response.

Smithy.

[smithy]

……I'm using 55hz as tension requirement.
………

I'm still toying with the idea of using a Gates "Carbon Drive" Moto X9 belt and suitable pulleys, but this may be a long way off as I can't even get Gates Australia to reply to my emails.
……

Out of curiosity, have you checked the belt tension via a Krikit?
When I was commuting & putting about 14k miles/year I checked/adjusted the belt every month.
On my 2016 DSR I have the skinny belt so keep it @ the high limit of tension. 
2017 on the wider belt is used & has a much wider tension range.
I recommend avoiding tension above the mid range to minimize strain on the bearings.


Try Motion Industries for Gates products

https://www.motion.com.au/

If you want to test the belt to potential failure point, try hopping off street/sidewalk curbs & landing with a fist full of throttle.
Also throw in several passes on a bumpy street (working the suspension) again under heavy throttle. 

Or just continue what your doing (riding sensible) & see how long it will last.

I do have a "Krikit" belt tension gismo...used it a lot when servicing Zero's. Was easy to use...I use the same tension (55hz) as recommended by the guys in the F800GT forum, I might set the belt tension to 55hz and see what the Krikit says. Good idea, thanks.

I have no intention of trying to purposely snap the belt...the one I'm using is considerably wider at 34mm than the shoelace 20mm belt some of the Zero's use...so I suspect it will be fine. The tension strength of a belt is essentially a square of their width. A belt of the same construction and twice the width is basically 4 times stronger.

Smithy.

[ESokoloff]

…….
 The tension strength of a belt is essentially a square of their width. A belt of the same construction and twice the width is basically 4 times stronger.

I’m not sure that this is accurate without also increasing its girth/load bearing fiber content.
However that statement is correct when discussing rope (diameter).

“if you double the diameter of a rope, it will lift approximately four times the weight, not twice as much. The strength of a rope is proportional to its cross-sectional area, which is determined by the square of its diameter. ”

Disclosure: the statement above in parentheses is AI as I couldn’t find a better non AI explanation (but rest assured it is accurate).


Regardless that wide belt is WAY more robust than my dismissal skinny 14mm  belt.
Guess I have girth envy 
 

[smithy]

Just over 7000km into the belt driven Experia journey....still holding up well and no signs of letting go....still quiet, smooth, clean and chain spooge free. 

I have also just 99% finished making a 24T front pulley to replace the current 26T pulley...this should bring the ratio up to 3.33:1 from the 3.08 it currently is...the ideal ratio would be 3.25 to get the speedo spot-on but 3.33 will have to do...for a 3.25 ratio I'd need a 24.6 tooth front pulley.. ...The stock 15/52 ratio is 3.466:1 so I'm between that and a 16/52 or 3.25 setup.

Below is a pic of the 99% finished 24T front pulley.

Smithy.

 

[Specter]

Well, if yer brangs it down south here, dem mostly there teeth counts as full ones..  just give em a lil bigger gap tweens them, so ya can gits the cleaning stick in there easier.

that's one thing i wish the experia had was a way to set teeth numbers to make the speedo match.  tire size a little bit but teeth are much more significant.  keep forgetting when i ride mine, the speedo is off and the amount is not a solid number it goes up as speed goes up.

aaron

[smithy]

Well, if yer brangs it down south here, dem mostly there teeth counts as full ones..  just give em a lil bigger gap tweens them, so ya can gits the cleaning stick in there easier.

that's one thing i wish the experia had was a way to set teeth numbers to make the speedo match.  tire size a little bit but teeth are much more significant.  keep forgetting when i ride mine, the speedo is off and the amount is not a solid number it goes up as speed goes up.

aaron

Yeah...the speedo offset is not linear....using 16/52 is as near perfect as you're going to get though...at 100kmh on the GPS the bike speedo is within +/- 1% with stock size tyres.

Smithy.

[Specter]

still 1 percent is much easier to deal with, that's 1 mph, pretty negligible, than the experia showing 107 to actually be doing 100.  yet at 45 is doing like 42 not too terribly bad off.

my ego/ribelle have a spot where i can punch in the teeth front to back and it changes it and it's dead nuts on from 0 to 150 +  wish they'd do that with all the bikes even on the street software.

