hawglet Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 Is there a problem with simply adding a roller idler pulley, or is this a preference to try to not run one.............. I think he's just stuck on where to put one as the 45 is an already compact and claustrophobic package. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer dr.toto Posted February 15, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted February 15, 2008 Back in the late 80's and early 90's, someone was selling 11mm blower drives. I assume you know this because RCD made your pulley. I have forgot most of what I knew about this. I was a believer in the 14mm that was real common. I think if you do some research with blown alky racers, you might find out if there is another source. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted February 15, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 15, 2008 You know I dont quite understand both the buell and the bmw employ and idler pully? With a grand already sunk into this I think I would find a way to make it work Thanks HS for the feature post status... Buell employs an idler pulley whereas the BMW don't... Buell belt can run backwards over a pulley whereas the BMW belt is not recommended to run backwards over a pulley... I'll work it out because I have yet to see any problem... however complicated... which when you think about it all the time... did not become solved... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer phaedrusman Posted February 15, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted February 15, 2008 Maybe I'm just missing something here (distinct possiblity), but what about a tensioner on the bottom side of the swingarm inside of the belt. I couldn't really find a close up of a rc45 swingarm, but from what i could see the exhaust gets real close to the bottom side ( granted that was on a standard rc45, and from what I understand, your's is rather extensively modified so it could well be different ). Go with the mount of the tensioner closer to the pivot point of the swingarm, and the tensioner pulley closer to the rear pulley. Granted I have no answers for how to mount the tensioner. Not sure how keen I would be on drilling mount holes through the swingarm (especially on a rc45...imagine those aren't cheap...) or doing any other type of permanant mounting solution. *shrugs* Just a thought. Oh yeah, fantastic work on the rear pulley. God that's beautiful. Made me drool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted February 15, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 15, 2008 Given that the counter shaft and the swingarm don't share the same pivot tension is not constant during the full range of suspension travel... for a chain you adjust a bit of slack as the swingarm is level or the longest length... as the swingarm returns to it's normal ride height position you should have the slack prescribed by shop manual... same for a belt... the only difference is that belt run at zero slack... in fact you place a 2 lb weight on the belt and check the rate of deflection to archive correct tension... as the swingarm returns to it's normal ride height position there is still a measure of tension to insure that the teeth don't skip over the sprocket... that tension should fall within the prescribe rates by Gates engineering... if it don't then you're advise to run a fixed idler pulley to archive correct tension in order to prevent teeth skip... unfortunately for me the BMW rubber belt is not recommended to bend backwards over a pulley whereas the Gate belt is... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer spotthedogg Posted February 15, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted February 15, 2008 2 words Custom swingarm :P Awesome project and the work on that sprocket is sick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer tok tokkie Posted February 16, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted February 16, 2008 I repeat what I asked before. Is there not room to fit a smallish tensioner pulley on the INSIDE of the BMW belt. What about close to the front pulley on the lower slack side of the belt? The belt will not be subject to reverse bending. You are so close to the allowable center distance that the tensioner will not need to deflect the belt much and therefore there will be very little wrap of the belt around the pulley. The pulley will have to be toothed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted February 16, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted February 16, 2008 I repeat what I asked before. Is there not room to fit a smallish tensioner pulley on the INSIDE of the BMW belt. What about close to the front pulley on the lower slack side of the belt? The belt will not be subject to reverse bending. You are so close to the allowable center distance that the tensioner will not need to deflect the belt much and therefore there will be very little wrap of the belt around the pulley. The pulley will have to be toothed. Thanks for the suggestion but I already thought about it back in Oct... I think tensioning the belt out would not only interfere with the rest of the bike but promote teeth skipping on the sprockets... