BusyLittleShop

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...

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...

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...

Thanks for the questions Toro... I stretched them out and measured the centers of the 110 links of chain and the 17/43 sprocket on the milling table... then I stretch and tensioned the belts and measured their centers... I also produce a full scale engineering drawing as a second opinion... it would be nice if Honda would release the engineering drawings to the RC45... I've been working with Gate's Engineers since 1989 with my first belt drive project... thanks but I have the engineering manuals and Mr. Timmerman name sounds familiar... I have yet to see any problem... however complicated... which when you think about it all the time... did not become solved... in short I never give up... I've even worked out a solution to run belts and change over all gearing... if I change the gear on the crank and the gear on the clutch that would afford overall gear ratio change without upsetting ride height or belt tension... trick no???

Hiya HS... yep they are the same sprocket I brought to Bubbas last year in July and it don't work... 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 think I have the room on Mr.RC45 dense packaging...

I don't think this current setup will work on any other VFR...

Unchain my bike... or so I thought... Hans Renold is credited with inventing roller chain in 1880... but here we are 127 years later and bikes are still laboring under a steely... heavy... clanky... messy... chain... Mercy me chains are a pain... belts spell relief... and so my belt drive conversion starts with an engineering drawing... Gates Poly Chain comes in 3 belt sizes... 14mm pitch is what HD employs on their cruisers... 8mm is what I used on the VF500 Belt-0-Ceptor... 11mm is the little known in between belt but only comes in lengths of 155T and 172T... I need 166T to make it work on Mr.RC45... I started with a Buell 11mm pitch sprockets and belt... a 30T up front and 70T out back... they were machined them to fit Mr.RC45... so far so good Buell's steel 30T 11mm spocket installed on the RC45 primary shaft... Buell's aluminum 72T 11mm sprocket installed on the RC45 axle... Ideally I needed 628mm between centers as evident with Mr.RC45's 17T 43T 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... Next I ordered a 172 tooth belt from BMW but with the Buell sprockets the BMW belt was 664mm between centers... 36mm too long... Maybe if I machine my own 76T sprocket so I started with a 20lb block of 7075 T6 Aluminum... After the teeth were cut by RCD Engineering the block was down to 10 lbs at this stage... After milling the spokes using only hand eye coordination it was down to 1 lb 13 oz... Now with the Buell 30T sprocket 172T BMW belt and 76T home made sprocket the distance between centers was 651mm... 23mm too long... because of the single sided swing arm I limited to 20mm adjustment so I knew it would be close... how close??? less than 3mm or .118 thousands of an inch separates success from failure... I have failed to unchain Mr.RC45... not that I didn't come close... I came within 3mm of enjoying a light weight... maintenance free... snatch free... lubeless belt drive system... it all came down to finding the right number of teeth in a 11mm pitch belt... and so with only 2 bikes in the world that employ the 11mm pitch belt (2003 Buell and the 2007 BMW 800) I have to wait for a 3rd bike to employ the little known 11mm pitch Poly Chain Belt... So in conclusion after $1000 dollars in parts and a custom 7075 T6 aluminum sprocket consuming over 30 days worth of machining... I have NO joy to report... in fact I'm devastated and sad... not to mention Gates Rubber wants $65K for the mold of a custom 166T 11mm pitch belt... Mock up