Aaron

[smithy]

Hi All,

Just an update regarding my Experia belt drive conversion....The belt system now has just shy of 10,000km on it and no signs of wear or the need for me to be going back to chain and sprockets. The system still performs well, clean, smooth and quiet. The belt itself still looks new with only minor markings on the teeth, which is to be expected I guess. The belt and pulleys were fitted when the ODO was at 40053km, the bike now has 49970km, so getting very close to 10,000km. The pulleys are working well and essentially the same as when fitted and I see no need to change them when the belt is due....hopefully in ~50,000km time. I have three front pulleys for it, a 26T, 25T and 24T. The 25T is not quite finished as yet, will be a week or two away. The 26T pulley is hardened cast iron and the 24T & 25T pulleys are 7075-T6 hard anodised Aluminium.

Below pic is as it is this morning after my work commute with the 24T 7075-T6 "modified aluminium Supercharger" pulley fitted..!

Cheers,
Smithy.

[jotjotde]

Congratz!

Admittedly, I am not a belt fan and first I was sceptical if your project would fly. But now I am really convinced you did a great job. And the stuff you used looks 100 % as if it had always belonged there.
Happy ridings!

[DonTom]

Hi All,

Just an update regarding my Experia belt drive conversion....The belt system now has just shy of 10,000km on it and no signs of wear or the need for me to be going back to chain and sprockets. The system still performs well, clean, smooth and quiet.

Impressive!  I am beginning to like belts better than chains, after I changed the belt with the 3rd  tire change on my Zero SR with more than 25K miles/40 KM. The old belt looked just like the new in every way, but I changed it anyway.


And I still have the original belt on my 2017 Zero DS with close to the same number of miles/km.


I recently changed the drive chain on my Kaw Verseys 650 because it had very loose and then very tight spots making it impossible to adjust. Less than 10K miles/16KM.   What a hassle it was to replace!


And my 2020 Energica SS9- has around 13,000 miles/ 21KM and I will need to change the chain on it soon. I expect it will be even a bigger hassle than the Verseys.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

[smithy]

Congratz!

Admittedly, I am not a belt fan and first I was sceptical if your project would fly. But now I am really convinced you did a great job. And the stuff you used looks 100 % as if it had always belonged there.
Happy ridings!

Thank you Sir....much appreciated. It's not perfect by any means but is quite functional. I'll update in future as the mileage/kilometerage increases...I was like you and didn't think it would work as well as it actually does, it was essentially an experiment after all....surprised myself.

Smithy.

[smithy]

Hi All,

Just an update regarding my Experia belt drive conversion....The belt system now has just shy of 10,000km on it and no signs of wear or the need for me to be going back to chain and sprockets. The system still performs well, clean, smooth and quiet.

Impressive!  I am beginning to like belts better than chains, after I changed the belt with the 3rd  tire change on my Zero SR with more than 25K miles/40 KM. The old belt looked just like the new in every way, but I changed it anyway.


And I still have the original belt on my 2017 Zero DS with close to the same number of miles/km.


I recently changed the drive chain on my Kaw Verseys 650 because it had very loose and then very tight spots making it impossible to adjust. Less than 10K miles/16KM.   What a hassle it was to replace!


And my 2020 Energica SS9- has around 13,000 miles/ 21KM and I will need to change the chain on it soon. I expect it will be even a bigger hassle than the Verseys.


-Don-  Auburn, CA

Agree, chains can be a pain sometimes, although changing out the belt on the Experia requires the swingarm to be removed...I've been able to get this process down to ~25mins with all the practice I've had over the last several months whilst experimenting with pulleys etc. It's actually quicker now and much cleaner than swapping out chain & sprockets.

I have 3 other ICE bikes and two of them are chain driven...a '17 BMW S1000XR and an old '84 Honda VF1000RE which I have recently restored back to near showroom condition, with a few non-OEM mods....although I don't put many miles on them these days. My "other" 4th bike is a shaft driven 2019 Suzuki M109R... a brute of a thing to be honest, very powerful and very heavy @350kg, I mainly use it for pillion work with my missus....It does this with ease.

Smithy.

[Specter]

smithy that belt drive setup, with the rest of the bikes asthetics, looks really classy, i like it.
sometimes people do things to be different, but this definitely has a ton of potential of doing things to be better.
that bike is not a torque monster so the belt is like it was born for it, they mesh beautifully and seem to be working pretty flawlessly.

another potential plus, which i hope you never have to find out,  you get something up in there, with a chain, that could lock up, fuck you and the bike up, with a belt, it just pops and falls off really and you coast to a stop.  only downside i can think of, chain you can wrap around and peen, belt you must take the wheel off, which is no biggie even then.

Aaron

[smithy]

only downside i can think of, chain you can wrap around and peen, belt you must take the wheel off, which is no biggie even then.

Aaron

Thank you for the kind words..

Not just the wheel off unfortunately...swingarm too...not really doable on the side of the road....but it is what it is.

Smithy.