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soichiro Posted February 17, 2008 Share Posted February 17, 2008 I would think a tensioner would be mandatory. All timing belts I know of have a tensioner driven by the back side of the belt. There are locked tensioners and eccentric tensioners that apply tension as needed. I'm no engineer juat a honda technician. Are you not afraid of chunking belts? I know high power harleys do it all the time. Mr. 45 is stout i'm sure. I like the idea, no mess, no fuss. I look at the design more and I see others are right. It would have to be toothed and driven by the toothed or inner belt. Buell uses there tensioner on the back side of the belt IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Rabidsnipe Posted February 19, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted February 19, 2008 I can only imagine what I would give up for a belt driven VFR. Keep up the work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer magicman Posted April 4, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted April 4, 2008 Ideally I needed 628mm between centers as evident with Mr.RC45's 17T43T 110 links of chain prove to show... But when I added the Buell 30T 72T 155T setup it measured 561mm between centers... 67mm too short... Would it not be possible to shrink your pullies to lengthen the shorter buell belt? It would require changing both pullies of course, and I'm not sure how much distance you could gain, but maintaining the gear ratio would not be very hard. Your 30:72 gives you a 2.4:1 ratio, somethink like a 27:65 would give you a 2.407:1. And I imagine a 65 tooth rear sprocket would be significantly smaller. Not nessissarily small enough, but you can always drop down again if you're custom fabbing it. EG: 24:58 returns a 1:2.416 ratio which would actually be slightly closer to the stock 2.529. Costs are going back up, but if it lets you achieve your goals then why not? This would also allow you to run the Buell style tentioner, would it not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bvoetmann Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 Have alook at www.vhmotorradtechnik.de They do it for the VTR. One problem is the minimum size of pulleys to use with a belt, hence not enough room for the "drive" pulley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted April 4, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted April 4, 2008 Would it not be possible to shrink your pullies to lengthen the shorter buell belt?Costs are going back up, but if it lets you achieve your goals then why not? This would also allow you to run the Buell style tentioner, would it not? If I shrink my pullies to the absolute minimum the buell belt is still too short... There's no room to run a Buell style tentioner... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest hybrid Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 you know for a lot less money in materials you can build a spondon style aluminum tubular swingarm in the just slightly longer dimensions. Chromoly is easy to obtain and cheap enough to build as well. Besides, why spend all that time and money as well as the effort to only change out the drive system. Id go custom arm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veefer800Canuck Posted May 20, 2008 Share Posted May 20, 2008 you know for a lot less money in materials you can build a spondon style aluminum tubular swingarm in the just slightly longer dimensions.Chromoly is easy to obtain and cheap enough to build as well. Besides, why spend all that time and money as well as the effort to only change out the drive system. Id go custom arm. Larry already has a genuine HRC RC45 swingarm waiting to go on, IIRC, he's trying to source the matching linkage. Not sure what the length difference is, if any...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Cruiser Posted November 17, 2008 Share Posted November 17, 2008 Sorry you are having such a difficult time making this conversion. Closest you can get to 628mm center distance is by using your 30 tooth Driver sprocket and an 85 tooth rear wheel sprocket with the 173 tooth belt. This will give you a center distance of 627.85mm. Just make sure that you are working with the correct center distance to begin with! It would be best if you could provide a center distance range (Min to Max) to make sure the belt will install properly and still be tensioned. If you need additional calculations please contact me. Bruce - gto_65@hotmail. P.S. I'm a Gates Engineer :fing02: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted November 18, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted November 18, 2008 Sorry you are having such a difficult time making this conversion. Closest you can get to 628mm center distance is by using your 30 tooth Driver sprocket and an 85 tooth rear wheel sprocket with the 173 tooth belt. This will give you a center distance of 627.85mm. Just make sure that you are working with the correct center distance to begin with! It would be best if you could provide a center distance range (Min to Max) to make sure the belt will install properly and still be tensioned. If you need additional calculations please contact me. Bruce - gto_65@hotmail.P.S. I'm a Gates Engineer :cool: No problem Bruce... Honda thinks it's impossible to belt drive their bikes but I'll show them... I apprericate your suggestion but I don't have the clearance to run an 85T rear sprocket so I'm screwed... but you can help... there's a little known 11 pitch belt manufacture in Gates Japan rumored to be 160T... that might work if I drop to 29/68 sprockets for a 2.35 ratio... you see stock RC45 final drive is 17/40 = 2.35 ratio... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer The mailman Posted November 18, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted November 18, 2008 I do not work for gates and I am definitely not an engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. - and I just read an article about converting chain drives to belt drive systems and they determined that most bearings on the internals of the engines designed with chain drives in mind would not be sufficient for the amount of tension that belts require to keep teeth properly engaged in the cogs of the pulley. Any consideration toward this line of thought? I'm not sayin' - just askin'. :cool: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Rice Posted November 18, 2008 Member Contributer Share Posted November 18, 2008 I do not work for gates and I am definitely not an engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. - and I just read an article about converting chain drives to belt drive systems and they determined that most bearings on the internals of the engines designed with chain drives in mind would not be sufficient for the amount of tension that belts require to keep teeth properly engaged in the cogs of the pulley. Any consideration toward this line of thought? I'm not sayin' - just askin'. :cool: Hey! mailman! Stop complicating things :pissed: :biggrin: :biggrin: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tightwad Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 I do not work for gates and I am definitely not an engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. - and I just read an article about converting chain drives to belt drive systems and they determined that most bearings on the internals of the engines designed with chain drives in mind would not be sufficient for the amount of tension that belts require to keep teeth properly engaged in the cogs of the pulley. Any consideration toward this line of thought? I'm not sayin' - just askin'. :cool: I was actually wondering this same thing, as the force required to maintain belt tension ("overhung" or "radial" load) would be much different than that experienced with a chain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted November 19, 2008 Author Member Contributer Share Posted November 19, 2008 Maybe I'm just missing something here (distinct possiblity), but what about a tensioner on the bottom side of the swingarm inside of the belt. I couldn't really find a close up of a rc45 swingarm, but from what i could see the exhaust gets real close to the bottom side ( granted that was on a standard rc45, and from what I understand, your's is rather extensively modified so it could well be different ). Go with the mount of the tensioner closer to the pivot point of the swingarm, and the tensioner pulley closer to the rear pulley. Granted I have no answers for how to mount the tensioner. Not sure how keen I would be on drilling mount holes through the swingarm (especially on a rc45...imagine those aren't cheap...) or doing any other type of permanant mounting solution. *shrugs* Just a thought.Oh yeah, fantastic work on the rear pulley. God that's beautiful. Made me drool. Thanks but you did miss the part about rollers... I already thought about rollers... but the BMW belt is kind of rubbery whereas the Buell belt is more plastic... the different being you can run a roller against Buell belt but not against the BMW belt without taking the life out of it... besides I don't have the room on Mr.RC45 dense packaging... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer BusyLittleShop Posted March 19, 2009 Author Member Contributer Share Posted March 19, 2009 I'm installing my HRC swingarm and in the process I had this chance to mock up my belt drive conversion... biggest hurdle is still a 11mm pitch belt with the correct number of teeth... so it's not ready yet... but all I can say is I'm shall never rest until it is done... right now just enjoy the possiblities... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SEBSPEED Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Keep the dream alive Larry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer magicman Posted March 19, 2009 Member Contributer Share Posted March 19, 2009 What a tease, eh? Looks good enough to be true... Keep at it. Somewhere out there, someone is looking at an 11mm pitch belt with the correct number of teeth (for you), and wondering what to do with it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Phantom Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Larry, have you by chance done the calculations for putting a belt drive onto the 3rd Gen-onwards VFRs? There should be some dimension differences that may make it possible... and there'd probably be a market for them, I'd certainly be interested. Great to see this thing is still on the workbench, I'm sure you'll get there :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.